Works. With introd., general essay and notes by Andrew Lang

GADSHILL EDITION./ -r^
The Works of Charles Dickens

/;/ Thirty-two Volumes.

WITH INTRODUCTIONS, GENERAL ESSAY, AND NOTES
BY ANDREW LANG.

VOL. XVIII.

CHRISTMAS BOOKS.

Printed from the Edition that was carefully corrected by the Author
in 1867 and 18G8.

INTKODUCTION.

DICKEXS'S "Christmas Books" had their efficient cause in
financial disappointment. It has been stated, in the Intro
duction to Martin Chuzzlewit (184-3), that the novel fell
far below the pecuniary success of the earlier works, and that
the publishers talked of putting in force a certain clause in
their agreement of 1841. By the action of that clause the
author's profits would be considerably reduced. Dickens
projected a residence abroad, in the interests of economy,
and in October and November, 1843, he composed the
Christmas Carol, a severe addition to his work on Chuzzle-
iv'it. His brain worked at unusually high pressure; "he
wept, and laughed, and wept again, and excited himself in a
most extraordinary manner " — so he says. The book, published
just before Christmas, 1843, had a success which was then
considered great, though far below what now falls to the lot
of authors who, like Dickens, have really caught the popular
fancy. Many sorts of books, it seems probable, were more
freely purchased by our grandfathers than by ourselves, but
the successful author of modern fiction would smile at the
" thousands " of the Christmas Carol. Only fifteen thousand
copies were disposed of in the course of a year, at the price
of five shillings. But, for the first six thousand, he received

b 2

vi INTRODUCTION.

what he regarded as the disappointing reward of £%30. u And
the last four [thousand] will yield as much more. I had set
my heart and soul upon a thousand, clear." Sir Walter Scott
regarded twopence in the shilling as a fair ratio of an
author's profits on a book. On this plan Dickens would
have received 1J300, not <£230, for 6000 copies of a five-
shilling book. He finally got £1Z6 for 15,000, which comes
pretty near to Scott's idea of what is right, but the wonderful
result "of such a great success" was "intolerable anxiety
and disappointment." " My year's bills, unpaid, are terrific."
He had, it seems, spent money on the strength of expectations
which were defeated by the sudden, and inexplicable, fall in
his popularity. Mr. Forster thinks that " want of judgment
had been shown in not adjusting the expenses of production
with a more equable regard to the selling price." Coloured
woodcuts by John Leech are expensive luxuries, and
probably did not add, in due proportion, to the success of
the work. Dickens changed his publishers, as has been
already seen, and went abroad.

If not financially, the book was indeed a success of appre
ciation. It founded " the Carol philosophy," and was warmly
praised by Mr. Michael Angelo Titmarsh. "The last two
people I heard speak of it were women," says Thackeray ;
"neither knew the other, or the author, and both said, by
way of criticism, 'God bless him I11 The book was pirated,
and Dickens suffered much, in the Court of Chancery, during
his efforts to stop the robbers. He complains of "expense,
anxiety, and horrible injustice."

The Carol was the first of five Christmas Books. The
traditions of Christmas, the explosion of good will, the
ancient survivals which give ghosts a kind of holiday at the
winter solstice, were combined. The old-fashioned phenomena

INTRODUCTION. vii

of clanking chains, derived from classical superstition, might,
at Christmas, be blamelessly revived. The result is an allegory.
Mr. Scrooge vainly pleads the popular theory of the origin
of hallucinations : " You may be an undigested bit of beef, a
blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an under
done potato ;" but Marley's ghost is that rare phantasm, a
ghost with a purpose and a moral : " The common welfare was
my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were
all my business.11 Mr. Scrooge's eyes were opened to the
invisible myriads of spectres of the unconsoled, and the result
is his conversion to "Carol philosophy1' — Christianity illumi
nated by the flames of punch. He beholds the Christmas of
his bovhood, before he was a maker of money for the mere
love of the game. He sees the end predestined for a man
who has lived his life. Above all, he sees the Christmas of
the clerk whom he bullies, and underpays, and knows nothing
of; and his heart is wrung, like Thackeray's, by Tiny Tim,
who is to die. In vain Mr. Scrooge talks of " decreasing the
surplus population ; " and now " Carol philosophy11 dashes itself
against the iron laws of the universe. It is not inconceivable
that earth may come to hold more people than it can support,
though it is probable that these laws will never allow this
destitution to become an actual fact. But the processes by
which it will be prevented are inconsistent with aught but
wide-sweeping misery, famine, plague, revolution, and war.
For this wretchedness " Carol philosophy " may offer a sympa
thetic palliative, but not a cure. The past and the future
show black, and merriment is not the end of the great
humorist's Christmas stories. You cannot escape the
realities of things by " loving your love with all the letters
of the alphabet.11 However, Scrooge, personally, was a better
and happier man for his visions, and made other people

viii INTRODUCTION.

happier. The universal practice of " Carol philosophy " has
never yet been tried, and is not likely to be put into such
a form as will solve the riddle of the painful earth. The
minute inquirer will ask whether " Carol philosophy " had not
something to do with the "terrific11 nature of Dickens's Christ
mas bills. As literature, the sketches of jovial life, and of
the miserable end of the selfish man, and his robbed death
bed, are brilliant and effective.

The Chimes was written in Genoa, and the title was
suggested by a burst of the bells in that isle sonnante. The
Christinas story was a social manifesto. Dickens wrote " in
a regular ferocious excitement," " wrathful and red-hot,'1 and
" fierce to finish in a spirit bearing some affinity to those
of truth and mercy.11 Ferocity of mercy is, indeed, a common
result of meditation on poverty and oppression. A sketch
of the tale was sent to Mr. Forster. The parts of Fern and
Lilian do not occur in the first draught. " The book has
made my face white in a foreign land,11 he says, so heartfelt was
his protest against the idea of a surplus population, and the
notion that the poor have no business to live. Apparently
it is the rich who have no business to live. The egregious Sir
Peter Laurie, who meant to " put down " everything, including
" all sick persons and young children,11 appears in Alderman
Cute. The friend of " the good old times "" is the Young
England Party, probably. The scene with the tripe — carica
tured, of course — represents the abstract science of Political
Economy in concrete action. If \ve ask Dickens what remedy
he proposes, we get no more answer than from Mr. Carlyle.
A better and more humane spirit is recommended — that is
all. The infinite grievances are forcibly presented, but the
speculative imagination looks in vain for a system which
will introduce peace, plenty, and universal good will among

INTRODUCTION. ix

immense industrial populations. This is not joyful matter
for Christinas, and is not to be made roseate by vague
optimism.

The book was finished on November 3, 1844, the author
ending, he says, with "a good cry." Dickens came to
London in the end of the month, and read his story in
Mr. Forsters rooms, to several friends, including Carlyle.
The sales of the book were twice as great as those of the
Carol. But Mr. Charles Dickens thinks that possibly " for
the general public the powder was found to bear a rather
undue proportion to the jam, and they did not , altogether
care about having so intensely earnest and serious a protest
presented to them in such a form." This is, indeed, the
normal objection to novels with a purpose — novels on topics
which, to some minds, seem to demand the most impartial
handling. But it was for such work that Dickens " hoped
to be longest remembered," says Mr. Forster. " 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." It is the old
Aristotelian crux of " distributive justice."

The Cricket on the Hearth was originally intended for the
title of a serial, something in the nature of Household Words,
a plan long caressed by Dickens. He meant to chirp away
" until I chirped it up to — well, you " — Mr. Forster — " shall
say how many hundred thousand." But the foundation of
the Daily News interfered with this plan, and, in summer,
1845, Dickens determined to use the title for a Christmas
book. It is curious to contrast his Christmas Books with
Thackeray's The Rose and the Ring, and Dr. Birch, and The
KkUcburys. These are not stories with a purpose, though
not devoid of satire on Thackeray's favourite themes. The

x INTRODUCTION.

Cricket was, what it was styled, " a fairy tale of home," and
was written without the storm and stress of its predecessors.
Than these the Cricket was more popular, which is difficult
to explain. The plot lacks probability ; the pathos of the
blind doll-dresser perhaps reconciled the general taste to
this, and to the exalted language of the characters. The
piece has been dramatised several times, and is better adapted
to the stage than to the study. Tilly Slowboy is almost the
only character in the fantasy who recalls Dickens at his best,
for the " fairies " are not more successful than modern fairies
in general, and the humour of animating the kettle, and, in
fact, of all the introductory matter, has ceased to please,
being worn threadbare by imitators. The doll's dressmaker
has been credited with suggesting Desiree, in M. Daudet"s
Fromont Jeune et Rlsler Aln% though the resemblance may
be a mere coincidence.

The Battle of Life, as has been already said, was begun
in the stress of writing Donibey (July, 1846). Dickens was
" a little used up," and sick. At the end of September,
in Genoa, the state of his health, and the double labour
of two books, made Dickens think of abandoning the Christ
mas tale. He finished it, however, while complaining of
limitations of space. Leech, who illustrated the story, wras
confused as to the plot, and introduced Michael Warden
wrhere he had no business to be, in the scene of the elope
ment. Though this " made havoc of one of the most delicate
scenes,"" Mr. Forster says that nobody noticed it. Dickens
did not interfere, at the last moment, out of consideration
for Leech.

The author suffered from insomnia, while driving the long
and the short story together from the Jirst — a feat which he
had never attempted before. " I dreamed all last night that

INTRODUCTION. xi

The Entile of Life was a series of chambers impossible to get
to rights or get out of." Mr. James Payn remarks that
he never knew a novelist who dreamed of his characters ; but
Dickens appeal's to have been an exception to a rule which,
if really general, is a curious fact in psychology. Some
novelists, like Air. Stevenson, have owed their characters to
their dreams. Criticism must remember the physical condition
of the author, overworked and not in a congenial environ
ment, when it estimates both Donibey and The Battle of Life.
The excessively complex solution of the sisters'1 problem does
not secure our belief, and could only be made plausible by
devoting to their characters, and to that of the useful aunt,
the space bestowed on the unessential humours of Dr.
Jeddler, and of Alessrs. Snitchey and Craggs and their wives.
Clemency is a repetition of the Peggotty motive, and, in
vulgar modem phrase, the story might by some be called a not
very successful " pot-boiler."1"1 To discuss that opinion would
be to plunge deep in the ethics of literary production.
Dickens, we may say, was not consumed by a desire to tell
the story of the self-sacrificing sisters. None of the characters
had acquired possession of his genius, and haunted him till
he gave them literary existence. The remote date, in the last
century, was chosen merely for the costume, and there is not
a shadow of an effort to reproduce the tone and manners of
1740, or whatever the date may be. The book was written
merely because Dickens wanted to make more money. So
far it was a genuine " pot-boiler." Yet he threw himself into
it with a will. " I know that by what it cost me," he says ;
and he asked Air. Forster to keep an eye on his involuntary
blank verse — " I cannot help it when I am very much in
earnest."

It has been already remarked that Dickens's unconscious

Xll

INTRODUCTION.

blank verse is probably a token of intellectual fatigue. The
whole subject of unconscious blank verse is curious, and a
study of it might reward an inquirer. I have not observed
it in Scott, nor in Thackeray, who writes it printed as prose,
for amusement merely. But one should examine several
authors carefully in search of this automatic form of poetical
expression. I have noticed it in the work of excited lady
novelists, and an American translation of the Odyssey
nominally in prose, is largely in blank verse. Observing this,
I examined a prose version of the Odyssey in which I had a
hand, and found more blank verse than I liked, or expected.
However, this is probably natural in translating poetry. We
may attribute Dickens's "dropping into poetry" to earnest
ness or to fatigue, or to both. He was, at all events, sensible
of his tendency. His earnestness, which was unfeigned,
relieves him from much of the reproach conveyed in the
undignified term which has been cited. But he was working
against time, and invita Minerva. In letters to Bulwer
Lytton, who admired the piece, he recognised his need of
more space, and more time, if he was to do justice to his
conception. That conception is somewhat " stagey,11 and the
story has been adapted for the stage both in France and
England.

"The very ghostly and wild idea11 of The Haunted
Man occurred to Dickens in 1846, dimly conceived ; but
the book, postponed in 1847, was composed in 1848.
Dombey interfered, and 1847 was without a Christmas book.
The idea of The Haunted Man is one that might have
occurred to Hawthorne, but even he could scarcely have made
it plausible in the exposition. Dickens does not seem to
have rated Hawthorne high. " The psychological part of
the Scarlet Letter is very much overdone,11 he says ; and

INTRODUCTION. xiii

Hawthorne might have replied that the psychological part
of The Haunted Man is very much underdone. " The child
out of nature altogether," Dickens says of Pearl, that
charmed fantasy. Hut the Haunted one is "out of nature "
also. Fantasy is a perilous field, and psychology was not
i\\Q forte of Dickens. To lose our memories of wrong done
to us would not, it may be argued, destroy sympathy with
grief ; and Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby, under the ghostly influence,
do not lose memory of wrong, but suddenly become conscious
of it, even where it did not really exist. Thus the allegory
fails, but the virtues and humours of the Tetterbys remain
eternally delightful. For all his moral Christmas ghosts, and
his interest in the ghostly, Dickens never, I think, wrote a
good ghost story au naturel. He brought in the fantastically
grotesque : he had not the success in this province, because he
had not the seriousness, of De Foe, Scott, and Bulwer Lytton.
He could not but bow to the philosophy of Scrooge and indi
gestion. The Haunted Man was his last Christmas book ; in
his Christmas numbers he was aided by other hands.

ANDREW LANG.

PREFACE.

THE narrow space within which it was necessary to confine
these Christinas Stones when they were originally published,
rendered their construction a matter of some difficulty, and
almost necessitated what is peculiar in their machinery. I
could not attempt great elaboration of detail, in the working
out of character within such limits. My chief purpose was,
in a whimsical kind of masque which the good humour of
the season justified, to awaken some loving and forbearing
thoughts, never out of season in a Christian land.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

A CHRISTMAS CAROL 1

THE CHIMES 9»

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 201

THE BATTLE OF LIFE 307

THE HAUNTED MAN 411

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

IN PROSE.

BEING

Cftfjost

of

PREFACE

I HAVE endeavoured in this Ghostly little 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 houses pleasantly, and no
one wish to lay it.

Their faithful Friend and Servant,

C. D.

Decembtr, 1843.

CONTENTS,

STAVE I.

PAOB

Marley's Ghost ,9

STAVE II.
The First of the Three Spirits 30

STAVE III.

The Second of the Three Spirits 49

STAVE IV.

The Last of the Spirits . . . 74

STAVE V.
The End of it 91

ILLUSTEATIONS.

Aiiisl. PAGE

MR. FEZZI WIG'S BALL . . . . J. LEECH Frontispiece

MAULEY'S GHOST 22

GHOSTS OF DEPARTED USURERS . . ,, . . .28

SCROOGE EXTINGUISHES THE FIRST )
OF THE THREE SPIRITS . . )

SCROOGE'S THIRD VISITOR . . . ., . .52

IGNORANCE AND WANT. . " . • ,, . . .72

THE LAST OF THE SPIRIT.J . . . ,, . . .88

SCROOGE AND BOB CRATCHIT „ .98

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

MAULEYS GHOST.

MAULEY was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt
whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed
by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief
mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was
good upon "Change, for anything he chose to put his
hand to.

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind ! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own
knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail.
I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail
as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the
wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile ; and my unhallowed
hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You
will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley
was as dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead ? Of course he did. How could
it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't
know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his
sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee,
his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not
§o dreadful \y cut up by the sad event, but that he was an

10 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

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 Marlcy was
dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing
wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If
we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died
before the play began, there would be nothing more remark
able in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind,
upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other
middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a
breezy spot — say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance —
literally to astonish his son's weak mind.

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it
stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door : Scrooge
and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley.
Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge,
and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It
was all the same to him.

Oh ! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone,
Scrooge ! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching,
covetous, old sinner ! Hard and sharp as flint, from which
no steel had ever struck out generous fire ; secret, and self-
contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him
froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his
cheek, stiffened his gait ; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue ;
and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime
was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin.
He carried his own low temperature always about with him ;
he iced his office in the dog-days ; and didn't thaw it one
degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge.
No warmth could warm, 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

CHRISTMAS EVE. 11

rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the
advantage over him in only one respect. They often "came
down " handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with 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 life 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 human sympathy to keep its distance, was what
the knowing ones call "nuts" to Scrooge.

Once upon a time — of all the good days in the year, on
Christmas Eve — old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house.
It was cold, bleak, biting weather : foggy withal : and he
could hear the people in the court outside, go wheezing up
and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and
stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them.
The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite
dark already — it had not been light all day — and candles
were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like
ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came
pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense
without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the
houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud
come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have
thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a
large scale.

The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open that he
might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell
beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a

12 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller
that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it,
for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room ; and so surely
as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted
that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the
clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself
at the candle ; in which effort, not being a man of a strong
imagination, he failed.

" A merry Christmas, uncle ! God save you ! " cried a
cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who
came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation
he had of his approach.

"Bah ! " said Scrooge, " Humbug ! "

He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog
and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a glow ;
his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his
breath smoked again.

" Christmas a humbug, uncle ! " said Scrooge's nephew.
"You don't mean that, I am sure?"

" I do," said Scrooge. " Merry Christmas ! What right
have you to be merry ? What reason have you to be merry ?
You're poor enough.''

" Come, then," returned the nephew gaily. " What right
have you to be dismal ? AVhat 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

OUT UPON MERRY CHRISTMAS! 13

could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot
who goes about with 'Merry Christmas'1 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 Christinas
in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.*"

" Keep it ! " repeated Scrooge's nephew. " But you don't
keep it.""

" Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. " Much good
may it do you ! Much good it has ever done you ! "

"•There are many things from which I might have derived
good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned the
nephew. " Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have
always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round
— apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and
origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that —
as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time;
the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year,
when men and women seem by one consent to open their
shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as
if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not
another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And
therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or
silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and
icill do me good ; and I say, God bless it ! "

The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded. Becoming
immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire,
and extinguished the last frail spark for ever.

" I^et 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.

14 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

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.11

" 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 ! 11

"Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that
happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now ? "

" Good afternoon,11 said Scrooge.

" I want nothing from you ; I ask nothing of you ; why
cannot we be friends ? 1V

" Good afternoon,1* 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 Til 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, notwith
standing. 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,11 muttered Scrooge; who overheard
him : " my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife
and family, talking about a merry Christmas. Fll retire to
Bedlam.11

This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two
other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to
behold, and now stood, with their hats off', in Scrooge's office.
They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to
him.

" Scrooge and Marley's, I believe,11 said one of the gentlemen.

SCROOGE'S LIBERALITY. 15

referring to his list. "Have I the pleasure of addressing
Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?"

"Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years," Scrooge
replied. " He died seven years ago, this very night."

"We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by
his surviving partner,"" said the gentleman, presenting his
credentials.

It certainly was ; for they had been two kindred spirits.
At the ominous word "liberality,11 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 desir
able that we should make some slight provision for the Poor
and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many
thousands are in want of common necessaries ; hundreds of
thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."

" Are there no prisons ? " asked Scrooge.

"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the
pen again.

" And the Union workhouses ? " demanded Scrooge. " Are
they still in operation?"

" They are. Still," returned the gentleman, " I wish I
could say they were not."

"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour,
then ? " said Scrooge.

" Both very busy, sir."

" Oh ! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that
something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,"
said Scrooge. " Fm very glad to hear it."

" Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian
cheer of mind or body to the multitude," returned the
gentleman, " a few of us arc endeavouring to raise a fund to
buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth.
We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when
Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I
put you down for ? "

16 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

" Nothing i " Scrooge replied.

" You wish to be anonymous ? "

"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you ask
me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make
merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle
people merry. I help to support the establishments I have
mentioned — they cost enough; and those who are badly off'
must go there."

" Many can't go there ; and many would rather die."

" If they would rather die," said Scrooge, " they had better
do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides — excuse
me — I don't know that."

" But you might know it," observed the gentleman.

" It's not my business," Scrooge returned. " It's enough
for a man to understand his own business, and not to inter
fere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly.
Good afternoon, gentlemen ! "

Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point,
the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an
improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper
than was usual with him.

Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people
ran about with flaring links, proffering their services to go
before horses in carriages, and conduct them on their way.
The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff" old bell was
always peeping slily down at Scrooge out of a gothic window
in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and
quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards
as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there.
The cold became intense. In the main street, at the corner
of the court, some labourers were repairing the gas-pipes,
and had lighted a great fire in a brazier, round which a party
of ragged men and boys were gathered : warming their hands
and winking their eyes before the blaze in rapture. The
water-plug being left in solitude, its overflowings sullenly
congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness

GOD BLESS YOU, MERRY GENTLEMAN! 17

of the shops where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the
lamp heat of the windows, made pale faces ruddy as they
passed. Poulterers' and grocers' trades became a splendid
joke : a glorious pageant, with which it was next to impossible
to believe that such dull principles as bargain and sale had
anything to do. The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the
mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks and
butlers to keep Christinas as a Lord Mayor's household
should ; and even the little tailor, whom he had fined five
shillings on the previous Monday for being drunk and blood
thirsty in the streets, stirred up to-morrow's pudding in his
garret, while his lean wife and the baby sallied out to buy
the beef.

Foggier yet, and colder. Piercing, searching, biting cold.
If the good Saint Dunstan had but nipped the Evil Spirit's
nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using
his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared to
lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed
and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by
dogs, stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with
a Christmas carol : but at the first sound of

" God bless you, merry gentleman !
May nothing you dismay ! "

Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that the
singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and even
more congenial frost.

At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house
arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his stool,
and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk in
the Tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put on
his hat.

" You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose ? " said Scrooge.

** Tf 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 ? "

18 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

The clerk smiled faintly.

"And yet,11 said Scrooge, "you don't think tne 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.11

The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked
out with a growl. The office was closed in a twinkling, and
the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling
below his waist (for he boasted no great-coat), went down a
slide on 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 blind-
man's-buff.

Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy
tavern ; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the
rest of the evening with his bankers-book, went home to
bed. He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his
deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a
lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little
business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must
have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-
and-seek with other houses, and forgotten the way out again.
It was old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived
in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices.
The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every
stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost
so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it
seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful
meditation on the threshold.

Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular
about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large.
It is also a fact, that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning,
during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge

MARLEY'S FACE. 19

had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man
in the ^ city of London, even including — which is a bold word
— the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne
in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on
Marley, since his last mention of his seven-years' dead partner
that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he
can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the
lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing
any intermediate process of change — not a knocker, but
Marley's face.

Hurley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the
other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about
it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or
ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look :
with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead.
The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air ;
and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly
motionless. That, and its livid colour, made it horrible ; but
its horror seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its
control, rather than a part of its own expression.

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

To say that he wras not startled, or that his blood was
not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been a
stranger from infancy, wrould 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
king.

The sound resounded through the house like thunder.
Every room above, and every cask in the wine-merchant's

20 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

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.

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,

STRANGE NOISES. 21

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 like 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
yeai*s dead, came like the ancient Prophet's rod, and swallowed
up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first,
with power to shape some picture on its surface from the
disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been
a copy of old Marley's head on every one.

"Humbug I" 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 astonish
ment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he
looked, he saw this bell begin to suing. It swung so softly
in the outset that it scarcely made a sound ; but soon it rang
out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.

This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but
it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had begun,
together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep
down below ; as if some person were dragging a heavy chain
over the casks in the wine-merchant's cellar. Scrooge then
remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses
were described as dragging chains.

The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound, and then
he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below; then
coming up the stairs ; then coming straight towards his door.

" It's humbug still ! " said Scrooge. " I won't believe it."

His colour changed though, when, without a pause, it came

<M A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

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
kerchief bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he
had not observed before ; he was still incredulous, and fought
against his senses.

" How now ! " said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever.
" What do you want with me ? "

"Much!" — Marley "s voice, no doubt about it.
"Who are you?''
" Ask me who I was."

"Who were you then?" said Scrooge, raising his voice.
"YouVe 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."

THE GHOST. 23

Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know whether
a ghost so transparent might find himself in a condition to
take a chair ; and felt that in the event of its being impossible,
it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation.
But the ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fireplace,
as if he were quite used to it.

" You don't believe in me," observed the Ghost.

"I don't,'" said Scrooge.

" What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that
of your senses ? "

"I don't know," said Scrooge.

" Why do you doubt your senses ? "

"Because," said Scrooge, "a little thing affects them. A
slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may
be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of
cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of
gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are ! "

Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor
did he feel, in his heart, by any means waggish then. The
truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting
his own attention, and keeping down his terror; for the
spectre's voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones.

To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence for a
moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him.
There was something very awful, too, in the spectre's being
provided with an infernal atmosphere of its own. Scrooge
could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case ; for
though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts,
and tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapour from an
oven.

"You see this toothpick?" said Scrooge, returning quickly
to the charge, for the reason just assigned; and wishing,
though it were only for a second, to divert the vision's stony
gaze from himself.

" I do," replied the Ghost.

" You are not looking at it," said Scrooge.

24< A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

"But I sefe it," said the Ghost, " notwithstanding."

"Well!11 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
t iking oft' the bandage round its head, as if it were too warm
to wear in-doors, its lowrer 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?11

" Man of the worldly mind ! " replied the Ghost, " do you
believe in me or not ? "

"I do,11 said Scrooge. "I must. But why do spirits walk
the earth, and why do they come to me ? "

" It is required of every man,11 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
wining its shadowy hands.

"You are fettered,11 said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me
why?11

"I wear the chain I forged in life,11 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,11 pursued the Ghost, "the weight

A PONDEROUS CHAIN! M

and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full
;is heavy and as long as this, seven Christinas 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, Jocob ! "

" I have none to give," the Ghost replied. " It conies 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
CUM not rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My
spirit never walked beyond our counting-house — mark me ! —
in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our
money-changing hole ; and weary journeys lie before me ! "

It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thought
ful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets. Pondering on
what the Ghost had said, he did so now, but without lifting
up his eyes, or getting off his knees.

" You must have been very slow about it, Jacob," Scrooge
observed, in a business-like manner, though with humility
and deference.

"Slow!" the Ghost repeated.

"Seven years dead," mused Scrooge. "And travelling all
the time ! "

"The whole time," said the Ghost. "No rest, no peace.
Incessant torture of remorse."
"You travel fast?" said Scrooge.
" On the wings of the wind," replied the Ghost.
" You might have got over a great quantity of ground in
seven years," said Scrooge.

The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked
its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that
the Ward would have been justified in indicting it for a
n ui since.

26 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

"Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,11 cried the
phantom, "not to know, that ages of incessant labour, by
immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity
before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed.
Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its
little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too
short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no
space of regret can make amends for one life's 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 was my
business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were,
all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop
of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business ! "

It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the
cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the
ground again.

"At this time of the rolling year," the spectre said, "I
suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-
beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to
that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode !
Were there no poor homes to which its light would have
conducted me!n

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.

THE GHOSTS DEPARTURE. 27

" That is no light part of my penance," pursued the Ghost.
" I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance
and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my
procuring, Ebenezer."

"You were always a good friend to me," said Scrooge.
" Thank'ee ! "

"You will be haunted," resumed the Ghost, "by Three
Spirits."

Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's
had done.

* " Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob ? "
he demanded, in a faltering voice.

" It is."

" I — I think Td rather not," said Scrooge.

" Without their visits," said the Ghost, " you cannot hope
to shun the path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow, when
the bell tolls One."

" Couldn't I take "em all at once, and have it over, Jacob ? "
hinted Scrooge.

"Expect the second on the next night at the same hour.
The third upon the next night when the last stroke of Twelve
has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more ; and look
that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed
between us ! "

When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper
from the table, and bound it round its head, as before.
Scrooge knew this, by the smart sound its teeth made, when
the jaws were brought together by the bandage. He ventured
to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor
confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound
over and about its arm.

The apparition walked backward from him ; and at every
step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that when
the spectre reached it, it was wide open.

It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When
they were within two paces of each other, Marley's Ghost

£8 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

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 inex-
pressibly sorrowful and
self - accusatory. The
spectre, after listening
for a moment, joined
in the mournful dirge;
and floated out upon
the bleak, dark night.

Scrooge followed to
the window : desperate
in his curiosity. He
looked out.

The air was filled
with phantoms, wander
ing hither and thither
in restless haste, and
moaning as they went.
Every one of them
wore chains like
Marley's Ghost ;
some few (they
might be guilty
governments) were
linked together ;
none were free.

Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives.
He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white
waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle,
who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched
woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door
step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they

SCROOGE FALI£ ASLEEP. 29

sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had
lost the power for ever.

Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded
them, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices
faded together; and the night became as it had been when
he walked home.

Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by
which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, as he
had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were 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 Invisible
World, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness
of the hour, much in need of repose ; went straight to bed,
without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.

THE FIRST OF THE THREE Sl'IRITS.

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

PERPLEXING THOUGHTS. 31

fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would
have been if night had beaten off' bright clay, 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.

Marle/s Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he
resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all
a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring
released, to its first position, and presented the same problem
to be worked all through, "Was it a dream or not?"

Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three
quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the
Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled
one. He resolved to lie awake until the hour was passed ;
and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to
Heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power.

The quarter was so long, that he was more than once
convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and
missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear.

" Ding, dong ! "

"A quarter past," said Scrooge, counting.

" Ding, dong ! "

"Half-past!" said Scrooge.

"Ding, dong!"

" A quarter to it," said Scrooge.

" Ding, dong ! "

"The hour itself," said Scrooge, triumphantly, " and nothing

He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did

32 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

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 hi^
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 ir
it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were
very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold
were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicatel)
formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a
tunic of the purest white ; and round its waist was bound
a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held
a branch of fresh green holly in its hand ; and, in singular
contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed
with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was,
that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright cleai
jet of light, by which all this was visible ; and which was
doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a
great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm,

Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing
steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its belt
sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another,
and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, sc
the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness : being now ;\
thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs,
now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a

ANOTHER UNEARTHLY VISITOR. 33

body : of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible
in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the
VCTV wonder of this, it would be itself again ; distinct and
dear as ever.

"Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coining 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.11

"Long Past?" inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish
stature.

"No. Your past."

Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if
anybody could have asked him ; but he had a special desire
to see the Spirit in his cap ; and begged him to be covered.

" What ! " exclaimed the Ghost, " would you so soon put
out, with worldly hands, the light I give ? Is it not enough
that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and
force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon
,my brow ! "

Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any
knowledge of having wilfully "bonneted" the Spirit at any
period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what
business brought him there.

" Your welfare ! " said the Ghost.

Scrooge expressed ' himself much obliged, but could not
help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been
more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard
him thinking, for it said immediately :

" Your reclamation, then. Take heed ! "

It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him
gently by the arm.

" Rise ! and walk with me ! "

It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the

34 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes ;
that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below
freezing ; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing-
gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at
that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand,
was not to be resisted. He rose : but finding that the Spirit
made towards the window, clasped his robe in supplication.

" I am a mortal," Scrooge remonstrated, " and liable to fall."

"Bear but a touch of my hand there" said the Spirit,
laying it upon his heart, "and you shall be upheld in more
than this ! "

As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall,
and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either
hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it
was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished
with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon
the ground.

" Good Heaven ! " said Scrooge, clasping his hands together,
as he looked about him. " I was bred in this place. I was
a boy here ! "

The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch,
though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still
present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious
of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected
with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares
long, long, forgotten !

"Your lip is trembling," said the Ghost. "And what is
that upon your cheek ? "

Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice,
that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him
where he would.

" You recollect the way ? " inquired the Spirit.

"Remember it!" cried Scrooge with fervour; "I could
walk it blindfold."

" Strange to have forgotten it for so many years ! " observed
the Ghost. " Let us go on."

FAMILIAR SCENES. 35

They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every
gate, and post, and tree; until a little market- town appeared
in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river.
Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them
with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in
country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys
were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the
broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air
laughed to hear it !

" These are but shadows of the things that have been," said
the Ghost. " They have no consciousness of us."

The jocund travellers came on ; and as they came, Scrooge
knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond
all bounds to see them ! Why did his cold eye glisten, and
his heart leap up as they went past ! Why was he filled
with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry
Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and bye-ways, for
their several homes ! What was merry Christmas to Scrooge ?
Out upon merry Christmas ! What good had it ever done
to him?

"The school is not quite deserted," said the Ghost. "A
solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still."

Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.

They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, and
soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little
weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell
hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken
fortunes ; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls
were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their
gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables;
and the coach-houses and sheds were over-run with grass.
Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within ; for
entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open
doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished,
cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a
chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow

36 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

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 : wonderfully 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 Christ
mas time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone,
he did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy ! And
Valentine,11 said Scrooge, " and his wild brother, Orson ; there
they go ! And what's his name, who was put down in his
drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus ; don't you see him !
And the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii ;
there he is upon his head ! Serve him right. I'm glad of it.
What business had he to be married to the Princess ! "

To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature
on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between
laughing and crying ; and to see his heightened and excited
face ; would have been a surprise to his business friends in
the city, indeed.

SCROOGE'S SCHOOL DAYS. 37

" There's the Parrot ! " cried Scrooge. " Green body and
yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the
top of his head ; there he is ! Poor Robin Crusoe, he called
him, when he came home again after sailing round the
island. ' Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin
Crusoe ? ' The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't.
It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running
for his life to the little creek ! Halloa ! Hoop ! Halloo ! "

Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his
usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, "Poor
boy ! " and cried again.

"I wish," Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his
pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his
cuff': "but it's too late now."

"What is the matter?" asked the Spirit.

" Nothing," said Scrooge. " Nothing. There was a boy
singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should
like to have given him something : that's all."

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand :
saying as it did so, " Let us see another Christmas ! "

Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the room
became a little darker and more dirty. The 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 everything
had happened so ; that there he was, alone again, when all
the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.

He was not reading now, but walking up and down 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

38 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to langh.
" To bring you home, home, home ! "

" Home, little Fan ? " returned the boy.

" Yes ! " said the child, brimful of glee. " Home, for good
and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder
than he used to be, that home's like Heaven ! He spoke so
gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that
I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come
home ; and he said Yes, you should ; and sent me in a coach
to bring you. And you're to be a man!11 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 celestial
and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold.
Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a
block of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments
of those dainties to the young people : at the same time,
sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of " something "
to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman,
but if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had
rather not. Master Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied
on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the school
master good-bye right willingly ; and getting into it, drove

OLD FEZZIWIG. 39

gaily down the garden-sweep : the quick wheels dashing the
hoar-frost and snow from oft' the dark leaves of the evergreens
like spray.

" Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have
withered,11 said the Ghost. " But she had a large heart ! "

" So she had,11 cried Scrooge. " YouVe right. I will not
gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid ! "

" She died a woman,11 said the Ghost, " and had, as I think,
children.11

"One child,11 Scrooge returned.

"True,11 said the Ghost. " Your nephew ! "

Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind ; and answered briefly,
« Yes.11

Although they had but that moment left the school behind
them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city,
where shadowy passengers passed and repassed ; where shadowy
carts and coaches battled for the way, and all the strife and
tumult of a real city were. It was made plain enough, by
the dressing of the shops, that here too it was Christmas
time again ; but it was evening, and the streets were
lighted up.

The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked
Scrooge if he knew it.

" Know it ! " said Scrooge. " Was I apprenticed here ! "

They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a 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
culled out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:

" Yo ho, there ! Ebenezer ! Dick ! "

40 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly
in, accompanied by his fellow-'prentice.

" Dick Wilkins, to be sure ! " said Scrooge to the Ghost.
" Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached
to me, was Dick. Poor Dick ! Dear, dear ! "

" Yo ho, my boys ! " said Fezziwig. " No more work to
night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer ! Let's
have the shutters up," cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap
of his hands, " before a man can say Jack Robinson ! "

You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it !
They charged into the street with the shutters — one, two,
three — had 'em up in their places — four, five, six — barred 'em
and pinned 'em — seven, eight, nine — and came back before
you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses.

" Hilli-ho ! " cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the
high desk, with wonderful agility. " Clear away, my lads,
and let's have lots of room here ! Hilli-ho, Dick ! Chirrup,
Ebenezer ! "

Clear away ! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared
away, or couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig look
ing on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was
packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life for ever
more ; 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

THE FEZZIWIG BALL. 41

to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who
was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress.
In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly,
some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling ;
in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went,
twenty couple at once ; hands half round and back again
the other way ; down the middle and up again ; round
and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old
top couple always turning up in the wrong place ; new top
couple starting off again, as soon as they got there ; all top
couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them ! When
this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his
hands to stop the dance, cried out, "Well done!" and the
fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially
provided for that purpose. But scorning rest, upon his
reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no
dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home,
exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man
resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.

There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more
dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there
was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there? was a great piece
of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer.
But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast
and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind ! The sort
of man who knew his business better than you or I could
have told it him !) struck up " Sir Roger de Coverley."1 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

42 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

higher, and Til use it. A positive light appeared to issue
from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the
dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any given
time, what would have become of them next. And when old
Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance ;
advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow and
curtsey, corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and back again to
your place ; Fezziwig " cut " — cut so deftly, that he appeared
to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without
a stagger.

When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up.
Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side
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,
remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent
the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the
bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from
them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious
that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its
head burnt very clear.

" A small matter," said the Ghost, " to make these silly
folks so full of gratitude.""

" Small ! " echoed Scrooge.

The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices,
who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig :
and when he had done so, said,

" Why ! Is it not ? He has spent but a few pounds of
your mortal money : three or four perhaps. Is that so
much that he deserves this praise?"

SCROOGE'S OLD LOVE. 43

"It isn't that," said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and
speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self.
" It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy
or unhappy ; to make our service light or burdensome ; a
pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and
looks ; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impos
sible to add and count 'em up : what then ? The happiness
he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune."

He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped.

" What is the matter ? " asked the Ghost.

" Nothing particular," said Scrooge.

" Something, I think ? " the Ghost insisted.

" No," said Scrooge, " No. I should like to be able to say
a word or two to my clerk just now. That's all."

His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance
to the wish ; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by
side in the open air.

"My time grows short," observed the Spirit. "Quick!"

This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he
could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again
Scrooge saw himself. He was older now ; a man in the prime
of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later
years ; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice.
There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which
showed the passion that had taken root, and where the
shadow of the growing tree would fall.

He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young
girl in a mourning-dress : in whose eyes there were tears,
which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of
Christmas Past.

" It matters little," she said, softly. " To you, very little.
Another idol has displaced me ; and if it can cheer and 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.

u A golden one."

44 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

" This is the even-handed dealing of the world ! " he said.
"There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and
there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity
as the pursuit of wealth ! "

"You fear the world too much," she answered, gently.
"All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being
beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your
nobler aspirations fall oft' one by one, until the master-passion,
Gain, engrosses you. Have I not ? "

"What then?" he retorted. "Even if I have grown so
much wiser, what then ? I am not changed towards you."

She shook her head.

"Am I?"

" Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were
both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could
improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You
are changed. When it was made, yon 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."

ONE SHADOW MORE. 45

" 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,
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

46 A CHRISTMAS CAROL,

were uproarious beyond belief ; but no one seemed to care ;
on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily,
and enjoyed it very much ; and the latter, soon beginning to
mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands
most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of
them ! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no ! I
wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed that
braided hair, and torn it down ; and for the precious little
shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my soul ! to
save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they
did, bold young brood, I couldn't have done it ; I should
have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punish
ment, arid never come straight again. And yet I should
have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips ; to have
questioned her, that she might have opened them ; to have
looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never
raised a blush ; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of
which would be a keepsake beyond price : in short, I should
have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence
of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its
value.

But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a
rush immediately ensued that she with laughing face and
plundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed
and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who
came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys
and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and
the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter!
The scaling him with chairs for ladders to dive into his
pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight
by his cravat, hug him round 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

SCROOGE'S APPEAL TO THE GHOST. 47

swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter !
The immense relief of finding this a false alarm ! The joy,
and gratitude, and ecstasy ! They are all indescribable alike.
It is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions
got out of the parlour, and by one stair at a time, up to the
top of the house; where they went to bed, and so subsided.

And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever,
when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning
fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his
own fireside; and when he thought that such another
creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might
have called him father, and been a spring-time in the
haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.

" Belle," said the husband, turning to his wife with a
smile, " I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon."

"Who was it?"

"Guess!"

"How can I? Tut, don't I know?" she added in the
same breath, laughing as he laughed. "Mr. Scrooge."

" Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window ; and as

it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could

-scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point

of death, I hear ; and there he sat alone. Quite alone in

the world, I do believe."

" Spirit ! " said Scrooge in a broken voice, " remove me
from this place."

"I told you these were shadows of the things that have
been," said the Ghost. "That they are what they are, do
not blame me ! "

" Remove me ! " Scrooge exclaimed, " I cannot bear it ! "

He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon
him with a face, in which in some strange way there were
fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.

" Leave me ! Take me back. Haunt me no longer ! "

In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which
the Ghost with no visible resistance on its own part was

48 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed
that its light was burning high and bright ; and dimly
connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the
extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down
upon its head.

The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher
covered its whole form ; but though Scrooge pressed it down
with all his force, he could not hide the light, which streamed
from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.

He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an
irresistible drowsiness ; and, further, of being in his own bed
room. 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.

Sbtabe

THE SECOXD 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 Marle/s intervention. But, finding that he
turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which
of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put
them every one aside with his own hands, and lying down
again, established a sharp look-out all round the bed. For,
he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its
appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise, and
made nervous.

Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves
on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually
equal to the time-of-day, express the wide range of their
capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for
anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter ; between which
opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and
comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing to;
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.

50 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by
any means prepared for nothing ; and, consequently, when the
Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a
violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter
of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time, he lay
upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy
light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the
hour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than
a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it
meant, or would be at ; and was sometimes apprehensive
that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of
spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of
knowing it. At last, however, he began to think — as you or
I would have thought at first ; for it is always the person not
in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done
in it, and would unquestionably have done it too — at last, I
say, he began to think that the source and secret of this
ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence,
on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking
full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in
his slippers to the door.

The moment Scrooge^s hand was on the lock, a strange
voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He
obeyed.

It was his own room. There was no doubt about that.
But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls
and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a
perfect grove ; from every part of which, bright gleaming
berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and
ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had
been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring
up the chimney, as that dull petrification of a hearth had
never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or for many and
many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form
a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn,
great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages

;

SCROOGE'S THIRD VISITOR. 51

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 delicious steam. In easy
state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to
see; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's
horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge,
as he came peeping round the door.

" Come in ! " exclaimed the Ghost. " Come in ! and know
me better, man ! "

Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this
Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been ; and
though 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
green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment
hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was
bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any
artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the
garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other
covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining
icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free ; free as its
gcMiial 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 ? "

52 . A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

"More than eighteen hundred," said the Ghost.

" A tremendous family to provide for ! " muttered Scrooge.

The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.

"Spirit,1" said Scrooge submissively, "conduct me where
you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt
a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have aught
to teach me, let me profit by it.1"

" Touch my robe ! "

Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.

Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game,
poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings,
fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room,
the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood
in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the
weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and
not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the
pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of
their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see
it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting
into artificial little snow-storms.

The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows
blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow
upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground ;
which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by
the heavy wheels of carts and waggons ; furrows that crossed
and re-crossed each other hundreds of times where the great
streets branched oft'; and made intricate channels, hard to trace
in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy,
and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist,
half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended
in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great
Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away
to their dear hearts' content. There was nothing very cheerful
in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of cheer- '
fulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest
summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.

CHRISTMAS SHOPS. 53

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 fruiterers1 were radiant in their glory. There were great,
round, pot-bellied 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 winking
from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went
by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were
peal's and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids ; there
were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers1 benevolence
to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might
water gratis as they passed ; there were piles of filberts, mossy
and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among
the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered
leaves ; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting
off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great
compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and
beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after
dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among
these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and
stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was
something going on ; and, to a fish, went gasping round and
round their little world in slow and passionless excitement.

The Grocers' ! oh the Grocers' ! nearly closed, with perhaps
two shutters down, or one ; but through those gaps such
glimpses ! It was not alone that the scales descending on the
counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller
parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled
up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended
scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even

54 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so
extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight,
the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and
spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on
feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs
were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in
modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that
everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress ; but
the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful
promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other
at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left
their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to
fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in
the best humour possible ; while the Grocer and his people
were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which
they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own,
worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws
to peck at if they chose.

But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and
'chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in
their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the
same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and
nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners
to the bakers1 shops. The sight of these poor revellers
appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with
Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking off th
covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their
dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind
of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words
between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he
shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their
humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a sha
to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was ! God lov
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 din

:•

THE SPIRITS TORCH. 55

and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of
wet above each baker's oven ; where the pavement smoked as
if its stones were cooking too.

"Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from
your torch ? " asked Scrooge.

" There is. My own."

" Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day ? "
asked Scrooge.

" To any kindly given. To a poor one most."

" Why to a poor one most ? " asked Scrooge.

" Because it needs it most."

" Spirit," said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, " I wonder
you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should
desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent
enjoyment."

" I ! " cried the Spirit.

" You would deprive them of their means of dining every
seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said
to dine at all," said Scrooge. "Wouldn't you ?"

K I ! " cried the Spirit.

" You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day ? " said
Scrooge. " And it comes to the same thing."

" / seek ! " exclaimed the Spirit.

"Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your
name, or at least in that of your family," said Scrooge.

"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the
Spirit, " who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds
of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness
in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and
kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge
their doings on themselves, not us."

Scrooge promised that he would ; and they went on,
invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the
town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which
Scrooge had observed at the baker's), that notwithstanding
his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place

56 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as
gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible
he could havye done in any lofty hall.

And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in
showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind,
generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor
men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there he
went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and
on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped
to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the 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, Cratchit's wife, dressed out
but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons,
which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence ; and
she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of
her daughters, also brave in ribbons ; while Master Peter
Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and
getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob's private
property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the
day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly
attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks.
And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing
in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the
goose, and known it for their own ; and basking in luxurious
thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced
about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the
skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked
him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up,
knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and
peeled.

" What has ever got your precious father then ? " said Mrs.
Cratchit. " And your brother, Tiny Tim ! And Martha
warn't as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour ? "

AT BOB CRATCHITS. 57

" 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!'1

" 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 little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit,
when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had
hugged his daughter to his heart's content.

58 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

" 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."

BoVs 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
mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round
and round and put it on the hob to simmer; Master Peter,
and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the
goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose
the rarest of all birds ; a feathered phenomenon, to which a
black swan was a matter of course — and in truth it was
something very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made
the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot ;
Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour;
Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce ; Martha dusted
the hot plates ; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny
corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for
everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard
upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest
they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be
helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was
said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs.
Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared
to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the
long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of

A WONDERFUL PUDDING! 59

delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim,
excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with
the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah !

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe
there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and
flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal
admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes,
it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family ; indeed, as
Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small
atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at
last ! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest
Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to
the eyebrows ! But now, the plates being changed by Miss
Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone — too nervous to
bear witnesses — to take the pudding up and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough ! Suppose it should
break in turning out ! Suppose somebody should have got
over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they
were merry with the goose — a supposition at which the two
young Cratchits became livid ! All sorts of horrors were
supposed.

Hallo ! A great deal of steam ! The pudding was out of
the copper. A smell like a washing-day ! That was the
cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next
door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that !
That was the pudding ! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit
entered — flushed, but smiling proudly — with the pudding,
like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half
of half-a-quartem 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

60 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have
been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed
to hint at such a thing

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the
hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the
jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges
were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the
fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in
what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one ; and
at Bob Crate-hit's elbow stood the family display of glass.
Two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as
golden goblets would have done ; and Bob served it out with
beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and
cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed :

" A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us ! "

Which all the family re-echoed.

" God bless us every one ! " said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

He sat very close to his father's side upon his little stool.
Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the
child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that
he might be taken from him.

" Spirit," said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt
before, " tell me if Tiny Tim will live."

"I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost, "in the poor
chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully
preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future,
the child will die."

"No, no," said Scrooge. "Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he
will be spared."

" If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none
other of my race," returned the Ghost, " will find him here.
What then ? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and
decrease the surplus population."

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by
the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

MR. SCROOGE'S HEALTH DRUNK. 61

"Man," said the Ghost, "if man you be in heart, not
adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered
What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what
men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the
sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live
than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God ! to hear
the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life
among his hungry brothers in the dust ! "

Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and trembling cast
his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily, on
hearing his own name.

" Mr. Scrooge ! " said Bob ; " 111 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,'1 said Bob, "the children! Christmas Day."

"It should be Christmas Day, I am sure," said she, "on
which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard,
unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert !
Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow ! "

" My dear," was Bob's mild answer, " Christmas Day."

"I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's," said
Mrs. Cratchit, " not for his. Long life to him ! A merry
Christmas and a happy new year! He'll be very merry and
\cr\ 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 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

62 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full
five-and-sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed
tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business ;
and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from
between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular
investments he should favour when he came into the receipt
of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor
apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work
she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch,
and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a
good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at
home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some
days before, and how the lord " was much about as tall as
Peter ; " at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you
couldn't have seen his head if you had been there. All this
time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and
by-and-bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling in
the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice,
and sang it very well indeed.

There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not
a handsome family ; they were not well dressed ; their shoes
were far from being water-proof ; their clothes were scanty ;
and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside
of a pawnbroker's. But, they were happy, grateful, pleased
with one another, and contented with the time ; and when
they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings
of the Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon
them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.

By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty
heavily ; and as Scrooge and the Siprit 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 dark
ness. There all the children of the house were running out

AMONG THE MINERS. 63

into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins,
uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again,
were shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling; and
there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted,
and all chattering at once, tripped lightly oft' 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

64 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their
children and their children's children, and another generation
beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire.
The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling
of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a
Christmas song— it had been a very old song when he was a
boy — and from time to time they all joined in the chorus.
So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite
blithe and loud ; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour
sank again.

The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his
robe, and passing on above the moor, sped — whither? Not
to sea ? To sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw
the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them ;
and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it
rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it
had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.

Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league
or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed,
the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse.
Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds
— born of the wind one might suppose, as sea- weed of the
water — rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.

But even here, two men who watched the light had made
a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed
out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their
horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they
wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog ; and
one of them : the elder, too, with his face all damaged and
scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship
might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in
itself.

Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea
— on, on — until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any
shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helms
man at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who

•

AT SCROOGE'S NEPHEW'S. 65

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
lie cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted
to remember him.

It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the
moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it
was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown
abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death : it
was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear
a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge
to recognise it as his own nephew's and to find himself in a
bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling
by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving
affability !

" Ha, ha ! " laughed Scrooge's nephew. " Ha, ha, ha ! "

If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a
man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can
say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me,
and Til 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 : hold
ing 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 ! "

66 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

" 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,"11 said Scrooge's nephew, " that's
the truth : and not so pleasant as he might be. However,
his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing
to say against him."

" I'm sure he is very rich, Fred," hinted Scrooge's niece.
"At least you always tell me so."

" What of that, my dear ! " said Scrooge's nephew. " His
wealth is of no use to him. He don't do any good with it.
He don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't the
satisfaction of thinking — ha, ha, ha ! — that he is ever going
to benefit US with it."

" I have no patience with him," observed Scrooge's niece.
Scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed
the same opinion.

" Oh, I have ! " said Scrooge's nephew. " I am sorry for
him ; I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers
by his ill whims ! Himself, always. Here, he takes it into
his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us.
What's the consequence ? He don't lose much of a dinner."

"Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner," interrupted
Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the same, and they
must be allowed to have been competent judges, because
they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the
table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight.

"Well! I'm very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's nephew,

A MERRY PARTY. 67

" because I haven't great faith in these young housekeepers.
What do you say, Topper?"

Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's
sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched 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 only going to say," said Scrooge's nephew, "that
the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making
merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant
moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses
pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts,
either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I
mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he
likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas
till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it — I defy
him — if he finds me going there, in good temper, year after
year, and saying Uncle Scrooge, how are you? If it only
puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds,
thufx 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

68 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face
over it. Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp ; and
played among other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing :
you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had
been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the
boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of
Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the
things that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind ; he
softened more and more ; and thought that if he could have
listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the
kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own hands,
without resorting to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob
Marley.

But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After
a while they played at forfeits ; for it is good to be children
sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its
mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop ! There was first
a game at blind-man's buff. Of course there was. And I
no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he
had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done
thing between him and Scrooge's nephew ; and that the
Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after
that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the
credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons,
tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano,
smothering himself among the curtains, wherever she went,
there went he ! He always knew where the plump sister was.
He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up
against him (as some of them did), on purpose, he would
have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would
have been an affront to your understanding, and would in
stantly 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

A NEW GAME. 69

conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending Hot to
know her ; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her
head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by
pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain
about her neck ; was vile, monstrous ! No doubt she told
him her opinion of it, when, another blind-man being in
office, they were so very confidential together, behind the
curtains.

Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind-man's buff party,
but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool,
in a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge were close
behind her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her
love to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet.
Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was
very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat
her sisters hollow : though they were sharp girls too, as
Topper could have told you. There might have been twenty
people there, young and old, but they all played, and so did
Scrooge ; for wholly forgetting in the interest he had in what
was going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he
sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very often
guessed quite right, too ; for the sharpest needle, best White-
chapel, 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

70 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked some
times, and lived in London, and walked about the streets,
and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and
didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market,
and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a
tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh
question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a
fresh roar of laughter ; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that
he was obliged to get up off' the sofa and stamp. At last
the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out :

" I have found it out ! I know what it is, Fred ! I know
what it is ! "

"What is it?" cried Fred.

" It's your Uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge ! "

Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal
sentiment, though some objected that the reply to "Is it a
bear ? " ought to have been " Yes ; " inasmuch as an answer
in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts
from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency
that way.

" He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure," said
Fred, "and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health.
Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the
moment ; and I say, ' Uncle Scrooge ! ' r

" 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. LTncle
Scrooge ! "

Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light
of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious
company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech,
if the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene
passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his
nephew ; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.

Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they

TWO CHILDREN. 71

visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood
beside sick beds, and they were cheerful ; on foreign lands,
and they were close at home ; by struggling men, and they
were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was
rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every
refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not
made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his
blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.

It was a long night, if it were only a night ; but Scrooge
had his doubts of this, because the Christmas Holidays 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.7'

The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at
that moment.

"Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask," said
Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, "but I see
something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding
from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?"

" It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it," was
the Spirit's sorrowful reply. "Look here."

From the foldings of its rolx?, it brought two children ;
wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt
down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

" Oh, Man ! look here. Look, look, down here ! " exclaimed
the Ghost.

72 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

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

IGNORANCE AND WANT. 73

" Spirit ! are they yours ? " Scrooge could say no more.

"They are Man's,1" 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 ill" cried the Spirit, stretching out
its hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye!
Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse.
And 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.

Jfout

THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS.

THE Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When
it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee ; for in
the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to
scatter gloom and mystery.

It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed
its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save
one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been
difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it
from the darkness by which it was surrounded.

He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside
him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a
solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither
spoke nor moved.

" I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To
Come?1'' 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,11
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,

IN THE CITY. 75

Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled
beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when
he prepared to follow it. The Spirit paused a moment, as
observing his condition, and giving him time to recover.

But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him
with a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind the
dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon
him, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost,
could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap
of black.

" Ghost of the Future ! " he exclaimed, " I fear you more
than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose
is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another
man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company,
and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak
to me?"

It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight
before them.

" Lead on ! " said Scrooge. " Lead on ! The night is
waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead
on, Spirit ! "

The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him.
Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him
up, he thought, and carried him along.

They scarcely seemed to enter the city ; for the city rather
seemed to spring up about them, and encompass them of its
own act. But there they were, in the heart of it; on
'Change, amongst the merchants ; who hurried up and down,
and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in
groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully
with their great gold seals ; and so forth, as Scrooge had
seen them often.

The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men.
Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge
advanced to listen to their talk.

" No," said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, " I

76 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

don't know much about it, either way. I only know he's
dead.11

" When did he die ? " inquired another.

" Last night, I believe.'1

44 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,11 said the first, with a yawn.

" What has he done with his money ? 11 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,11 said the man with the large chin, yawn
ing again. "Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't
left it to me. That's all I know.11

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?11

44 1 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.
WThen I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that I wasn't
his most particular friend ; for we used to stop and speak
whenever we met. Bye, bye ! "

Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with other
groups. Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards the
Spirit for an explanation.

The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed
to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking
that the explanation might lie here.

He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of busi
ness : very wealthy, and of great importance. He had made

A DEATH HAS OCCURRED. 77

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 ! v 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 conversa
tion, and their parting.

Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit
should attach importance to conversations apparently so
trivial ; but feeling assured that they must have some hidden
purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be.
They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the
death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was Past, and this
Ghost's province was the Future. Nor could he think of any
one immediately connected with himself, to whom he could
apply them. But nothing doubting that to whomsoever
they applied they had some latent moral for his own 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 expec
tation that the conduct of his future self would give him
the clue he missed, and would render the solution of these
riddles easy.

He looked about in that very place for his own image ; but
another man stood in his accustomed corner, and though the
clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he
saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured
in through the Porch. It gave him little surprise, however;
for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and
thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried
out in this.

78 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its
outstretched hand. When he roused himself from his
thoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn of the hand, and
its situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes
were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder, and feel
very cold.

They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part
of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before,
although he recognised its situation, and its bad repute. The
ways were foul and narrow ; the shops and houses wretched ;
the people half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys and
archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences of
smell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets; and the
whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery.

Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed,
beetling shop, below a pent-house roof, where iron, old rags,
bottles, bones, and greasy offal, were bought. Upon the floor
within, were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges,
files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets that
few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in moun
tains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres
of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a char
coal stove, made of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal, nearly
seventy years of age ; who had screened himself from the cold
air without, by a frousy curtaining of miscellaneous tatters,
hung upon a line ; and smoked his pipe in all the luxury of
calm retirement.

Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this
man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the
shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman,
similarly laden, came in too ; and she was closely followed by
a man in faded black, who was no less startled by the sight
of them, than they had been upon the recognition of each
other. After a short period of blank astonishment, in whicl
the old man with the pipe had joined them, they all three
burst into a laugh.

GHOULES. 79

" Let the charwoman alone to be the first ! " cried she who
had entered first. " Let the laundress alone to be the second ;
and let the undertaker's man alone to be the third. Look
here, old Joe, here's a chance ! If we haven't all three met
here without meaning it ! "

"You couldn't have met in a better place," said old Joe,
removing his pipe from his mouth. *' Come into the parlour.
You were made free of it long ago, you know ; and the other
two an't strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop.
Ah ! How it skreeks ! There an't such a rusty bit of metal
in the place as its own hinges, I believe ; and I'm sure there's
no such old bones here, as mine. Ha, ha ! We're all 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? We're not going to pick holes in
each other's coats, I suppose?"

"No, indeed!" said Mrs. Dilber and the man together.
"We should hope not."

" Very well, then ! " cried the woman. " That's enough.
Who's the worse for the loss of a few things like these?
Not a dead man, I suppose."

" No, indeed," said Mrs. Dilber, laughing.

80 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

" 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 ourselves,
before we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle,
Joe."

But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this;
and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first,
produced Ms 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 wy bundle, Joe," said the first woman.

GLOATING OVER THE SPOIL. 81

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,"11 replied the woman. " Why not ? "

" You were born to make your fortune," said Joe, " and
you'll certainly do it."

" I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything
in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as He
was, I promise you, Joe,'1 returned the woman coolly. " Don't
drop that oil upon the blankets, now.'1

" His blankets ? " asked Joe.

" Whose else's do you think ? " replied the woman. " He
isn't likely to take cold without 'em, I dare say."

"I hope he didn't die of anything catching? Eh?" said
old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up.

"Don't you be afraid of that," returned the woman. "I
an't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him for
such things, if he did. Ah ! you may look through that
shirt till your eyes ache ; but you won't find a hole in it, nor
a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine one too.
They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me."

"What do you call wasting of it?" asked old Joe.

"Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure," replied
the woman with a laugh. " Somebody was fool enough to
do it, but I took it off again. If calico an't good enough for
such a purpose, it isn't good enough for anything. It's quite
as becoming to the body. He can't look uglier than he did
in that one."

Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat
grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by
the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and

82 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

disgust, which could hardly have been greater, though they
had been obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself.

" Ha, ha ! " laughed the same woman, when old Joe,
producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their
several gains upon the ground. "This is the end of it, you
see ! He frightened every one away from him when he was
alive, to profit us when he was dead ! Ha, ha, ha ! "

" Spirit ! " said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. " I
see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own.
My life tends that way, now. Merciful Heaven, what is
this ! "

He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now
he almost touched a bed : a bare, uncurtained bed : on which,
beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up,
which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful
language.

The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with
any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience
to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it
was. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon
the bed ; and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept,
uncared for, was the body of this man.

Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand
was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted
that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon
Scrooge^s part, would have disclosed the face. He thought
of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it ;
but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss
the spectre at his side.

Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar
here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy
command : for this is thy dominion ! But of the loved,
revered, and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair
to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is
not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released
it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the

THE DEAD MAN. 83

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
jt, if I could. But I have not the power, Spirit. I have
not the power."

Again it seemed to look upon him.

"If there is any person in the town, who feels emotion
caused by this man's death," said Scrooge quite agonised,
"show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you!"

The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a
moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a room
by daylight, where a mother and her children were.

She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness ;
for she walked up and down the room ; started at every
sound ; looked out from the window ; glanced at the clock ;
tried, but in vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly
bear the voices of the children in their play.

At length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried

84 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

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.'1

" 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 riot 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.

*

'

POOR TINY TIM! 85

" Let me see some tenderness connected with a death," said
Scrooge; "or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just
now, will be for ever present to me."

The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar
to his feet ; and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and
there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They
entered poor Bob Cratchifs house; the dwelling he had
visited before ; and found the mother and the children seated
round the fire.

Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as
still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter,
who had a book before him. The mother and her daughters
were engaged in sewing. But surely they were very quiet !

"'And He took a child, and set him in the midst of

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.
"Ikit 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.

86 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

" 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
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

TRUE SYMPATHY. 87

that he looked a little — "just a little down you know,1'* said
Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him. "On
which," said Bob, " for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman
you ever heard, I told him. 'I am heartily sorry for it, Mr.
( Yatchit,' he said, 'and heartily sorry for your good wife."*
By the bye, how he ever knew that, I don't know."

" Knew what, my dear ? "

"Why, that you were a good wife," replied Bob.

" Everybody knows that ! " said Peter.

" Very well observed, my boy ! " cried Bob. " I hope they
do. 'Heartily sorry,' he said, 'for your good wife. If I
can be of service to you in any way,' he said, giving me
his card, 'that's where I live. Pray come to me.' Now, it
wasn't," cried Bob, "for the sake of anything he might be
able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was
quite delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our
Tiny Tim, and felt with us."

" Fm sure he's a good soul ! " said Mrs. Cratchit.

" You would be surer of it, my dear," returned Bob, " if
you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all surprised
— mark what I say ! — if he got Peter a better situation."

'* Only hear that, Peter," said Mrs. Cratchit.

" And then," cried one of the girls, " Peter will be keeping
company with some one, and setting up for himself."

" Get along with you ! " retorted Peter, grinning.

"It's just as likely as not," said Bob, "one of these days;
though there's plenty of time for that, my dear. But 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.

88 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

" 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
Godf

" 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 any
thing, but went straight on, as to the end just now desired,
until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment.

" This court," said Scrooge, " through which we hurry now,
is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length
of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be,
in days to come ! "

The Spirit stopped ; the hand was pointed elsewhere.

" The house is yonder," Scrooge exclaimed. " Why do you
point away ? ""

The inexorable finger underwent no change.

Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked
in. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was
not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself.
The Phantom pointed as before.

He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither
he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate.
He paused to look round before entering.

A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose name
he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a
worthy place. Walled in by houses ; overrun by grass and
weeds, the growth of vegetation's death, not life ; choked up
with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A
worthy place .'

THE NAME OF THE DEAD MAN. 89

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/1
said Scrooge, " answer me one question. Are these the
shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of
things that May be, only ? "

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which
it stood.

" Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if
persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. " But if the
courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is
thus with what you show me ! "

The Spirit was immovable as ever.

Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and
following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected
grave his own name, EBEXEZER SCROOGE.

"Am / 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
ni n past all hope!"

For the first time the hand appeared to shake.

"Good Spirit," he pursued, as down upon the ground he
fell before it : " Your nature intercedes for me, and pities
me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you
have shown me, by an altered life ! "

The kind hand trembled.

" I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it
all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the
Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I

90

A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I
may sponge away the writing on this stone L "

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 re
versed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress.
It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.

Jptbc.

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 !

u I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future ! "
Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. " The Spirits
of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley !
Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this ! I say
it on my knees, old Jacob, on my knees ! "

He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good in
tentions, 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 teal's.

" They are not torn down,'" cried Scrooge, folding one of
his bed-curtains in his arms, " they are not torn down, rings
and all. They are here — I am here — the shadows of the
things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will
be. I know they will ! "

His hands were busy with his garments all this time ;
turning them inside out, putting them on upside down,
tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every
kind of extravagance.

" I don't know what to do ! " cried Scrooge, laughing and
crying in the same breath ; and making a perfect Laocoon of
himself with his stockings. " I am as light as a feather, I

92 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

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 !
Hallo here ! "

He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing
out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang,
hammer ; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding ; hammer, clang,
clash ! Oh, glorious, glorious !

Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his
head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold;
cold, piping for the blood to dance to ; Golden sunlight ;
Heavenly sky ; sweet fresh air ; merry bells. Oh, glorious !
Glorious !

" What's to-day ! " cried Scrooge, calling downward to a
boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look
about him.

" EH?" returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.

" What's to-day, my fine fellow ? " said Scrooge.

" To-day ! " replied the boy. " Why, CHRISTMAS DAY."

A DELIGHTFUL BOY. 93

" It's Christinas Day ! " said Scrooge to himself. " I
haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night.
They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of
course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow ! "

" Hallo '!" returned the boy.

" Do you know the Poulterer's, in the next street but one,
at the corner ?" Scrooge inquired.

"I should hope I did," replied the lad.

" An intelligent boy ! " said Scrooge. " A remarkable boy !
Do you know whether they've sold the prize Turkey that
was hanging up there ? — Not the little prize Turkey : the
big one ? "

" What, the one as big as me ? " returned the boy.

" What a delightful boy ! " said Scrooge. " It's a pleasure
to talk to him. Yes, my buck !"

"It's hanging there now," replied the boy.

"Is it ?" said Scrooge. " Go and buy it."'

" Walk-Eii ! " 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 Fll give you half-a-crown ! n

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.

" Til send it to Bob Cratchit's ! " whispered Scrooge,
rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. " He sha'n't
know who sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe
Miller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob's
will be!"

The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady
one, but write it he did, somehow, and went down-stairs to
open the street door, ready for the coming of the poulterer's
man. As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker
caught his eye.

" I shall love it, as long as I live ! " cried Scrooge, patting

94 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

it with his hand. "I scarcely ever looked at it before.
What an honest expression it has in its face ! It's a
wonderful knocker ! — Here's the Turkey. Hallo ! Whoop !
How are you ! Merry Christinas ! "

It was a Turkey ! He never could have stood upon his
legs, that bird. He would have snapped 'em short oft' in a
minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.

"Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden Town,"
said Scrooge. "You must have a cab."

The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with
which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which
he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recom
pensed 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 count
ing-house the day before, and said, " Scrooge and Marley's, I
believe?" It sent a pang across his heart to think how this
old gentleman would look upon him when they met; but he
knew what path lay straight before him, and he took it.

"My dear sir," said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and

SCROOGE VISITS HIS NEPHEW. 95

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,11 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
great many back-payments are included in it, I assure you.
Will you do me that favour?"

" My dear sir," said the other, shaking hands with him.
"I don't know what to say to such nnmifi — "

"Don't say anything, please," retorted Scrooge. "Come
and see me. Will you come and see me?"

" I will ! " cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he
meant to do it.

"Thank'ee," said Scrooge. "I am much obliged to you.
I thank you fifty times. Bless you ! "

He went to church, and walked about the streets, and
watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children
on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into
the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows, and found
that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never
dreamed that any walk — that anything — could give him so
much happiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps
towards his nephew's house.

He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the
courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and
did it :

"Is your master at home, my dear?" said Scrooge to the
girl. Nice girl ! Very.

" Yes, sir."

'• Where is he, my love?" said Scrooge.

96 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

" 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.

"AVhy bless my soul !" cried Fred, " who's that?"

"It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner.
Will you let me in, Fred?"

Let him in ! It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off.
He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier.
His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he
came. So did the plump sister when she came. So did
every one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful
games, wonderful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness !

But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was
early there. If he could only be there first, and catch Bob
Cratchit coming late ! That was the thing he had set his
heart upon.

And he did it ; yes, he did ! The clock struck nine. No
Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen
minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his
door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank.

His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter
too. He was on his stool in a jiffy ; driving away with his
pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock.

" Hallo ! " growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as
near as he could feign it. "What do you mean by coming
here at this time of day ? "

SCROOGE RECLAIMED BY CHRISTMAS. 97

" I am very sorry, sir," said Bob. " I am behind my time.1'*

"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, Til tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge, "I
am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And
therefore," he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving
Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into
the Tank again; "and therefore I am about to raise your
salary ! "

Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He
had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it,
holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help
and a strait-waistcoat.

" A merry Christmas, Bob ! " said Scrooge, with an 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 ! Til raise your salarv, and
endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss
your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of
smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another
coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit ! "

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and
infinitely more ; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was
a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a
master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or
anv 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

H

98

A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

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 Tirn
observed, God bless Us, Every One !

THE CHIMES:

(Koblm ^toni

OF

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

i

ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE TOWER OF THE CHIMES
THE SPIRIT OF THE CHIMES
THE DINNER ON THE STEPS
TROTTY VECK ....
ALDERMAN CUTE AND HIS FRIENDS
TROTTY AT HOME
SIR JOSEPH BOWLEY'S
THE OLD CHURCH
TROTTY VECK AMONG THE BELLS
WILL FERN'S COTTAGE
RICHARD AND MARGARET .
MARGARET AND HER CHILD
THE NEW YEAR'S DANCE .

Engraver.

Artist.

PAGE

Becker.

D. MACLISE, R.A.

Becker.

D. MACLISE, R.A.

Groves.

R. DOYLE

103

Linton.

J. LEECH

103

Linton.

J. LEECH

122

Linton.

R. DOYLE

130

Linton.

J. LEECH

134

Gray.

C. STANFIELD, R.A.

152

Linton.

R. DOYLE

154

Gray.

C. STANFIELD, R.A.

1G9

Linton.

J. LEECH

172

Dahiel.

R. DOYLE

178

Linton.

J. LEECH

199

THE CHIMES.

FIRST QUARTER,

HERE 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

104 THE CHIMES.

(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 success
fully on any gusty winter's night appointed for the purpose,
with any one opponent chosen from the rest, who will meet
me singly in an old churchyard, before an old church-door;
and will previously empower me to lock him in, if needful
to his satisfaction, until morning.

For the night-wind has a dismal trick of wandering round
and round a building of that sort, and moaning as it goes ;
and of trying, with its unseen hand, the windows and the
doors ; and seeking out some crevices by which to enter.
And when it has got in , as one not finding what it seeks,
whatever that may be, it wails and howls to issue forth
again : and not content with stalking through the aisles, and
gliding round and round the pillars, and tempting the deep
organ, soars up to the roof, and strives to rend the rafters :
then flings itself despairingly upon the stones below, and
passes, muttering, into the vaults. Anon, it comes up
stealthily, and creeps along the walls, seeming to read, in
whispers, the Inscriptions sacred to the Dead. At some of
these, it breaks out shrilly, as with laughter; and at others,
moans and cries as if it were lamenting. It has a ghostly
sound too, lingering within the altar; where it seems to
chaunt, in its wild way, of Wrong and Murder done, and
false Gods worshipped, in defiance of the Tables of the Law,
which look so fair and smooth, but are so flawed and broken.
Ugh ! Heaven preserve us, sitting snugly round the fire !
It has an awful voice, that wind at Midnight, singing in
a church !

But, high up in the steeple ! There the foul blast roars
and whistles ! High up in the steeple, where it is free to
come and go through many an airy arch and loophole, and
to twist and twine itself about the giddy stair, and twirl the

HIGH UP IN THE STEEPLE. 105

groaning weathercock, and make the very tower shake and
.shiver! High up in the steeple, where the belfry is, and
iron rails are ragged with rust, and sheets of lead and copper,
shrivelled by the changing weather, crackle and heave beneath
the unaccustomed tread ; and birds stuff shabby nests into
corners of old oaken joists and beams ; and dust grows old
and grey; and speckled spiders, indolent and fat with long
security, swing idly to and fro in the vibration of the bells,
and never loose their hold upon their thread-spun castles in
the air, or climb up sailor-like in quick alarm, or drop upon
the ground and ply a score of nimble legs to save 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 memory of man, and no one knew their names. They
had had their Godfathers and Godmothers, these Bells (for
my own part, by the way, I would rather incur the 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
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

106 THE CHIMES.

sometimes known to beat a blustering Nor' Wester; aye,
" all to fits,11 as Toby Veck said ; — for though they chose to
call him Trotty Veck, his name was Toby, and nobody could
make it anything else either (except Tobias) without a special
act of parliament; he having been as lawfully christened in
his day as the Bells had been in theirs, though with not
quite so much of solemnity or public rejoicing.

For my part, I confess myself of Toby Veck's belief, for I
am sure he had opportunities enough of forming a correct
one. And whatever Toby Veck said, I say. And I take my
stand by Toby Veck, although he did stand all day long
(and weary work it was) just outside the church-door. In
fact he was a ticket-porter, Toby Veck, and waited there for
jobs.

And a breezy, goose-skinned, blue-nosed, red-eyed, stony-
toed, tooth-chattering place it was, to wait in, in the winter
time, as Toby Veck well knew. The wind came tearing
round the corner — especially the east wind — as if it had
sallied forth, express, from the confines of the earth, to have
a blow at Toby. And oftentimes it seemed to come upon
him sooner than it had expected, for bouncing round the
corner, and passing Toby, it would suddenly wheel round
again, as if it cried "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 him
self all aslant, and facing now in this direction, now in that,
would be so banged and buffeted, and touzled, and worried,
and hustled, and lifted oft' 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.

TKOTTY VECK. 107

But, windy weather, in spite of its using him so roughly,
was, after all, a sort of holiday for Toby. That's the fact.
He didn't seem to wait so long for a sixpence in the wind,
as at other times; the having to fight with that boisterous
element took off his attention, and quite freshened him up,
when he was getting hungry and low-spirited. A hard frost
too, or a fall of snow, was an Event; and it seemed to do
him good, somehow or other — it would have been hard to
say in what respect though, Toby ! So wind and frost and
snow, and perhaps a good, stiff storm of hail, were Toby
Veck's red-letter days.

Wet weather was the worst; the cold, damp, clammy wet,
that wrapped him up like a moist great-coat — the only kind
of great-coat Toby owned, or could have added to his
comfort by dispensing with. AVet days, when the rain came
slowly, thickly, obstinately down ; when the street's throat,
like his own, was choked with mist ; when smoking umbrellas
passed and re-passed, spinning round and round like so many
teetotums, as they knocked against each other on the crowded
footway, throwing off a little whirlpool of uncomfortable
sprinklings; when gutters brawled and waterspouts were full
and noisy ; when the wet from the projecting stones and
ledges of the church fell drip, drip, drip, on Toby, making
the wisp of straw on which he stood mere mud in no time;
those were the days that tried him. Then, indeed, you
might see Toby looking anxiously out from his shelter in
an angle of the church wall — such a meagre shelter that in
summer time it never cast a shadow thicker than a good-
si/ed walking stick upon the sunny pavement — with a dis
consolate 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
#o 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

108

THE CHIMES.

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
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

TROTTY'S LIFE. 109

the way; devoutly believing that in the natural course, of
things he must inevitably overtake and run them down ; and
he had perfect faith — not often tested — in his being able to
carry anything that man could lift.

Thus, even when he came out of his nook to warm himself
on a wet day, Toby trotted. Making, with his leaky shoes,
a crooked line of slushy footprints in the mire ; and blowing
on his chilly hands and rubbing them against each other,
poorly defended from the searching cold by threadbare
mufflers of grey worsted, with a private apartment only for
the thumb, and a common room or tap for the rest of the
fingers; Toby, with his knees bent and his cane beneath his
arm, still trotted. Falling out into the road to look up at
the belfry when the Chimes resounded, Toby trotted still.

He made this last excursion several times a day, for they
were company to him; and when he heard their voices, he
had an interest in glancing at their lodging-place, and
thinking how they were moved, and what hammers beat upon
them. Perhaps he was the more curious about these Bells,
because there were points of resemblance between themselves
and him. They hung there, in all weathers, with the wind
and rain driving in upon them; facing only the outsides of
all those houses; never getting any nearer to the bla/ing fires
that gleamed and shone upon the windows, or came puffing
out of the chimney tops ; and incapable of participation in
any of the good things that were constantly being handed,
through the street doors and the area railings, to prodigious
cooks. Faces came and went at many windows: sometimes
pretty faces, youthful faces, pleasant faces : sometimes the
reverse : but Toby knew no more (though he often speculated
on these trifles, standing idle in the streets) whence they
came, or where they went, or whether, when the lips moved,
one kind word was said of him in all the year, than did the
Chimes themselves.

Toby was not a casuist — that he knew of, at least — and
I don't mean to say that when he began to take to the Bells,

110 THE CHIMES.

and to knit up his first rough acquaintance with them into
something of a closer and more delicate woof, he passed
through these considerations one by one, or held any formal
review or great field-day in his thoughts. But what I mean
to say, and do say is, that as the functions of Toby's body,
his digestive organs for example, did of their own cunning,
and by a great many operations of which he was altogether
ignorant, and the knowledge of which would have astonished
him very much, arrive at a certain end ; so his mental faculties,
without his privity or concurrence, set all these wheels and
springs in motion, with a thousand others, when they worked
to bring about his liking for the Bells.

And though I had said his love, I would not have re
called the word, though it would scarcely have expressed
his complicated feeling. For, being but a simple man, he
invested them with a strange and solemn character. They
were so mysterious, often heard and never seen ; so high up,
so far off, so full of such a deep strong melody, that he
regarded them with a species of awe; and sometimes when
he looked up at the dark arche4 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 im
plying 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 ! "

TROTTY'S REFLECTIONS. Ill

Toby's nose was very red, and his eyelids were very red,
and lie 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.

"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) and
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 little 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-
tion* ! Full of obserwations ! I like to know the news as

THE CHIMES:

well as any man," said Toby, slowly ; folding it a little
smaller, and putting it in his pocket again : " but it almost
goes against the grain with me to read a paper now. It
frightens me almost. I don't know what we poor people are
coming to. Lord send we may be coming to something better
in the New Year nigh upon us ! "

" 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,11 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 think we must have — a little ; and sometimes I think we
must be intruding. I get so puzzled sometimes that I am
not even able to make up my mind whether there is any
good at all in us, or whether we are born bad. We seem
to be dreadful things ; we seem to give a deal of trouble ;
we are always being complained of and guarded against. One
way or other, we fill the papers. Talk of a New Year ! "
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 lion, and all men an't ; but supposing it should
really be that we have no right to a New Year — supposing
we really are intruding "

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

Toby heard it this time ; started ; stopped ; and shortening
his sight, which had been directed a long way off as seeking
the enlightenment in the very heart of the approaching year,
found himself face to face with his own child, and looking
close into her eyes.

Bright eyes they were. Eyes that would bear a world
of looking in, before their depth was fathomed. Dark eyes,
that reflected back the eyes which searched them ; not flash-
ingly, or at the owner's will, but with a clear, calm, honest,
patient radiance, claiming kindred with that light which

TROTTY'S DAUGHTER AND DINNER. 113

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/'1

" 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.
"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 something 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.

i

114 THE CHIMES.

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 towards
him ; curling up her pretty shoulders ; stopping her ear with
her hand, as if by so doing she could keep the right word
out of Toby's lips ; and laughing softly the whole time.

Meanwhile Toby, putting a hand on each knee, bent down
his nose to the basket, and took a long inspiration at the
lid ; the grin upon his withered face expanding in the
process, as if he were inhaling laughing gas.

" 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 liver.
Pettitoes ? No. It an't faint enough for pettitoes. It wants
the stringiness of Cocks' heads. And I know it an't sausages.
I'll tell you what it is. It's chitterlings ! "

"No/ it an't!" cried Meg, in a burst of delight. "No,
it an't!"

" Why, what am I a-thinking of ! " said Toby, suddenly
recovering a position as near the perpendicular as it wa?
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

TROTTY'S DINNER-TABLE. 115

pocket-handkerchief; and if I like to be proud for once, and
spread that for a cloth, and call it a cloth, there's no law to
prevent me ; is there, father ? "

"Not that I know of, my dear,1' said Toby. "But they're
always a-bringing up some new law or other."

" And according to what I was reading you in the paper
the other day, father ; what the Judge said, you know ; we
poor people are supposed to know them all. Ha ha ! What
a mistake ! My goodness me, how clever they think us ! "

" Yes, my dear," cried Trotty ; " and they'd be very fond
of any one of us that did know ""em all. He'd grow fat upon
the work he'd get, that man, and be popular with the 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 convcniency in the
steps at all times, because of the sitting down ; but they're
iheumatic in the damp."

"Then here," said Meg, clapping her hands, after a
moment's bustle ; " here it is, all ready ! And beautiful it
looks ! Come, father. Come ! "

Since his discovery of the contents of the basket, Trotty
had been standing looking at her — and had been speaking
too— in an abstracted manner, which showed that though she
w;is the object of his thoughts and eyes, to the exclusion even
of tripe, he neither saw nor thought about her as she was
at that moment, but had before him some imaginary rough
sketch or drama of her future life. Roused, now, by her
cheerful summons, he shook off' a melancholy shake of the
head which was just coming upon him, and trotted to her
side. As he was stooping to sit down, the Chimes rang.

THE CHIMES.

"Amen!" said Trotty, pulling off his hat and looking up
towards them.

"Amen to the Bells, father?11 cried Meg.

"They broke in like a grace, my dear,11 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.11

"The Bells do, father!11 laughed Meg, as she set the basin,
and a knife and fork, before him. " Well ! "

" Seem to, my Pet,11 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,11 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, Toby ! ' 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,11 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.11

"And it comes — at last, father,11 said Meg, with a touch
of sadness in her pleasant voice.

"Always,11 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.

MEG HAS SOMETHING TO TELL. 117

" Why, Lord forgive me ! " said Trotty, dropping his knife
and fork. " My dove ! Meg ! why didn't you tell me what a
beast I was?"

"Father?"

" Sitting here," said Trotty, in penitent explanation,
"cramming, and stuffing, and gorging myself; and you before
me there, never so much as breaking your precious fast, nor
wanting to, when "

" But I have broken it, father," interposed his daughter,
laughing, "all to bits. 1 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, Til
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.

"1 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
last, and speaking in a tremble, but quite plainly ; "another

118 THE CHIMES.

year is nearly gone, and where is the use of waiting on from
year to year, when it is so unlikely we shall ever be better off
than we are now ? He says we are poor now, father, and we
shall be poor then, but we are young now, and years will
make us old before we know it. He says that if we wait :
people in our condition : until we see our way quite clearly,
the way will be a narrow one indeed — the common way — the
Grave, father."

A bolder man than Trotty Veck must needs have drawn
upon his boldness largely, to deny it. Trotty held his peace.

" And how hard, father, to grow old, and die, and think
we might have cheered and helped each other! How hard
in all our lives to love each other ; and to grieve, apart, to
see each other working, changing, growing old and grey.
Even if I got the better of it, and forgot him (which I never
could), oh father dear, how hard to have a heart so full as
mine is now, and live to have it slowly drained out every drop,'
without the recollection of one happy moment of a woman's
life, to stay behind and comfort me, and make me better ! "

Trotty sat quite still. Meg dried her eyes, and said more
gaily : that is to say, with here a laugh, and there a sob, and
here a laugh and sob together :

"So Richard says, father; as his work was yesterday made
certain for some time to come, and as I love him, and have
loved him full three years — ah ! longer than that, if he knew
it! — will I marry him on New Year's Day; the best and
happiest day, he says, in the whole year, and one that is
almost sure to bring good fortune with it. It's a short
notice, father — isn't it? — but I haven't my fortune to be
settled, or my wedding dresses to be made, like the great
ladies, father, have I ? And he said so much, and said it in
his way ; so strong and earnest, and all the time so kind and
gentle; that I said I'd come and talk to you, father. And
as they paid the money for that work of mine this morning
(unexpectedly, I am sure ! ) and as you have fared very poorly
for a whole week, and as I couldn't help wishing there should

THE DINNER COOLING ON THE STEP. 119

be something to make this day a sort of holiday to you as
well as a dear and happy day to me, father, I made a little
treat and brought it to surprise you."

"And see how he leaves it cooling on the step!" said
another voice.

It was the voice of this same Richard, who had come upon
them unobserved, and stood before the father and daughter;
looking down upon them with a face as glowing as the iron
on which his stout sledge-hammer daily rung. A handsome,
well-made, powerful youngster he was ; with eyes that sparkled
like the red-hot droppings from a furnace fire ; black hair
that curled about his swarthy temples rarely ; and a smile
— a smile that bore out Meg's eulogium on his style of
conversation.

" See how he leaves it cooling on the step ! " said Richard.
" Meg don't know what he likes. Not she ! "

Trotty, all action and enthusiasm, immediately reached up
his hand to Richard, and was going to address him in a
great hurry, when the house-door opened without any
warning, and a footman very nearly put his foot into the
tripe

" Out of the vays here, will you ! You must always go
and be a-settin on our steps, must you! You can't go and
give a turn to none of the neighbours never, can't you !
Will you clear the road, or won't you?"

Strictly speaking, the last question was irrelevant, as they
had already done it.

" What's the matter, what's the matter ! " said the 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 without any abatement of his dignity, but with an
expression of having important and wealthy engagements
elsewhere. " What's the matter ! What's the" matter ! "

120 THE CHIMES.

" You're always a-being begged, and prayed, upon your
bended knees you are," said the footman with great emphasis
to Trotty Veck, "to let our door-steps be. Why don't you
let 'em be? CANAI 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 HOAV turning
over and over on the end of the fork.

Two other gentlemen had come out with him. One was a
low-spirited gentleman of middle age, of a meagre habit, and
a disconsolate face; who kept his hands continually in the
pockets of his scanty pepper-and-salt trousers, very large and
dog's-eared from that custom ; and was not particularly
well brushed or washed. The other, a full-sized, sleek, well-
conditioned gentleman, in a blue coat with bright buttons,
and a white cravat. This gentleman had a very red face,
as if an undue proportion of the blood in his body were
squeezed up into his head ; which perhaps accounted for his
having also the appearance of being rather cold about the
heart.

He who had Toby's meat upon the fork, called to the first
one by the name of Filer ; and they both drew near together.
Mr. Filer being exceedingly short-sighted, was obliged to go
so close to the remnant of Toby's dinner before he could
make out what it was, that Toby's heart leaped up into his
mouth. But Mr. Filer didn't eat it.

'This is a description of animal food, Alderman," said
Filer, making little punches in it with a pencil-case,
"commonly known to the labouring population of this
country, by the name of tripe."

THE GREAT ALDERMAN CUTE. 121

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-
eights of a h'fth more than the loss upon a pound of any
other animal substance whatever. Tripe is more expensive,
properly understood, than the hothouse pine-apple. Taking
into account the number of animals slaughtered yearly within
the bills of mortality alone ; and forming a low estimate of
the quantity of tripe which the carcases of those animals,
reasonably well butchered, would yield ; I find that the waste
on that amount of tripe, if boiled, would victual a garrison
of five hundred men for five months of thirty-one days each,
and a February over. The Waste, the Waste ! "

Trotty stood aghast, and his legs shook under him. He
seemed to have starved a garrison of five hundred men with
his own hand.

"Who eats tripe?" said Mr. Filer, warmly. "Who eats
tripe?"

Trotty made a miserable bow.

"You do, do you?" said Mr. Filer. "Then Til 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,"
lid Mr. Filer, " by the estimated number of existing widows

d orphans, and the result will be one pennyweight of tripe
each. Not a grain is left for that man. Consequently,
B'S a robber."

THE CHIMES.

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
's ^^~~ faced gentleman in the blue coat.
^L^fefvf* " 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

THE GOOD OLD TIMES. 123

as these ? Look at him. What an object ! The good old
times, the grand old times, the great old times ! Those were
the times for a bold peasantry, and all that sort of thing.
Those were the times for every sort of thing, in fact. There's
nothing now-a-days. Ah ! " sighed the red-faced gentleman.
"The good old times, the good old times!"

The gentleman didn't specify what particular times he
alluded to; nor did he say whether he objected to the
present times, from a disinterested consciousness that they
had done nothing very remarkable in producing himself.

"The good old times, the good old times," repeated the
gentleman. " What times they were ! They were the only
times. It's of no use talking about any other times, or
discussing what the people are in these times. You don't
call these, times, do you ? I don't. Look into Strutt's
Costumes, and see what a Porter used to be, in any of the
good old English reigns."

"He hadn't, in his very best circumstances, a shirt to his
back, or a stocking to his foot ; and there was scarcely a
vegetable in all England for him to put into his mouth,"
said Mr. Filer. " I can prove it, by tables."

But still the red-faced gentleman extolled the good old
times, the grand old times, the great old times. No matter
what anybody else said, he still went turning round and
round in one set form of words concerning them ; as a poor
squirrel turns and turns in its revolving cage; touching the
mechanism, and trick of which, it has probably quite as
distinct perceptions, as ever this red-faced gentleman had of
his deceased Millennium.

It is possible that poor Trotty's faith in these very vague
Old Times was not entirely destroyed, for he felt vague
enough, at that moment. One thing, however, was plain
to him, in the midst of his distress; to wit, that however
these gentlemen might differ in details, his misgivings of
that morning, and of many other mornings, were well
founded. " No, no. We can't go right or do right,"

THE CHIMES.

thought Trotty in despair. "There is no good in us. We
are born bad ! "

But Trotty had a father's heart within him ; which had
somehow got into his breast in spite of this decree ; and he
could not bear that Meg, in the blush of her brief joy, should
have her fortune read by these wise gentlemen. " God help
her,"" thought poor Trotty. " She will know it soon enough."

He anxiously signed, therefore, to the young smith, to take
her away. But he was so busy, talking to her softly at a
little distance, that he only became conscious of this desire,
simultaneously with Alderman Cute. Now, the Alderman
had not yet had his say, but he was a philosopher, too —
practical, though ! Oh, very practical — and, as he had no
idea of losing any portion of his audience, he cried " Stop ! "

"Now, you know,1'' said the Alderman, addressing his two
friends, with a self-complacent smile upon his face which was
habitual to him, " I am a plain man, and a practical man ;
and I go to work in a plain practical way. That's my way.
There is not the least mystery or difficulty in dealing with
this sort of people if you only understand 'em, and can talk
to 'em in their own manner. Now, you Porter ! Don't you
ever tell me, or anybody else, my friend, that you haven't
always enough to eat, and of the best ; because I know
better. I have tasted your tripe, you know, and you can't
* chaff' me. You understand what ' chaff' means, eh ? That's
the right word, isn't it ? Ha, ha, ha ! Lord bless you,"
said the Alderman, turning to his friends again, "it's the
easiest thing on earth to deal with this sort of people, if you
understand 'em."

Famous man for the common people, Alderman Cute !
Never out of temper with them ! Easy, affable, joking,
knowing gentleman !

"You see, my friend," pursued the Alderman, "there's a
great deal of nonsense talked about Want — '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

TO BE MARRIED ON NEW YEAR'S DAY. 125

about Starvation, and I mean to Put it Down. That's all !
Lord bless you," said the Alderman, turning to his friends
again, "you may Put Down anything among this sort of
people, if you only know the way to set about it."

Trotty took Meg's hand and drew it through his arm.
He didn't seem to know what he was doing though.

"Your daughter, eh?" said the Alderman, chucking her
familiarly under the chin.

Always affable with the working classes, Alderman Cute!
Knew what pleased them ! Not a bit of pride !

" Where's her mother ? " asked that worthy gentleman.

" Dead," said Toby. " Her mother got up linen ; and was
called to Heaven when She was born."

"Not to get up linen there, I suppose," remarked the
Alderman pleasantly.

Toby might or might not have been able to separate his
wife in Heaven from her old pursuits. But query : If Mrs.
Alderman Cute had gone to Heaven, would Mr. Alderman
Cute have pictured her as holding any state or station
there ?

" And you're making love to her, are you ? " said Cute to
the young smith.

"Yes," returned Richard quickly, for he was nettled by
the question. "And we are going to be married on New
Year's Day."

" What do you mean ! " cried Filer sharply. " Married ! "

"Why, yes, we're thinking of it, Master," said Richard.
"We're rather in a hurry, you see, in case it should be Put
Down first."

"Ah !" cried Filer, with a groan. "Put that down indeed,
Alderman, and you'll do something. Married ! Married ! !
The ignorance of the first principles of political economy on
the part of these people ; their improvidence ; their wicked
ness ; is, by Heavens ! enough to — Now look at that couple,
will you!"

Well ? They were worth looking at. And marriage

126 THE CHIMES.

seemed as reasonable and fair a deed as they need have in
contemplation.

"A man may live to be as old as Methuselah," said Mr.
Filer, "and may labour all his life for the benefit of such
people as those; and may heap up facts on figures, facts on
figures, facts on figures, mountains high and dry ; and he can
no more hope to persuade 'em that they have no right or
business to be married, than he can hope to persuade 'em
that they have no earthly right or business to be born. And
that we know they haven't. We reduced it to a mathematical
certainty long ago ! "

Alderman Cute was mightily diverted, and laid his right
forefinger on the side of his nose, as much as to say to both
his friends, " Observe me, will vou ! 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 Alderman
Cute was a Justice ! Oh dear, so active a Justice always !
Who such a mote of brightness in the public eye, as Cute !

" You are going to be married, you say," pursued the
Alderman. " Very unbecoming and indelicate in one of your
sex ! But never mind that. After you are married, you'll
quarrel with your husband and come to be a distressed wife.
You may think not ; but you will, because I tell you so.
Now, I give you fair warning, that I have made up my mind
to Put distressed wives Down. So, don't be brought before

ALDERMAN CUTE'S ADVICE. 127

me. You'll have children — boys. Those boys will grow up
bad, of course, and run wild in the streets, without shoes and
stockings. Mind, my young friend ! Ill convict 'em sum
marily, every one, for I am determined to Put boys without
shoes and stockings, Down. Perhaps your husband will die
young (most likely) and leave you with a baby. Then you'll
be turned out of doors, and wander up and down the streets.
Now, don't wander near me, my dear, for I am resolved to
Put all wandering mothers Down. All young toothers, of all
sorts and kinds, it's my determination to Put Down. Don't
think to plead illness as an excuse with me; or babies as an
excuse with me; for all sick persons and young children (I
hope you know the church-service, but I'm afraid not) I am
determined to Put Down. And if you attempt, desperately,
and ungratefully, and impiously, and fraudulently attempt,
to drown yourself, or hang yourself, I'll have no pity for
you, for I have made up my mind to Put all suicide Down !
If there is one thing," said the Alderman, with his self-
satisfied smile, "on which I can be said to have made up
my mind more than on another, it is to Put suicide Down.
So don't try it on. That's the phrase, isn't it? Ha, ha!
now we understand each other."

Toby knew not whether to be agonised or glad, to see that
Meg had turned a deadly white, and dropped her lover's hand.

" And as for you, you dull dog," said the Alderman, turning
with even increased cheerfulness and urbanity to the young
smith, " what are you thinking of being married for ? What
do you want to be married for, you silly fellow ? If I was a
fine, young, strapping chap like you, I should be ashamed of
being milksop enough to pin myself to a woman's apron-
strings ! Why, she'll be an old woman before you're a middle-
aged man ! And a pretty figure you'll cut then, with a
draggle-tailed wife and a crowd of squalling children crying
after you wherever you go ! "

O, he knew how to banter the common people, Alderman
Eute!

128 THE CHIMES.

" There ! Go along with you," said the Alderman, " and
repent. Don't make such a fool of yourself as to get married
on New Year's Day. You'll think very differently of it, long
before next New Year's Day : a trim young fellow like you,
with all the girls looking after you. There ! Go along with
you!"

They went along. Not arm in arm, or hand in hand, or
interchanging bright glances ; but, she in tears ; he, gloomy
and down-looking. Were these the hearts that had so lately
made old Toby's leap up from its faintness? No, no. The
Alderman (a blessing on his head !) had Put them Down.

"As you happen to be here," said the Alderman to Toby,
" you shall carry a letter for me. Can you be quick ? You're
an old man."

Toby, who had been looking after Meg, quite stupidly,
made shift to murmur out that he was very quick, and very
strong.

" How old are you ? " inquired the Alderman.

" I'm over sixty, sir," said Toby.

" O ! This man's a great deal past the average age, you
know," cried Mr. Filer, breaking in as if his patience would
bear some trying, but this really was carrying matters a
little too far.

"I feel I'm intruding, sir," said Toby. "I — I misdoubted
it this morning. Oh dear me ! "

The Alderman cut him short by giving him the letter
from his pocket. Toby would have got a shilling too ; but
Mr. Filer clearly showing that in that case he would rob
a certain given number of persons of ninepence-halfpenny
a-piece, he only got sixpence ; and thought himself very well \
off to get that.

Then the Alderman gave an arm to each of his friends,
and walked off in high feather; but, he immediately came
hurrying back alone, as if he had forgotten something.

"Porter!" said the Alderman.

"Sir!" said Toby.

TROTTY VECK IS WRONG EVERY WAY. 129

"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 Alder
man. "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 oft' again.

" Wrong every way. Wrong every way ! " said Trotty,
clasping his hands. "Born bad. No business here!"

The Chimes came clashing in upon him as he said the
words. Full, loud, and sounding — but with no encouragement.
No, not a drop.

"The tune's changed," cried the old man, as he listened.
"There's not a word of all that fancy in it. Why should
there be ? I have no business with the New Year nor with
the old one neither. Let me die ! "

Still the Bells, pealing forth their changes, made the very
air spin. Put 'em down, Put 'em down ! Good old Times,
Good old Times ! Facts and Figures, Facts and Figures !
Put 'em down, Put "em down ! If they said anything they
said this, until the brain of Toby reeled.

He pressed his bewildered head between his hands, as if
to keep it from splitting asunder. A well-timed action, as it
happened ; for finding the letter in one of them, and being
by that means reminded of his charge, he fell, mechanically,
into his usual trot, and trotted off.

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 hea
vier inToby's
hand, than
another let
ter. Not
because the
Aid erman
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

THE FADING YEAR. 131

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,'1 said Trotty, and a mist rose before his
eyes; "his daughters — Gentlemen may win their hearts and
marry them ; they may be happy wives and mothers ; they
may be handsome like my darling M — e — "

He couldn't finish the name. The final letter swelled in
his throat, to the size of the whole alphabet.

"Never mind," thought Trotty. "I know what I mean.
That's more than enough for me." And with this consolatory
rumination, trotted on.

It was a hard frost, that day. The air was bracing, crisp,
and clear. The wintry sun, though powerless for warmth,
looked brightly down upon the ice it was too weak to melt,
and set a radiant glory there. At other times, Trotty might
have learned a poor man's lesson from the wintry sun ; but,
he was past that, now.

The Year was Old, that day. The patient Year had lived
through the reproaches and misuses of its slanderers, and
faithfully performed its work. Spring, summer, autumn,
winter. It had laboured through the destined round, and
now laid down its weary head to die. Shut out from hope,
high impulse, active happiness, itself, but active messenger of
many joys to others, it made appeal in its decline to have its
toiling days and patient hours remembered, and to die in
j>eace. Trotty might have read a poor man's allegory in the
Biding 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
nuulc in vain !

132 THE CHIMES.

The streets were full of motion, and the shops were decked
out gaily. The New Year, like an Infant Heir to the whole
world, was waited for, with welcomes, presents, and rejoicings.
There were books and toys for the New Year, glittering
trinkets for the New Year, dresses for the New Year, schemes
of fortune for the New Year; new inventions to beguile it.
Its life was parcelled out in almanacks and pocket-books ; the
coming of its moons, and stars, and tides, was known before
hand to the moment ; all the workings of its seasons in their
days and nights, were calculated with as much precision as
Mr. Filer could work sums in men and women.

The New Year, the New Year. Everywhere the New
Year ! The Old Year was already looked upon as dead ;
and its effects were selling cheap, like some drowned mariner's
aboardship. Its patterns were Last Year's, and going at a
sacrifice, before its breath was gone. Its treasures were mere
dirt, beside the riches of its unborn successor !

Trotty had no portion, to his thinking, in the New Year
or the Old.

" Put 'cm 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?"

SIR JOSEPH BOWLEY. 133

Toby told him.

"YouYe 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,
fC purpose."

Toby wiped his feet (which were quite dry already) with
great care, and took the way pointed out to him ; observing
as he went that it was an awfully grand house, but hushed
and covered up, as if the family were in the country.
Knocking at the room-door, he was told to enter from
within; and doing so found himself in a spacious library,
where, at a table strewn with files and papers, were a stately
lady in a bonnet; and a not very stately gentleman in black
who wrote from her dictation ; while another, and an older,
and a much statelier gentleman, whose hat and cane were on
the table, walked up and down, with one hand in his breast,
and looked complacently from time to time at his own
picture — a full length ; a very full length — hanging over the
fireplace.

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

Mr. Fish begged pardon, and taking the letter from Toby,
handed it, with great respect.

" From Alderman Cute, Sir Joseph."*

"Is this all? Have you nothing else, Porter?" inquired
Sir Joseph.

Toby replied in the negative.

" You have no bill or demand upon me — my name is
Bowley, Sir Joseph Bowley — of any kind from anybody, have
you ? " said Sir Joseph. " If you have, present it. There is
a cheque-book by the side of Mr. Fish. I allow nothing to
be carried into the New Year. Every description of account
is settled in this house at the close of the old one. So that
if death was to — to— "

134

THE CHIMES.

" To cut," suggested Mr. Fish.

"To sever, sir,"" returned Sir Joseph, with great asperity,

fc$3 .>KX •* ,i3?S^ F^BMi i,\V\'r1x^

the cord of existence
4^.. — my affairs would be
found, I hope, in a stat2
of preparation.11
" My dear Sir Joseph ! n said the lady, who was greatly
younger than the gentleman. " How shocking ! "

" My lady Bowley," returned Sir Joseph, floundering now

THE POOH MAN'S FRIEND. 135

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 dis
course. Possibly lie had this end before him in still forbear
ing 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 4"

"My lady Bowley," returned Sir Joseph, "you surprise
me. Is the luxury of feeling in proportion to the number of
votes ; or is it, to a rightly constituted mind, in proportion
to the number of applicants, and the wholesome state of
mind to which their canvassing reduces them ? Is there no
excitement of the purest kind in having two votes to dispose
of among fifty people?"

"Not to me, I acknowledge," replied the lady. "It bores
one. Besides, one can't oblige one's acquaintance. But you
are the Poor Man's Friend, you know, Sir Joseph. You
think otherwise."

"I am the Poor Man's Friend," observed Sir Joseph,
glancing at the poor man present. " As such I may be
taunted. As such I have been taunted. But I ask no other
title."

" Bless him for a noble gentleman ! " thought Trottv.

136 THE CHIMES.

" I don't agree with Cute here, for instance,'11' said Sir
Joseph, holding out the letter. "I don't agree with the
Filer party. I don't agree with any party. My friend the
Poor Man, has no business with anything of that sort, and
nothing of that sort has any business with him. My friend
the Poor Man, in my district, is my business. No man or
body of men has any right to interfere between my friend
and me. That is the ground I take. I assume a — a
paternal character towards my friend. I say, 'My good
fellow, I will treat you paternally.111

Toby listened with great gravity, and began to feel more
comfortable.

" Your only business, my good fellow,11 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;11 Toby thought remorse
fully of the tripe ; " but that you should feel the Dignity of
Labour. Go forth erect into the cheerful morning air, and
— and stop there. Live hard and temperately, be respectful,
exercise your self-denial, bring up your family on next to
nothing, pay your rent as regularly as the clock strikes, be
punctual in your dealings (I set you a good example ; you
will find Mr. Eish, my confidential secretary, with a cash-box
before him at all times); and you may trust to me to be
your Friend and Father.11

" 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,11 returned Sir Joseph, with solemnity, "not the
less am I the Poor Man's Friend and Father. Not the less
shall he receive encouragement at my hands. Every quarter-
day he will be put in communication with Mr. Fish. Every

THE PEOPLE'S FRIEND AND FATHER. 137

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.

" My lady," said Sir Joseph, quite majestically, " Ingrati
tude 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, / do," pursued Sir Joseph. " I do
my duty as the Poor Man's Friend and Father; and I
endeavour to educate his mind, by inculcating on all occasions
the one great moral lesson which that class requires. That is,
entire Dependence on myself. They have no business what
ever with — with themselves. If wicked and designing persons
tell them otherwise, and they become impatient and dis
contented, and are guilty of insubordinate conduct and black
hearted ingratitude ; which is undoubtedly the case ; I am their
Friend and Father still. It is so Ordained. It is in the
nature of things."

With that great sentiment, he opened the Alderman's
letter ; and read it.

" Very polite and attentive, I am sure ! " exclaimed Sir
Joseph. "My lady, the Alderman is so obliging as to remind
me that he has had ' the distinguished honour ' — he is very
good — of meeting me at the house of our mutual friend
Deedles, the banker ; and he does me the favour to inquire
whether it will be agreeable to me to have Will Fern put
down."

" Mont agreeable ! " replied my Lady Bowley. " The worst

138 THE CHIMES.

man among them ! He has been committing a robbery, I
hope?"

" Why no,'1 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.'1

" 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 ant I some
thing different from a great girl ? ' I expected it, of course ;
who can expect anything but insolence and ingratitude from
that class of people ! That is not to the purpose, however.
Sir Joseph ! Make an example of him ! "

" Hem ! " coughed Sir Joseph. " Mr. Fish, if you'll have
the goodness to attend — "

Mr. Fish immediately seized his pen, and wrote from Sir
Joseph's dictation.

" Private. My dear Sir. I am .very much indebted to you
for your courtesy in the matter of the man William Fern, of
whom, I regret to add, I can say nothing favourable. I have
uniformly considered myself in the light of his Friend and
Father, but have been repaid (a common case, I grieve to say)
with ingratitude, and constant opposition to my plans. He

WILL FERN MUST BE PUT DOWN. 139

is a turbulent and rebellious spirit. His character will not
bear investigation. Nothing will persuade him to be happy
when he might. Under these circumstances, it appears to
me, I own, that when he comes before you again (as you
informed me he promised to do to-morrow, pending your
inquiries, and I think he may be so far relied upon), his
committal for some short term as a Vagabond, would be a
service to society, and would be a salutary example in a
country where — for the sake of those who are, through good
and evil report, the Friends and Fathers of the Poor, as well
as with a view to that, generally speaking, misguided class
themselves — examples are greatly needed. And I am," and
so forth.

" It appears," remarked Sir Joseph when he had signed this
letter, and Mr. Fish was sealing it, " as if this were Ordained :
really. At the close of the year, I wind up my account and
strike my balance, even with William Fern!'1''

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 1 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 pre
pared. 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."

140 THE CHIMES.

" Behind-hand with the world ! " repeated Sir Joseph
Bowley, in a tone of terrible distinctness.

" I am afraid, sir," faltered Trotty, " that there's a matter
of ten or twelve shillings owing to Mrs. Chickenstalker."

" To Mrs. Chickenstalker ! " repeated Sir Joseph, in the
same tone as before.

" A shop, sir," exclaimed Toby, " in the general line. Also
a — a little money on account of rent. A very little, sir. It
oughtn't to be owing, I know, but we have been hard put to
it, indeed!"

Sir Joseph looked at his lady, and at Mr. Fish, and at
Trotty, one after another, twice all round. He then made
a despondent gesture with both hands at once, as if he
gave the thing up altogether.

" How a man, even among this improvident and 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 COUNTRYMAN AND HIS CHILD. 141

the more haste to deliver the Alderman's letter, and get
out of the way before they began ; for he dreaded to hear
them tagging "Friends and Fathers, Friends and Fathers,""
to the burden they had rung out last.

Toby discharged himself of his commission, therefore, with
all possible speed, and set off* trotting homeward. But what
with his pace, which was at best an awkward one in the
street; and what with his hat, which didn't improve it; he
trotted against somebody in less than no time, and was sent
staggering out into the road.

" I beg your pardon, I'm sure ! " said Trotty, pulling up
his hat in great confusion, and between the hat and the torn
lining, fixing his head into a kind of bee-hive. " I hope I
haven't hurt you."

As to hurting anybody, Toby was not such an absolute
Samson, but that he was much more likely to be hurt him
self: and indeed, he had flown out into the road, like a
shuttlecock. He had such an opinion of his own strength,
however, that he was in real concern for the other party : and
said again,

" I hope I haven't hurt you ? "

The man against whom he had run ; a sun-browned,
sinewy, country-looking man, with grizzled hair, and a rough
chin ; stared at him for a moment, as if he suspected him to
be in jest. But, satisfied of his good faith, he answered :

" No, friend. You have not hurt me."

"Nor the child, I hope?" said Trotty.

"Nor the child," returned the man. "I thank you
kindly."

As he said so, he glanced at a little girl he carried in his
arms, asleep : and shading her face with the long end of the
poor handkerchief he wore about his throat, went slowly on.

The tone in which he said "I thank you kindly," 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

THE CHIMES.

an)' one : no matter for how little. Toby stood gazing after
him as he plodded wearily away, with the child's arm cling
ing 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. Arid 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,11 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.11

"Close at hand,11 replied Toby. "Til show you his house
with pleasure.11

"I was to have gone to him elsewhere to-morrow,11 said
the man, accompanying Toby, " but I'm uneasy under sus
picion, and want to clear myself, and to be free to go and
seek my bread — I don't know where. So, maybe hell forgive
my going to his house to-night.11

" It's impossible,11 cried Toby with a start, " that your
name's Fern I11

"Eh!11 cried the other, turning on him in astonishment.

" Fern ! Will Fern ! " said Trotty.

"That's my name,11 replied the other.

"Why then,11 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 Fll 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.

TROTTY VECK AND WILL FERN. 143

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 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!'"

String 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

THE CHIMES.

tresses round and round his rough forefinger like a ring,
while she hung about his dusty leg, he said to Trotty :

" Fin not a cross-grained man by natur', I believe ; and
easy satisfied, Fm 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, Fm 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. " Fve thought so, many times. I've
thought so, when my hearth was very cold, and cupboard
very bare. I thought so t'other night, when we were taken
like two thieves. But they — they shouldn't try the little
face too often, should they, Lilian ? That's hardly fair upon
a man ! "

He sunk his voice so low, and gazed upon her with an air
so stern and strange, that Toby, to divert the current of his
thoughts, inquired if his wife were living.

" I never had one," he returned, shaking his head. " She's
my brother's child : a orphan. Nine year old, though you'd
hardly think it; but she's tired and worn out now. They'd
have taken care on her, the Union — eight-and-twenty mile
away from where we live — between four walls (as they took
care of my old father when he couldn't work no more, though

THOTTY'S HOSPITALITY. 145

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. Conic
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

146 THE CHIMES.

we are and here we go ! Cross over, Uncle Will, and mind
the kidney pieman at the corner ! Here we are and here we
go ! Down the Mews here, Uncle Will, and stop at the
black door, with ' T. Veck, Ticket Porter,' wrote upon a
board; and here we are and here we go, and here we are
indeed, my precious Meg, surprising you ! "

With which words Trotty, in a breathless state, set the
child down before his daughter in the middle of the floor.
The little visitor looked once at Meg ; and doubting nothing
in that face, but trusting everything she saw there; ran into
her arms.

" Here we are and here we go ! " cried Trotty, running
round the room, and choking audibly. " Here, Uncle Will,
here's a fire you know ! Why don't you come to the fire ?
Oh here we are and here we go ! Meg, my precious darling,
where's the kettle ? Here it is and here it goes, and it'll bile
in no time ! "

Trotty really had picked up the kettle somewhere or other
in the course of his wild career, and now put it on the fire :
while Meg, seating the child in a warm corner, knelt down
on the ground before her, and pulled off her shoes, and dried
her wet feet on a cloth. Ay, and she laughed at Trotty too
— so pleasantly, so cheerfully, that Trotty could have blessed
her where she kneeled ; for he had seen that, when they
entered, she was sitting by the fire in tears.

" Why, father ! " said Meg. " You're crazy to-night, I
think. I don"t know what the Bells would say to that. Poor
little feet. How cold they are ! n

" 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; J
and when that's done, we'll be so gay, and brisk,
happy — ! "

TROTTY'S LITTLE ARTIFICE. 147

The child, in a burst of sobbing, clasped her round the
neck ; caressed her fair cheek with its hand ; and said, " Oh
Meg ! oh dear Meg ! "

Toby's blessing could have done no more. Who could
do more !

" Why, father ! " cried Meg, after a pause.

" Here I am and here I go, my dear ! " said Trotty.

" Good Gracious me ! " cried Meg. " He's crazy ! He's
put the dear child's bonnet on the kettle, and hung the lid
behind the door ! "

" I didn't go for to do it, my love," said Trotty, hastily
repairing this mistake. "Meg, my dear?"

Meg looked towards him and saw that he had elaborately
stationed himself behind the chair of their male visitor, where
with many mysterious gestures he was holding up the six
pence he had earned.

" I see, my dear," said Trotty, " as I was coming in, half
an ounce of tea lying somewhere on the stairs ; and I'm pretty
sure there was a bit of bacon too. As I don't remember
where it was exactly, HI go myself and try to find 'em."

With this inscrutable artifice, Toby withdrew to purchase
the viands he had spoken of, for ready money, at Mrs.
Chickens talker's ; and presently came back, pretending he had
not been able to find them, at first, in the dark.

" But here they are at last," said Trotty, setting out the
tea-things, " all correct ! I was pretty sure it was tea, and a
rasher. So it is. Meg, my pet, if you'll just make the tea,
while your unworthy father toasts the bacon, we shall be
ready, immediate. It's a curious circumstance," said Trotty,
proceeding in his cookery, with the assistance of the toasting-
fork, "curious, but well known to my friends, that I never
care, myself, for rashers, nor for tea. I like to see other
people enjoy 'em," said Trotty, speaking very loud, to impress
the fact upon his guest, "but to me, as food, they're dis-
•greeable."

Yet Trotty sniffed the savour of the hissing bacon — ah ! — •

148 THE CHIMES.

as if he liked it ; and when he poured the boiling water in
the tea-pot, looked lovingly down into the depths of that
snug cauldron, and suffered the fragrant steam to curl about
his nose, and wreathe his head and face in a thick cloud.
However, for all this, he neither ate nor drank, except at
the very beginning, a mere morsel for form's sake, which he
appeared to eat with infinite relish, but declared was perfectly
uninteresting to him.

No. Trotty's occupation was, to see Will Fern and Lilian
eat and drink ; and so was Meg's. And never did spectators
at a city dinner or court banquet find such high delight in
seeing others feast : although it were a monarch or a pope :
as those two did, in looking on that night. Meg smiled
at Trotty, Trotty laughed at Meg. Meg shook her head,
and made belief to clap her hands, applauding Trotty ; Trotty
conveyed, in dumb-show, unintelligible narratives of how
and when and where he had found their visitors, to Meg;
and they were happy. Very happy.

"Although," thought Trotty, sorrowfully, as he watched
Meg's face ; " that match is broken off, I see ! "

"Now, I'll tell you what," said Trotty after tea. "The
little one, she sleeps with Meg, I know."

" With good Meg ! " cried the child, caressing her. " With
Meg."

"That's right," said Trotty. " And I shouldn't wonder
if she kiss Meg's father, won't she ? 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

A NEW HEART FOR A NEW YEAR! 149

what Fin 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
sj>eak, but in his rough coarse fingers, clenching and ex
panding in the fair hair of the child, there was an eloquence
that said enough.

" Yes, yes," said Trotty, answering unconsciously what he
saw expressed in his daughter's face. " Take her with you,
Meg. Get her to bed. There ! Now, Will, I'll show you
where you lie. It's not much of a place: only a loft; but,
having a loft, I always say, is one of the great conveniences
of living in a mews ; and till this coach-house and stable
gets a better let, we live here cheap. There's plenty of
sweet hay up there, belonging to a neighbour; and it's as
clean as hands, and Meg, can make it. Cheer up ! Don't
give way. A new heart for a New Year, always ! "

The hand released from the child's hair, had fallen, 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 l>egan 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

150 THE CHIMES.

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 wonlan 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 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,'1 said Trotty softly : tapping at her door. " Do
you hear anything ? "

TROTTY'S BEWILDERMENT. 151

" I hear the Bells, father. Surely they're very loud to
night."

" Is she asleep ? " said Toby, making an excuse for peep
ing 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 lay
ing 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 !

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

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

So he went in, feeling his way as he went, like a blind

152

THE CHIMES.

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, how
ever, for going on. Trotty groped
his way, and went on. Up, up, up,
and round, and round ; and up, up,
up ; higher, higher, higher up !

It was a disagreeable staircase
for that groping work ; so low and
narrow, that his groping hand was
always touching something ; and it
often felt so like a man or ghostly

figure standing up erect and making room for him to pass
without discovery, that he would rub the smooth wall upward
searching for its face, and downward searching for its feet,

TROTTY IN THE BELFRY. 153

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
bl urr and blotch of lights (towards the place where Meg was
wondering where he was and calling to him perhaps), all
kneaded up together in a leaven of mist and darkness.

This was the belfry, where the ringers came. He had
caught hold of one of the frayed ropes which hung down
through apertures in the oaken roof. At first he started,
thinking it was hair; then trembled at the very thought of
waking the deep Bell. The Bells themselves were higher.
Higher, Trotty, in his fascination, or in working out the spell
upon him, groped his way. By ladders now, and toilsomely,
for it was steep, and not too certain holding for the feet.

Up, up, up; and climb and clamber; up, up, up; higher,
higher, higher up !

Until, ascending through the floor, and pausing with his
head just raised above its beams, he came among the Bells.
It was barely possible to make out their great shapes in the
gloom ; but there they were. Shadowy, and dark, and dumb.

A heavy sense of dread and loneliness fell instantly upon
him, as he climbed into this airy nest of stone and metal.
His head went round and round. He listened, and then
raised a wild " Holloa!"

Holloa ! was mournfully protracted by the echoes.

Giddy, confused, and out of breath, and frightened, Toby
looked about him vacantly, and sunk down in a ssvoon.

UjLACK are the brooding
fjj clouds and troubled the
deep waters, when the Sea
of Thought, first heaving from
a calm, gives up its Dead.
Monsters uncouth and wild,
V ( ' I arise in premature, im-
Ss^l— 1 perfect resurrection ;
the several
parts and
shapes of dif
ferent 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.

THE SPIRITS OF THE BELLS. 155

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, u Break his slumbers ; " when and how
he ceased to have a sluggish and confused idea that such
things were, companioning a host of others that were not ;
there are no dates or means to tell. But, awake and stand
ing on his feet upon the boards where he had lately lain, he
saw this Goblin Sight.

He saw the tower, whither his charmed footsteps had
brought him, swarming with dwarf phantoms, spirits, elfin
creatures of the Bells. He saw them leaping, flying, dropping,
pouring from the Bells without a pause. He saw them,
round him on the ground ; above him, in the air ; clambering
from him, by the ropes below ; looking down upon him, from
the massive iron-girded beams ; peeping in upon him, through
the chinks and loopholes in the walls ; spreading away and
away from him in enlarging circles, as the water ripples give
way to a huge stone that suddenly comes plashing in among
them. He saw them, of all aspects and all shapes. He saw
them ugly, handsome, crippled, exquisitely formed. He saw
them young, he saw them old, he saw them kind, he
saw them cruel, he saw them merry, he saw them grim ;
he saw them dance, and heard them sing; he saw them tear
their hair, and heard them howl. He saw the air thick with
them. He saw them come and go, incessantly. He saw
them riding downward, soaring upward, sailing off afar,
perching near at hand, all restless and all violently active.
Stone, and brick, and slate, and tile, became transparent to
him as to them. He saw them in the houses, busy at the
sleepers' beds. He saw them soothing people in their dreams ;
he saw them beating them with knotted whips ; he saw them
yelling in their ears ; he saw them playing softest music on
their pillows; he saw them cheering some with the songs of

156 THE CHIMES.

birds and the perfume of flowers ; he saw them flashing awful
faces on the troubled rest of others, from enchanted mirrors
which they carried in their hands.

He saw these creatures, not only among sleeping men but
waking also, active in pursuits irreconcilable with one another,
and possessing or assuming natures the most opposite. He
saw one buckling on innumerable wings to increase his speed ;
another loading himself with chains and weights, to retard
his. He saw some putting the hands of clocks forward, some
putting the hands of clocks backward, some endeavouring
to stop the clock entirely. He saw them representing, here
a marriage ceremony, there a funeral ; in this chamber an
election, 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
company who had gambolled in the tower, remained there,
spinning over and over a little longer; but these became at
every turn more faint, and few, and feeble, and soon went
the way of the rest. The last of all was one small hunchback,
who had got into an echoing corner, where he twirled and
twirled, and floated by himself a long time; showing such
perseverance, that at last he dwindled to a leg and even to
a foot, before he finally retired ; but he vanished in the end,
and then the tower was silent.

Then and not before, did Trotty see in every Bell a

THOTTY SEIZED WITH FEAR. 157

bearded figure of the bulk and stature of the Bell — incom
prehensibly, a figure and the Bell itself. Gigantic, grave, and
darkly watchful of him, as he stood rooted to the ground.

Mysterious and awful figures ! Resting on nothing ; poised
in the night air of the tower, with their draped and hooded
heads merged in the dim roof; motionless and shadowy.
Shadowy and dark, although he saw them by some light
belonging to themselves — none else was there — each with its
muffled hand upon its goblin mouth.

He could not plunge down wildly through the opening in
the floor ; for all power of motion had deserted him. Other
wise he would have done so — aye, would have thrown him
self, headforemost, from the steeple-top, rather than have
seen them watching him with eyes that would have waked
and watched although the pupils had been taken out.

Again, again, the dread and terror of the lonely place,
and of the wild and fearful night that reigned there,
touched him like a spectral hand. His distance from all
help; the long, dark, winding, ghost- beleaguered way that
lay between him and the earth on which men lived ; his being
high, high, high, up there, where it had made him dizzy to
see the birds fly in the day; cut off from all good people,
who at such an hour were safe at home and sleeping in their
beds; all this struck coldly through him, not as a reflection
but a bodily sensation. Meantime his eyes and thoughts
and fears, were fixed upon the watchful figures ; which,
rendered unlike any figures of this world by the deep gloom
and shade enwrapping and enfolding them, as well as by
their looks and forms and supernatural hovering above the
floor, were nevertheless as plainly to be seen as were the
stalwart oaken frames, cross-pieces, bars and beams, set up
there to support the Bells. These hemmed them, in a very
forest of hewn timber; from the entanglements, intricacies,
and depths of which, as from among the boughs of a dead
wood blighted for their phantom use, they kept their dark
some and unwinking watch.

158 THE CHIMES.

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?"1" said the Bell.

" A thousand times ! " cried Trotty.

"How?"

"I am a poor man,'1'' faltered Trotty, "and could only
thank them in words.'1

"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 ;
for his greater worth, his greater happiness, his better life ;
his progress onward to that goal within its knowledge and
its view, and set there, in the period when Time and He
began. Ages of darkness, wickedness, and violence, have
come and gone — millions uncountable, have suffered, lived,
and died — to point the way before him. Who seeks to turn
him back, or stay him on his course, arrests a mighty engine
which will strike the meddler dead ; and be the fiercer and
the wilder, ever, for its momentary check ! "

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

WHAT THE BELLS SAID. 159

" Who puts into the mouth of Time, or of its servants,1"
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.r>

Trotty ss 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 knew," 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 ever 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
raised up higher than such maggots of the time can crawl or
can conceive,'" pursued the Goblin 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

160 THE CHIMES.

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 — grasp
ing 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 dearest to
your heart, how bad the bad" are born. See every bud and

THE CHANGES OF NINE YEARS. 161

leaf plucked one by one from off' the fairest stem, and know
how bare and wretched it may be. Follow her ! To despera
tion!"

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 stands 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 be
held his own form, lying at the bottom, on the outside :
crushed and motionless.

"No more a living man!"" cried Trotty. "Dead!"

" 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
pere.

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
inud, what are these?"

" Spirits of the Bells. Their sound upon the air," returned

M

162 THE CHIMES.

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
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 endear
ments 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 J
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 J
Meg.

LILIAN AND MEG. 163

"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, "hut 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
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, how
ever 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 ! "*

u 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 Bow ley, Friend and Father of the Poor, held a great
festivity at Bowley Hall, in honour of the natal day of Lady

164 THE CHIMES.

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
Rowley's destined figure in Creation), it was on a New Year's
Day that this festivity took place.

Bowley Hall was full of visitors. The red-faced gentleman
was there, Mr. Filer was there, the great Alderman Cute was
there — Alderman Cute had a sympathetic feeling with great
people, and had considerably improved his acquaintance with
Sir Joseph Bowley on the strength of his attentive letter:
indeed had become quite a friend of the family since then —
and many guests were there. Trotty's ghost was there,
wandering about, poor phantom, drearily ; and looking for
its guide.

There was to be a great dinner in the Great Hall. At
which Sir Joseph Bowley, in his celebrated character of
Friend and Father of the Poor, was to make his great speech.
Certain plum-puddings were to be eaten by his Friends and
Children in another Hall first ; and, at a given signal, Friends
and Children flocking in among their Friends and Fathers,
were to form a family assemblage, with not one manly eye
therein unmoistened by emotion.

But, there was more than this to happen. Even more
than this. Sir Joseph Bowley, Baronet and Member of
Parliament, was to play a match at skittles — real skittles —
with his tenants !

" 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,

WHERE IS RICHARD? 165

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, Til 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 ! AVhere 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, 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 occurred.

166 THE CHIMES.

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 office
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 Alderman,
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 respectable
man. One of the most respectable men I ever knew ! A
lamentable instance, Mr. Fish. A public calamity ! I shall
make a point of wearing the deepest mourning. A most re
spectable 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

NEW YEAR'S DAY AT BOWLEY HALL. 167

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 wicked
ness to raving heads and stricken hearts. What then ?

The words rose up in Trotty 's breast, as if they hail 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 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 every
body said that now, when a Baronet and the Son of a
Baronet played at skittles, the country was coming round
again, as fast as it could come.

At its proper time, the Banquet was served up. Trotty
involuntarily repaired to the Hall with the rest, for he felt
himself conducted thither by some stronger impulse than his
own free will. The sight was gay in the extreme ; the Ladies
were very handsome; the visitors delighted, cheerful, and
good-tempered. When the lower doors were opened, and
the people flocked in, in their rustic dresses, the beauty of
the spectacle was at its height ; but Trotty only murmured

168 THE CHIMES.

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 opposition, one man
broke through the rest, and stood forward by himself.

Not Richard. No. But one whom he had thought of, and
had looked for, many times. In a scantier supply of light,
he might have doubted the identity of that worn man, so
old, and grey, and bent ; but with a blaze of lamps upon his
gnarled and knotted head, he knew Will Fern as soon as he
stepped forth.

"What is this!'1 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 was miserably dressed — looked
round upon the company, and made his homage to them
with a humble bow.

" Gentlefolks ! " he said. " You've drunk the Labourer.
Look at me ! "

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

"Just come from jail," said Will. "And 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

WILL FERN'S COTTAGE.

169

see I'm at the worst. Beyond all hurt or harm ; beyond
your help ; for the time when your kind words or kind
actions could have done ME good," — 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 him would have
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

170 THE CHIMES.

raised it passionately, and seldom lifted it above the firm stem
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. Fm past it."

"I am glad this man has entered/1 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."

4 '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, gentle
men, it ain't quite nat'ral, but I say 'tis so; and from that
hour, whatever Will Fern does, or lets alone — all one — it
goes against him."

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

THE LABOURER RETURNS THANKS. 171

jail with him ! I has a nat'ral angry word with that man,
when Fin 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- working
for our lives ; give us 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
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 ! "

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

172

THE CHIMES.

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,

turned against
the wall,
history was

1 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

RICHARD AT LAST! 173

came at her door. She opened it. A man was on the
threshold. A slouching, moody, drunken sloven, wasted by
intemperance and vice, and with his matted hair and unshorn
beard in wild disorder; but, with some traces on him, too,
of having been a man of good proportion and good features
in his youth.

lie stopped until he had her leave to enter; and she,
retiring a pace or two from the open door, silently and
sorrowfully looked upon him. Trotty had his wish. He saw
Richard.

"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
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 degra
dation, of such abject hopelessness, of such a miserable down
fall, 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
i- vcn 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

174 THE CHIMES.

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. " O, 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,
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 ! O,
Lilian, my sweet girl ! O, Lilian, Lilian ! "

"I saw her," he went on to say, not answering, but

LILIAN'S GIFT TO MARGARET. 175

engaged 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 between
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. * O Richard, if you
ever did ; if you have any memory for what is gone and lost,
take it to her once more. Once more ! Tell her how I 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 every
thing, and take it back, and she will not refuse again. She
will not have the heart!'"'

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/'

" Good night ! "

176 THE CHIMES.

He turned to look upon her; struck by her sorrow, and
perhaps by the pity for himself which trembled in her voice.
It was a quick and rapid action ; and for the moment some
flash of his old bearing kindled in his form. In the next he
went as he had come. Nor did this glimmer of a quenched
fire seem to light him to a quicker sense of his debasement.

In any mood, in any grief, in any torture of the mind or
body, Meg's work must be done. She sat down to her task,
and plied it. Night, midnight. Still she worked.

She had a meagre fire, the night being very cold ; and rose
at intervals to mend it. The Chimes rang half-past twelve
while she was thus engaged ; and when they ceased she heard
a gentle knocking at the door. Before she could so much
as wonder who was there, at that unusual hour, it opened.

O Youth and Beauty, happy as ye should be, look at this.
O Youth and Beauty, blest and blessing all within your reach,
and working out the ends of your Beneficent Creator, look at
this!

She saw the entering figure ; screamed its name ; cried
" 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 ; never more ! 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 ;
press me to your bosom ; look kindly on me ; but don't raise

LILIAN DIES.

177

me. Let it be here. Let me see the last of your dear face
upon my knees ! "

O Youth and Beauty, happy as ye should be, look at
this ! O Youth and Beauty, working out the ends of your
Beneficent Creator, look at this !

" 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. O 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 awav.

OME 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 recol lection of
them lost itself in the confusion of
their numbers ; some hurried know
ledge, how
conveyed to
him he knew
not, that
more yei
had passed
and Trotty,
with th<
Spirit of tl
child attend
ing him, stood
looking on at mortal company.

Fat company, rosy-cheeked company, comfortable company.
They were but two, but they were red enough for ten. They

A COSY COUPLE. 179

sat before a bright fire, with a small low table between them;
and unless the fragrance of hot tea and muffins lingered
longer in that room than in most others, the table had seen
service very lately. But all the cups and saucers being clean,
and in their proper places in the corner-cupboard ; and the
brass toasting-fork hanging in its usual nook and spreading
its four idle fingers out as if it wanted to be measured for a
glove; there remained no other visible tokens of the meal
just finished, than such as purred and washed their whiskers
in the person of the basking cat, and glistened in the gracious,
not to say the greasy, faces of her patrons.

This cosy couple (married, evidently) had made a fair
division of the fire between them, and sat looking at the
glowing sparks that dropped into the grate ; now nodding oft*
into a doze ; now waking up again when some hot fragment,
larger than the rest, came rattling down, as if the fire were
coming with it.

It was in no danger of sudden extinction, however; for it
gleamed not only in the little room, and on the panes of
window-glass in the door, and on the curtain half drawn
across them, but in the little shop beyond. A little shop,
quite crammed and choked with the abundance of its stock ;
a perfectly voracious little shop, with a maw as accommodating
and full as any shark's. Cheese, butter, firewood, soap, pickles,
matches, bacon, table-beer, peg-tops, sweetmeats, boys1 kites,
bird-seed, cold ham, birch brooms, hearth-stones, salt, vinegar,
blacking, red -her rings, stationery, lard, mushroom-ketchup,
taylaces, loaves of bread, shuttlecocks, eggs, and slate pencil ;
everything was fish that came to the net of this greedy little
»hop, 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

180 THE CHIMES.

keeper of this little shop was a licensed dealer in tea, coffee,
tobacco, pepper, and snuff.

Glancing at such of these articles as were visible in the
shining of the blaze, and the less cheerful radiance of two
smoky lamps which burnt but dimly in the shop itself, as
though its plethora sat heavy on their lungs; and glancing,
then, at one of the two faces by the parlour-fire ; Trotty had
small difficulty in recognising in the stout old lady, Mrs.
Chickenstalker : always inclined to corpulency, even in the
days when he had known her as established in the general
line, and having a small balance against him in her books.

The features of her companion were less easy to him. The
great broad chin, with creases in it large enough to hide a
finger in ; the astonished eyes, that seemed to expostulate with
themselves for sinking deeper and deeper into the yielding-
fat of the soft face ; the nose afflicted with that disordered
action of its functions which is generally termed The Snuffles ;
the short thick throat and labouring chest, with other beauties
of the like description ; though calculated to impress the
memory, Trotty could at first allot to nobody he had ever
known : and yet he had some recollection of them too. At
length, in Mrs. Chickenstalker's partner in the general line,
and in the crooked and eccentric line of life, he recognised
the former porter of Sir Joseph Bowley ; an apoplectic- inno
cent, who had connected himself in Trotty 's mind with Mrs.
Chickenstalker years ago, by giving him admission to the
mansion where he had confessed his obligations to that lady,
and drawn on his unlucky head such grave reproach.

Trotty had little interest in a change like this, after the
changes he had seen; but association is very strong 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 th*
of old ; from which he argued that the porter was an advc
cate of ready-money transactions, and on coming into the

MR. AND MRS. TUGBY. 181

business had looked pretty sharp after the Chickenstalker
defaulters.

So desolate was Trotty, and so mournful for the youth and
promise of his blighted child, that it was a sorrow to him,
even to have no place in Mrs. Chickenstalker's ledger.

" 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 if s bad, and
I don't want to go out if it's good."11

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

" Fin glad to think we had muffins,11 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. Likewise crumpets.
Also Sally Limns."

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.

The firm was Tugby, late Chickenstalker.

"No," said Tugby. "No. Not particular. Fm 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?1"

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

182 THE CHIMES.

"Then don't be so again, thit's a dear good soul,1' 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! 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 live."

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

MR. TUGBVS BACK-AfttC GOING. 183

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
list 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 ! "

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

" In the workhouse," he returned. " What are workhouses
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, independent youth ; I
knew her as the sweetest-looking, sweetest- tempered girl, eyes
ever saw; I knew her father (poor old creetur, he fell down
from the steeple walking in his sleep, and killed himself), for
the simplest, hardest- working, childest-hearted man, that ever
drew the breath of life ; and when I turn them out of house
and home, may angels turn me out of Heaven. As they
would ! And serve me right ! "

Her old face, which had been a plump and dimpled one
before the changes which had come to pass, seemed to shine
out of her as she said these words ; and when she dried her

184 THE CHIMES.

eyes, and shook her head and her handkerchief at Tug-by,
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 perfect 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,"1 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

A SAD STORY. 185

have married him, sir, joyfully. I've seen her heart swell
many times afterwards, when he passed her in a proud and
careless way ; and never did a woman grieve more truly
for a man, than she for Richard when he first went wrong."

"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."

"Tin 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

186 THE CHIMES.

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
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 Mrs. 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 nine
teenth 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 ! "

" / 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

THE BACK- ATTIC GONE. 187

from the upper story of the house. The gentleman 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 !"

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!11 cried Trotty, holding up his folded hands.
" O, 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 / 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!"

188 THE CHIMES.

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
death ; the room left to herself and to the child ; he heard it
moan and cry ; he sa\v 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

LOVE AND FEAR. 189

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 u
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
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.1'1

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 lie, a moment. I won't
''hurt lier. It's long ago, but — What's her name?"

" Margaret," she answered, quickly.

190 THE CHIMES.

" Fin glad of that," he said. " Fin 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.1

" What have you done ? " she asked again.

" There'll be a Fire to-night," he said, removing from her.
"There'll be Fires this winter-time, to light the dark night*
East, West, North, and South. When you see the distanl
sky red, they'll be blazing. When you see the distant skj
red, think of me no more ; or, if you do, remember what
Hell was lighted up inside of me, and think you see its flame
reflected in the clouds. Good night. Good bye ! "

She called to him ; but he was gone. She sat down stu]
fied, until her infant roused her to a sense of hunger, cole
and darkness. She paced the room with it the livelong

A BLEAK NIGHT. 191

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 fiiul some means of life. It was the last
dav 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
tin- 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
pei-son it was not difficult — as to fill up the whole entry.

k- ( ) ! " 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 without
laving any rent? Don't you think that, without any money,
rou've been a pretty constant customer at this shop, now?"
said Mr. Tugby.

192 THE CHIMES.

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?11

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, 111 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 expressioi
mingling with her love, and kindling in her eyes. He heard
her say, "Like Lilian ! To be changed like Lilian !" and hei
speed redoubled.

O, for something to awaken her ! For any sight, or sou]

LOVE AND DESPERATION. 193

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 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
thu banks gleamed sullen, red, and dull, as torches that were
burning there, to show the way to Death. Where no abode
of living people cast its shadow, on the deep, impenetrable,
melancholy shade.

194 THE CHIMES.

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, j
going down to its dark level : but, the wild distempered
form, the fierce and terrible love, the desperation that had
left all human check or hold behind, swept by him like
the wind.

He followed her. She paused a moment on the brink,
before the dreadful plunge. He fell down on his knees, and
in a shriek addressed the figures in the Bells now hovering
above them.

" I have learnt it ! " cried the old man. " From the
creature dearest to my heart ! O, 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. " O, have mercy
on me in this hour, if, in my love for her, so voung 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. O, 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 ! v cried the old
man, singling out the child, and speaking in some inspiration,

RINGING IN THE NEW YEAR. 195

which their looks conveyed to him. " I know that our in
heritance is held in store for us by Time. I know there is
a sen. of Time to rise one day, before which all who wrong
us or oppress us will be swept away like leaves. I see it, on
the flow ! I know that we must trust and hope, and neither
doubt ourselves, nor doubt the good in one another. I have
learnt it from the creature dearest to my heart. I clasp her
in my arms again. O Spirits, merciful and good, I take
your lesson to my breast along with her! O Spirits, merciful
and good, I am grateful ! "

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 hnppily, so gaily, that he leapt upon his feet,
and broke the spell that bound him.

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

She was working with her needle, at the little table by the
fire ; dressing her simple gown with ribbons for her wedding.
So quietly happy, so blooming and youthful, so full of
beautiful promise, that he uttered a great cry as if it were
an Angel in his house; then flew to clasp her in his arms.

But, he caught his feet in the newspaper, which had fallen
>n the hearth; and somebody came rushing in between
them.

4 No ! " cried the voice of this same somebody ; a generous
and jolly voice it was ! " Not even you. Not even you.
Hie first kiss of Meg in the New Year is mine. Mine ! I
C been waiting outside the house, this hour, to hear the
Bells and claim it. Meg, my precious prize, a happy year !
V life of happy years, my darling wife!11

And Richard smothered her with kisses.

You never in all your life saw anything like Trotty after

196 THE CHIMES.

this. I don't care where you have lived or what you have
seen ; you never in all your life saw anything at all approaching
him ! He sat down in his chair and beat his knees and cried ;
he sat down in his chair and beat his knees and laughed ; he
sat down in his chair and beat his knees and laughed and
cried together ; he got out of his chair and hugged Meg ; he
got out of his chair and hugged Richard ; he got out of his
chair and hugged them both at once ; he kept running up
to Meg, and squeezing her fresh face between his hands am
kissing it, going from her backwards not to lose sight of ii
and running up again like a figure in a magic lantern ; ai
whatever he did, he was constantly sitting himself down ii
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 ! " cri(
Trotty. " Your real, happy wedding-day ! "

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

They WERE ringing ! Bless their sturdy hearts, thej
WERE ringing ! Great Bells as they were ; melodious, deep-
mouthed, noble Bells ; cast in no common metal ; made
no common founder; when had they ever chimed like thai
before !

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

" Because he's such a bad fellow, father," said Meg. " A n'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 !

TO BE MARRIED TO-MORROW. 197

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,
fat her. 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 ! O 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. "O, Uncle Will, the vision
that IVe had to-night, through lodging you ! O, Uncle
Will, the obligations 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 ! rt " 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
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

198 THE CHIMES.

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, " If 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 William 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 ex
changed some hurried words together; of which the upshot
was, that Mrs. Chickenstalker shook him by both hands;
saluted Trotty on his cheek again of her own free will ; and
took the child to her capacious breast.

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

THE NEW YEAR'S DANCE.

199

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

"O!" 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
rJVA were yet in lusty operation
out of doors; Trotty,
making Meg and
Richard. second
couple, led off
Mrs. Chicken -
stalker 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 ; him
self 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

200 THE CHIMES.

an end — endeavour to correct, improve, and soften them. So
may the New Year be a happy one to yon, 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

of |i?omc.

TO

LORD JEFFREY

THIS LITTLE STORY IS INSCRIBED,

WITH
THE AFFECTION AND ATTACHMENT OF HIS FRIEND,

THE AUTHOR.
December, 1845.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

FRONTISPIECE
TITLE .
CHIRP THE
THE CARRI;
JOHN'S ARI
JOHN AND ]
CHIRP THE
CALEB AT V
BOXER
TILLY SLOT*
MRS. FIELD
CHIRP THE
JOHN'S REV
THE DANCE

Engraver.

Artitt.

PAGE

!CS .

Thompson.

D. MACLISE, R.A.

.

0. Dalziel.

D. MACLISE, R.A.

FIRST

G. Dalzid.

R. DOYLE

207

:ER'S CART .

T. Williams.

C. STANFIELD, R. A.

212

RIVAL .

E. Dalziel.

J. LEECH

216

DOT .

Swain.

J. LEECH

235

SECOND .

E. Dalziel.

R. DOYLE

237

WORK

G. Dalziel.

J. LEECH

241

T Williams.

E. LANDSEER, R.A. .

253

VBOY .

Groves.

J. LEECH

257

DING'S LECTURE .

E. Dalzid.

J. LEECH

205

THIRD

T. Williams.

R. DOYLE

271

f ERIE .

Groves.

J. LEECH

275

t

Swain.

J. LEECH

304

THE

PICKET ON THE HEARTH

Don't tell me what

Peerybingle said. I know better. Mrs.
Peerybingle may leave it on record to the
end of time that she couldn't say which of
them began it; but, I say the kettle did.

I ought to know,
I hope! The ket
tle began it, full
five minutes by
the little waxy-
faced Dutch
clock in the cor
ner, before the
Cricket uttered
a chirp.

As if the clock
hadn't finished
striking, and the convulsive little Haymaker at the top of it,

208 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

jerking away right and left with a scythe in front of a ,
Moorish Palace, hadn't mowed down half an acre of imagi- 1
nary 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- j
ever. Nothing should induce me. But, this is a question of 1
fact. And the fact is, that the kettle began it, at least five i
minutes before the Cricket gave any sign of being in existence.
Contradict me, and Til 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 I
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 thej
Cricket. And this is what led to it, and how it came about.

Mrs. Peerybingle, going out into the raw twilight, and
clicking over the wet stones in a pair of pattens that worked
innumerable rough impressions of the first proposition in
Euclid all about the yard — Mrs. Peerybingle filled the kettle
at the water-butt. Presently returning, less the pattens (and
a good deal less, for they were tall and Mrs. Peerybingle was
but short), she set the kettle on the fire. In doing which she
lost her temper, or mislaid it for an instant ; for, the water
being uncomfortably cold, and in that slippy, slushy, sleety
sort of state wherein it seems to penetrate through every kind
of substance, patten rings included — had laid hold of Mi
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,
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

OBSTINACY OF THE KETTLE. 209

wouldn't hear of accommodating itself kindly to the knobs
of coal ; it ivoukl lean forward with a drunken air, and dribble,
a very Idiot of a kettle, on the hearth. It was quarrelsome,
and hissed and spluttered morosely at the fire. To sum up
all, the lid, resisting Mrs. Peerybingle's fingers, first of all
turned topsy-turvy, and then, with an ingenious pertinacity
deserving of a better cause, dived sideways in — down to the
very bottom of the kettle. And the hull of the Royal George
has never made half the monstrous resistance to coming out
of the water, which the lid of that kettle employed against
Mrs. Peerybingle, before she got it up again.

It looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even then ; carry
ing its handle with an air of defiance, and cocking its spout
ptTtlv and mockingly at Mre. 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 uprose
and fell, flashing and gleaming on the little Haymaker at
the top of the Dutch clock, until one might have thought
he stood stock still before the Moorish Palace, and nothing
was in motion but the flame.

He was on the move, however; and had his spasms, two
to the second, all right and regular. But, his sufferings
when the clock was going to strike, were frightful to behold ;
and, when a Cuckoo looked out of a trap-door in the Palace,
and gave note six times, it shook him, each time, like a
sped ml voice — or like a something wiry, plucking at his legs.

It was not until a violent commotion and a whirring noise
among the weights and ropes below him had quite subsided,
that this terrified Haymaker became himself again. Nor was
he startled without reason ; for these rattling, bony skeletons
of clocks are very disconcerting in their operation, and I
kvonder 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

p

210 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

clothing for their own lower selves ; and they might know
better than to leave their clocks so very lank and unprotected,
surely.

Now it was, you observe, that the kettle began to spend the
evening. Now it was, that the kettle, growing mellow and
musical, began to have irrepressible gurglings in its throat,
and to indulge in short vocal snorts, which it checked in the
bud, as if it hadn't quite made up its mind yet, to be good
company. Now it was, that after two or three such vain
attempts to stifle its convivial sentiments, it threw off' all
moroseness, all reserve, and burst into a stream of song so
cosy and hilarious, as never maudlin nightingale yet formed
the least idea of.

So plain too ! Bless you, you might have understood it
like a book — better than some books you and I could name,
perhaps. With its warm breath gushing forth in a light
cloud which merrily and gracefully ascended a few feet, then
hung about the chimney-corner as its own domestic Heaven,
it trolled its song with that strong energy of cheerfulness,
that its iron body hummed and stirred upon the fire ; and
the lid itself, the recently rebellious lid — such is the influence
of a bright example — performed a sort of jig, and clattered
like a deaf and dumb young cymbal that had never known
the use of its twin brother.

That this song of the kettle's was a song of invitation
and welcome to somebody out of doors : to somebody at that
moment coming on, towards the snug small home and the
crisp fire: there is no doubt whatever. Mrs. Peerybingle
knew it, perfectly, as she sat musing before the hearth. It's
a dark night, sang the kettle, and the rotten leaves are lying
by the way ; and, above, all is mist and darkness, and, below,
all is mire and clay ; and there's only one relief in all the sad
and murky air; and I don't know that it is one, for it's
nothing but a glare ; of deep and angry crimson, where the
sun and wind together; set a brand upon the clouds for
being guilty of such weather; and the widest open country

THE CRICKET TAKES FIRST FIDDLE. 211

is a long dull streak of black ; and there's hoar-frost on the
finger-post, and thaw upon the track; and the ice it isn't
water, and the water isn't free; and you couldn't say that
anything is what it ought to be ; but he's coming, coming,
coming!

And here, if you like, the Cricket DID chime in ! with a
Chirrup, Chirrup, Chirrup of such magnitude, by way of
chorus; with a voice so astoundingly disproportionate to its
size, as compared with the kettle ; (size ! you couldn't see it !)
that if it had then and there burst itself like an overcharged
gun, if it had fallen a victim on the spot, and chirruped its
little body into fifty pieces, it would have seemed a natural
and inevitable consequence, for which it had expressly
laboured.

The kettle had had the last of its solo performance. It
persevered with undiminished ardour; but the Cricket took
first fiddle and kept it. Good Heaven, how it chirped ! Its
shrill, sharp, piercing voice resounded through the house, and
seemed to twinkle in the outer darkness like a star. There
Was an indescribable little trill and tremble in it, at its
loudest, which suggested its being carried off its legs, and
made to leap again, by its own intense enthusiasm. Yet
tliry went very well together, the Cricket and the kettle.
Die 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
iomething of what is called the dumpling shape ; but I don't
nyself object to that — lighted a candle, glanced at the Hay
maker on the top of the clock, who was getting in a pretty
iverage crop of minutes; and looked out of the window,
pvhere she saw nothing, owing to the darkness, but her own
'ace imaged in the glass. And my opinion is (and so would
ours have been), that she might have looked a long way,
ml seen nothing half so agreeable. When she came back,
-nd sat down in her former seat, the Cricket and the kettle
vcre still keeping it up, with a perfect fury of competition.

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

The kettle's weak side clearly being, that he didn't know
when he was beat.

There was all the excitement of a race about it. Chirp,
chirp, chirp ! Cricket a mile ahead. Hum, hum, hum— m — m !

Kettle making
play in the dis
tance, like a
great top.
Chirp, chirp,
chirp ! Cricket
round the cor
ner. Hum, hum,
hum — m — m !
Kettle sticking
to him in his
own way ; no

idea of giving in. Chirp, chirp,
chirp ! Cricket fresher than ever.)
Hum, hum, hum — m — m ! Kettle
slow and steady. Chirp, chirp,
chirp ! Cricket going in to finish
him. Hum, hum, hum — m — m
Kettle not to be finished. Until
at last they got so jumbled
gether, in the hurry-skurry, helter-
ykelter, 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, f
and by some power of amalgamation best known to themselves,
sent, each, his fireside song of comfort streaming into a ray

ish
n !
itil

:

icr

WELCOME HOME! 213

[>f the candle that shone out through the window, and a long
ivay 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
borne, my boy ! "

This end attained, the kettle, being dead beat, boiled over,
and was taken off the fire. Mi-s. Peerybingle then went run
ning 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 appear-
Mice of a baby, there was soon the very What's-his-namc
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

e unrolled a shawl from about his throat; and warmed

is hands; "it — it an't exactly summer weather. So, no

|nder.T>
" I wish you wouldn't call me Dot, John. I don't like it,"

aid Mrs. Peerybingle : pouting in a way that clearly showed

he did like it, very much.
" Why what else are you?'1 returned John, looking down

ipon her with a smile, and giving her waist as light a squeeze

214 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

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 way — and we
can bear to have them talking prose, and leading lives of
prose ; and bear to bless thee for their company !

It was pleasant to see Dot, with her little figure, and her
baby in her arms : a very doll of a baby : glancing with a
coquettish thought fulness at the fire, and inclining her deli
cate 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 adapt his rude support to her slight need, and make
his burly middle-age a leaning-staff not inappropriate to her
blooming youth. It was pleasant to observe how Tilly Slow-
boy, 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 h
thrust forward, taking it in as if it were air. Nor was it 1
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.

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

THE CARRIER AND HIS WIFE. 215

" 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 how
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 oft* 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. Pccrybingle,
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 ! "

216

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

Not at all disputing this position, John went out to see
that the boy with the lantern, which had been dancing to
and fro before the door and window, like a Will of the Wisp,
took due care of the horse ; who was fatter
than you would quite believe, if
I gave you his measure, and so
old that his birthday was lost
in the mists of antiquity.
Boxer, feeling that his atten
tions were due to the family
in general, and must be im
partially distributed, dashed
in and out with bewildering
inconstancy;
now, describ
ing 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 him
self 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 noise to her countenance ;
now, exhibiting an obtrusive interest in the baby ; now, going

MISS TILLY SLOWBOY. 217

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 appoint
ment, and was off, at a round trot, to keep it.

" There ! There's the teapot, ready on the hob ! " 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 sliding off those sharp pegs, her
shoulders, on which they were loosely hung. Her costume
was remarkable for the partial development, on all possible
occasions, of some flannel vestment of a singular structure ;
also for affording glimpses, in the region of the back, of a
corset, or pair of stays, in colour a dead-green. Being always
in a state of gaping admiration at everything, and absorbed,
besides, in the perpetual contemplation of her mistress's 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
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,

218 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

a foundling ; which word, though only differing from fondling
by one vowel's length, is very different in meaning, and ex
presses quite another thing.

To have seen little Mi's. Peerybingle come back with her
husband, tugging at the clothes-basket, and making the
most strenuous exertions to do nothing at all (for he carried
it), would have amused you almost as much as it amused
him. It may have entertained the Cricket too, for anything
I know ; but, certainly, it now began to chirp again,
vehemently.

" 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 his head, that she was his Cricket in chief, and
he quite agreed with her. But, it was probably one of his
narrow escapes, for he said nothing.

" 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 ? "

O 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 haye ever been, I am sure, the best, the most considerate.

THE CRICKETS MERRY CHIRP. 219

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.11

" I love it for the many times I have heard it, and the
many thoughts its harmless music has given me. Sometimes,
in the twilight, when I have felt a little solitary and down
hearted, John — before baby was here to keep me company
and make the house gay — when I have thought how lonely
you would be if I should die; how lonely I should be if I
could know that you had lost me, dear; its Chirp, Chirp^
Chirp upon the hearth, has seemed to tell me of another
little voice, so sweet, so very dear to me, before whose coming
sound my trouble vanished like a dream. And when I used
to fear — I did fear once, John, I was very young you know —
that ours might prove to be an ill-assorted marriage, I being
such a child, and you more like my guardian than my hus
band ; and that you might not, however hard you tried, be
able to learn to love me, as you hoped and prayed you might ;
its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp has cheered me up again, and filled
me with new trust and confidence. I was thinking of
these things to-night, dear, when I sat expecting you ; and
I love the Cricket for their sake ! "

I " 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 IMJ the
Cricket's little 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 de
livering, I dare say, as you came along ? "

220 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

" Oh yes,11 John said. " A good many.*1

" 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-
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 trying
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 delectation
of the baby, with all the sense struck out of them, and all
the nouns changed into the plural number, inquired aloud of
that young creature, Was it Gruffs and Tackletons the toy-
makers 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

GRUFF AND TACKLETON. 221

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-humoured ly, 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, and
flatly contradicted him), awoke no smile in the face of his
little wife, who stood among the parcels, pushing the cake-
box slowly from her with her foot, and never once looked,
though her eyes were cast down too, upon the dainty shoe
she generally was so mindful of. Absorbed in thought, she
stood there, heedless alike of the tea and John (although he
called to her, and rapped the table with his knife to startle
her), until he rose and touched her on the arm ; when she
looked at him for a moment, and hurried to her place behind
the teaboard, laughing at her negligence. But, not as she
had laughed before. The manner and the music were quite
changed.

The Cricket, too, had stopped. Somehow the room was
not so cheerful as it had been. Nothing like it.

"So, these are all the parcels, are they, John?11 she said,
breaking a long silence, which the honest Carrier had devoted
to the practical illustration of one part of his favourite senti
ment — certainly enjoying what he ate, if it couldn't be ad
mitted that he ate but little. t{So these are all the parcels ;
are they, John ? "

"That's all," said John. "Why— no—I—11 laying down
his knife and fork, and taking a long breath. " I declare —
FVL» clean forgotten the old gentleman ! "

" The old gentleman ? "

" In the cart,11 said John. " He was asleep, among the

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

straw, the last time I saw him. I've very nearly remembered
him, twice, since I came in ; but, he went out of my head
again. Holloa ! Yahip there ! Rouse up ! That's my
hearty ! "

John said these latter words outside the door, whither he
had hurried with the candle in his hand.

Miss Slow boy, 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,
was so disturbed, that hastily rising from the low chair by
the fire to seek protection near the skirts of her mistress,
and coming into contact as she crossed the doorway with an
ancient Stranger, she instinctively made a charge or butt at
him with the only offensive instrument within her reach.
This instrument happening to be the baby, great commotion
and alarm ensued, which the sagacity of Boxer rather tended
to increase; for, that good dog, more thoughtful than its
master, had, it seemed, been watching the old gentleman in
his sleep, lest he should walk off with a few young poplar
trees that were tied up behind the cart ; and he still attended
on him very closely, worrying his gaiters in fact, and making
dead sets at the buttons.

" 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

THE DEAF STRANGER. 223

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 hy 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,1 he said ; and gave me eightcenpencc. 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.

" W ife," roared John.

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

He quietly turned over, and resumed his reading. Hut,
l>cfore lie could have read two lines, he again interrupted
himself to say :

" Baby, yours ? "

John gave him a gigantic IKK! ; equivalent to an answer in
the affirmative, delivered through a speaking trumpet.
\f "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

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

fine-ly ! Considered, by the doctor, a remarkably beautiful
chi-ild ! Equal to the general run of children at five months
o-old ! Takes notice, in a way quite won-der-ful ! May seem
impossible to you, but feels his legs al-ready ! "

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,11 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, Unbeknown !
How's Baby, Mum? Boxer's pretty well I hope?"

" 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.

CALEB PLUMMER. 225

"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 the distraught
air of a man who was casting about for the Philosopher'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 tho
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, carefullv 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."

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

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

"'For Caleb Plummer,1" 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 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

Q.

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

for my daughter's \vorL 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 I 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
tail, 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 Nattir' 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, post
poning his study from the life to a more convenient seasoi
shouldered the round box, and took a hurried leave. He
might have spared himself the trouble, for he met the visitor
upon the threshold.

" Oh ! Yrou are here, are you ? Wait a bit. I'll take y<
home, John Peerybingle, my service to you. More of mj

as
st-
>n,
le

TACKLETON'S TOYS. 227

service tor your pretty wife. Handsomer every day ! Better
too, if possible ! And younger," mused the speaker, in a
low voice; "thafs 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 l>een quite misunderstood by his Parents
and Guardians. If they had made him a Money Lender, or
a sharp Attorney, or a Sheriffs 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
dialing 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 insinuate grim expressions into the faces of brown-
paper farmers who drove pigs to market, bellmen who
advertised lost lawyers'* consciences, movable old ladies who
darned stockings or carved pies; and other like samples of
his stock in trade. In appalling masks; hideous, hairy, red-
eyed Jacks in Boxes ; Vampire Kites ; demoniacal Tumblers
who wouldn't lie down, and were perpetually flying forward,
to stare infants out of countenance; his soul perfectly
revelled. They were his only relief, and safety-valve. He
was great in such inventions. Anything suggestive of a

228 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

Pony-nightmare, was delicious to him. He had even lost
money (and he took to that toy very kindly) by getting up
Goblin slides for magic-lanterns, whereon the Powers of
Darkness were depicted as a sort of supernatural shell-fish,
with human faces. In intensifying the portraiture of Giants,
he had sunk quite a little capital ; and, though no painter
himself, he could indicate, for the instruction of his artists,
with a piece of chalk, a certain furtive leer for the counte
nances 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 the chin an uncommonly
pleasant fellow ; r.nd 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, Tackleton, the toy-merchant, was going to be
married. In spite of all this, he was going to be married.
And to a young wife too, a beautiful young wife.

He didn't look much like a bridegroom, as he stood in the
Carrier's kitchen, with a twist in his dry face, and a screw
in his body, and his hat jerked over the bridge of his nose,
and his hands tucked down into the bottoms of his pockets,
and his whole sarcastic ill-conditioned self peering out of one
little corner of one little eye, like the concentrated essence
of any number of 'ravens. But, a Bridegroom he designed
to be.

" In three days'1 time. Next Thursday. The last day of
the first month in the year. Thafs 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.

IN THE SAME BOAT.

u 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, nudging
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.

"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 Tackleton. "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 —

" Xo, we don't know better," interposed John. " What
are you talking about?"

"Well! We dorit know better, then," said Tackleton.
M \\V11 agree that we don't. As you like ; what does it
matter? I was going to say, as you have that sort of
appearance, your company will produce a favourable effect
on Mrs. Tackleton that will be. And, though I don't think

230 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

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"1!!
come ? "

"We have arranged to keep our Wedding-Day (as far as
that goes) at home,1' 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 ? / would ! I
always 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 woman is determined to clinch, 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.

DOT ASTONISHES THE CARRIER. 231

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 Tackle ton : holding up the
fingers of his left hand, and tapping the forefinger, to imply
" there I am, Tacklcton 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. " Fin 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 watch
ing 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.
Tin 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
sionately. "Tin oft'. 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. Fll 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 CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

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.

" Fin 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."

"Tin 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 ? "

" 1 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.

"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

THE STRANGER ASKS FOR SHELTER. 235

what a firebox for a gentleman's mantel-shelf, just as he
stands !w

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

"Oh quite gone! Quite gone!" said the little woman,
waving him hurriedly away. "Good night!1'

" 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 weather worse
than ever, eh ? Good night ! "

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,r> 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
im- 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 Fm 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 !
Fll make him up a bed, directly, John/'

234 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

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

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 adminis
tering 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
Tackleton had said, with the unusual conduct of his wife, but
the two subjects of reflection came into his mind together,
and he could not keep them asunder.

The bed was soon made ready ; and the visitor, declining all
refreshment but a cup of tea, retired. Then, Dot — quite well
again, she said, quite well again — arranged the great chair in
the chimney-corner for her husband ; filled his pipe and gave it
him ; and took her usual little stool beside him on the hearth.

She always would sit on that little stool. I think she must
have had a kind of notion that it was a coaxing, wheedling,
little stool.

JOHN AND DOT.

235

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 tele
scope, with a
most provok
ing twist in
her capital
little face, as
she looked
down it, was
quite a bril
liant thing.
As to the
tobacco, she
was perfect
mistress of
the subject ;
and her light
ing of the
pipe, with a
wisp of paper,

when the Carrier had it in his mouth — going so very near
his nose, and yet not scorching it — was Art, high Art.

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,

236 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

and as the Dutch clock ticked, and as the red fire gleamed,
and as the Cricket chirped ; that Genius of his Hearth and
Home (for such the Cricket was) came out, in fairy shape, into
the room, and summoned many forms of Home about him.
Dots of all ages, and all sizes, filled the chamber. Dots who
were merry children, running on before him gathering flowers,
in the fields ; coy Dots, half shrinking from, half yielding to,
the pleading of his own rough image; newly-married Dots,
alighting at the door, and taking wondering possession of the
household keys ; motherly little Dots, attended by fictitious
Slowboys, bearing babies to be christened ; matronly Dots,
still young and blooming, watching Dots of daughters, as
they danced at rustic balls ; fat Dots, encircled and beset by
troops of rosy 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 church
yard. 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 ! "

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

ALEB PLUMMER

and his Blind Daugh-
tcr lived all alone by
themselves, as the
Storv-books sav— and

my blessing, with
yours to back it
I hope, on the
Story-books, for
saying anything
in this workaday
world ! — Caleb
Plummer and his
Blind Daughter
lived all alone
by themselves, in
a little cracked
nutshell of a
wooden house,
which was, in
truth, no better
than a pimple
on the prominent
red-brick nose of Gruff and Tackleton. The premises of Gruff
and Tackleton were the great feature of the street ; but you
might have knocked down Caleb Plummets dwelling with a
hammer or two, and earned off the pieces in a cart.

238 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

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 lived
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 mouldering 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, withering away.
The Blind Girl never knew that ugly shapes of delf and
earthenware were on the board ; that sorrow and fainthearted
ness 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 Avas the
Guardian Angel of their lives, disdained to hear one word
of thankfulness.

And all was Caleb's doing; all the doing of her simple

CALEB AND HIS BLIND DAUGHTER. 239

father ! But he too hat! a Cricket on his Hearth ; and
listening sadly to its music when the motherless Blind Child
was very young, that Spirit had inspired him with the
thought that even her great deprivation might be almost
changed into a blessing, and the girl made happy by these
little means. For all the Cricket tribe are potent Spirits,
even though the people who hold converse with them do not
know it (which is frequently the case) ; and there are not in
the unseen world, voices more gentle and more true, that
may be so implicitly relied on, or that are so certain to give
none but tenderest counsel, as the Voices in which the Spirits
of the Fireside and the Hearth address themselves to human
kind.

Caleb and his daughter were at work together in their usual
\\orking-room, which served them for their ordinary living-
room as well ; and a strange place it was. There were houses
in it, finished and unfinished, for Dolls of all stations in life.
Suburban tenements for Dolls of moderate means; kitchens
and single apartments for Dolls of the lower classes ; capital
town residences for Dolls of high estate. Some of these 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-
sti-.'ids, 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 fro ward
and perverse ; for, they, not resting on such arbitrary marks
as satin, cotton-print, and bits of rag, had superadded striking
personal differences which allowed of no mistake. Thus, the
Doll-lady of distinction had wax limbs of perfect symmetry;
but, only she and her compeers. The next grade in the

240 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

social scale being made of leather, and the next of coarse linen
stuff*. As to the common-people, they had just so many
matches out of tinder-boxes, for their arms and legs, and
there they were — established in their sphere at once, beyond
the possibility of getting out of it.

There were various other samples of his handicraft, besides
Dolls, in Caleb Plummets room. There were Noah's Arks, in
which the Birds and Beasts were an uncommonly tight fit, I
assure you ; though they could be crammed in, anyhow, at
the roof, and rattled and shaken into the smallest compass.
By a bold poetical licence, most of these Noah's Arks had
knockers on the doors ; inconsistent appendages, perhaps, as
suggestive of morning callers and a Postman, yet a pleasant
finish to the outside of the building. There were scores of
melancholy little carts which, when the wheels went round,
performed most doleful music. Many small fiddles, drums,
and other instruments of torture ; no end of cannon, shields,
swords, spears, and guns. There were little tumblers in red
breeches, incessantly swarming up high obstacles of red-tape,
and coming down, head first, 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,
every breed, from the spotted barrel on four pegs, witl
a small tippet for a mane, to the thoroughbred rockei
on his highest mettle. As it would have been hard to
count the dozens upon dozens of grotesque figures that wei
ever ready to commit all sorts of absurdities on the turning
of a handle, so it would have been no easy task to mention
any human folly, vice, or weakness, that had not its type,
immediate or remote, in Caleb Plummer's room. And not
in an exaggerated form, for very little handles will move
men and women to as strange performances, as any Toy was
ever made to undertake.

In the midst of all these objects, Caleb and his daughter

'

CALEB AT WORK.

241

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 Calebs face, and his
absorbed and dreamy manner, which
would have sat well on some alchemist
or abstruse student, were at
first sight an odd contrast
to his occupation, and the
trivialities about him. But,
trivial things, invented and
pursued for
bread, become
very serious
matters of
fact ; and,
apart from
this conside
ration, I am
not at all pre
pared to say,
myself, that
if Caleb had
been a Lord
Chamberlai n ,
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, glancing

244 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

" 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,'1 grumbled Tackleton. "What about the owl
that can't sing, and oughtn't to sing, and will sing; is there
anything that lie should be made to do ? "

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

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

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

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

" Well ! and being there, — how are you ? " 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
moment in her own two hands; and laid her cheek agaii
it tenderly, before releasing it. There was such unspeal
able affection and such fervent gratitude in the act,
Tackleton himself was moved to say, in a milder growl thi
usual :

"What's the matter now?"

"I stood it close beside my pillow when I went to sl(
last night, and remembered it in my dreams. And when

CALEB'S INN7OCENT DECEPTION. 245

the day broke, and the glorious red sun — the red sun,
father?"

44 Red in the mornings and the evenings, Bertha," said poor
Caleb, with a woeful glance at his employer.

44 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 ! "

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

Caleb, with his hands hooked loosely in each other, stared
vacantly before him while his daughter spoke, as if he really
were uncertain (I believe he was) whether Tackleton had done
anything to deserve her thanks, or not. If he could have
been a perfectly free agent, at that moment, required, on
pain of death, to kick the Toy-merchant, or fall at his feet,
according to his merits, I believe it would have been an even
chance which course he would have taken. Yet, Caleb knew
that with his own hands he had brought the little rose-tree
home for her, so carefully, and that with his own lips he had
forged the innocent deception which should help to keep her
from suspecting how much, how very much, he every day
denied himself, that she might be the happier.

44 Bertha ! " said Tackleton, assuming, for the nonce, a little
cordiality. " Cume here.""

4k Oh ! I can come straight to you ! You needn't guide
me ! " she rejoined.

*4 Shall I tell you a secret, Bertha?"

44 If you will ! " she answered, eagerly.

How bright the darkened face ! How adorned with light,
the listening head !

44 This is the day on which little whatVher-name, the
spoilt child, Peerybingle's wife, pays her regular visit to
you— makes her fantastic Pic-Nic here ; an't it ? " said

244 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

" I can't afford to sing," said Tackleton. " I'm glad yon
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 lie should be made to do ? "

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

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

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

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

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

" Oh ! well ; quite well. And as happy as even you
wish me to be. As happy as you would make the whol
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 th
usual :

" What's the matter now ? "

"I stood it close beside my pillow when I went to slee
last night, and remembered it in my dreams. And when

CALEB'S INNOCENT DECEPTION. 245

the day broke, and the glorious red sun — the red sun,
father?"

" Red in the mornings and the evenings, Bertha," said poor
Caleb, 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.
" AVe shall arrive at the strait- waistcoat and mufflers soon.
WeVe getting on ! "

Caleb, with his hands hooked loosely in each other, stared
vacantly before him while his daughter spoke, as if he really
were uncertain (I believe he was) whether Tackleton had done
anything to deserve her thanks, or not. If he could have
been a perfectly free agent, at that moment, required, on
pain of death, to kick the Toy-merchant, or fall at his feet,
according to his merits, I believe it would have been an even
chance which course he would have taken. Yet, Caleb knew
that with his own hands he had brought the little rose-tree
home for her, so carefully, and that with his own lips he had
forged the innocent deception which should help to keep her
from suspecting how much, how very much, he every day
denied himself, that she might be the happier.

" Bertha ! v said Tackleton, assuming, for the nonce, a little
cordiality. " Came 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 adorned with light,
the listening head !

"This is the day on which little whatVher-name, the
spoilt child, Peerybingle's wife, pays her regular visit to
you— makes her fantastic Fic-Nic here ; an't it ? " said

246 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

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, IVe no doubt."

" You see I — I want to bring the Peerybingles a little
more into company with May Fielding," said Tackleton. " 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 torn-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
something or other, before the afternoon. A cold leg of
mutton, or some comfortable trifle of that sort. You'll
expect nie ? "

"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 ! "

A CHECK UPON BERTHA'S GAIETY. 247

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

" She never forgets," returned Caleb. " It's one of the few
tilings 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 be
wailing some remembrance or some loss ; but, her sorrowful
reflections found no vent in words.

It was not until Caleb had been occupied, some time, in
yoking a team of horses to a waggon by the summary 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 :

"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, where 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

248 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

as when you wear the handsome coat ? " said Bertha, touch
ing him.

" Not quite so gallant," answered Caleb. " Pretty brisk
though/1

"rather," 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?11

" She is indeed,"11 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,11 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,11 said
Caleb. " And her eyes I—11

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?11 she said,
hastily.

" Of course not,"1 answered Caleb, " and with reason.11

" Ah ! With how much reason ! " cried the Blind Girl.
With such fervency, that Caleb, though his motives were so
pure, could not endure to meet her face; but dropped his
eyes, as if she could have read in them his innocent deceit.

" Then, tell me again about him, dear father,11 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.11

" And makes it noble ! " added Caleb, in his quiet
desperation.

GETTING THE BABY UNDER WEIGH. 249

"And makes it noble !" cried the Blind Girl. "He is
older than May, father."11

« Ye-es," said Caleb, 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
friend in suffering and sorrow ; to know no weariness in
working for his sake ; to watch him, tend him, sit beside his
bed and talk to him awake, and pray for him asleep ; what
privileges these would be ! What opportunities for proving
all her truth and devotion to him ! Would she do all this,
dear father?"

" 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
le simmered (so to speak) between two blankets for the best
part of an hour. From this state of inaction he was then
•(•called, 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
igain. Mrs. Peerybingle took advantage of this interval, to

250 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

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 alive again, was invested, by the united efforts of
Mrs. Peerybingle and Miss Slowboy, with a cream-coloured
mantle for its body, and a sort of nankeen raised-pie for its
head ; and so in course of time they all three got down to the
door, where the old horse had already taken more than the full
value of his day's toll out of the Turnpike Trust, by tearing
up the road with his impatient autographs ; and whence Boxer
might be dimly seen in the remote perspective, standing look
ing 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 i 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 ungenteel, 111
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."

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

CONCERNING THE OLD GENTLEMAN. 251

" 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
bilk about honouring me. Good Gracious!"

"By the bye—" observed the Carrier. "That old gentle
man— "

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't it ? Things come about
so strangely."

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

252 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

" However, he's a good-natured old gentleman,1' said John,
"and pays as a gentleman, and I think his word is to he
relied upon, like a gentleman's. I had quite a long talk with
him this morning : he can hear me better already, he says, as
he gets more used to my voice. He told me a great deal
about himself, and I told him a great deal about myself,
and a rare lot of questions he asked me. I gave him informa
tion 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,1 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

BOXER. 253

could have done ! Everybody knew him, all along the road
— especially the fowls and pigs, who when they saw him
approaching, with his body all on one side, and his ears
pricked up inquisitively, and that knob of a tail making the
most of itself in the air, immediately withdrew into remote
back settlements, without waiting for the honour of a nearer
acquaintance. He had business everywhere ; going down all
the turnings, looking into all the wells, bolting in and out
of all the cottages, dashing into the midst of all the Dame-
Schools, fluttering all the pigeons, magnifying the tails of all
the cats, and trotting into the public-houses like a regular
customer. Wherever he went, somebody or other might
have been heard to cry, " Halloa ! Here's Boxer ! " and out
came that some
body forthwith,
accompanied by
at least two or
three other some
bodies, to give
John Peerybingle
and his pretty
wife, Good Day.
^ The packages
and parcels for the errand cart, were numerous; and there
were many stoppages to take them in and give them out,
which were not by any means the worst parts of the journey.
Some people were so full of expectation about their parcels,
and other people were so full of wonder about their parcels,
and other people were so full of inexhaustible directions about
their parcels, and John had such a lively interest in all the
parcels, that it was as good as a play. Likewise, there were
articles to carry, which required to be considered and dis
cussed, and in reference to the adjustment and disposition
of which, councils had to be holden by the Carrier and the
M -nders; at which Boxer usually assisted, in short fits of the
closest attention, and long fits of tearing round and round

254 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

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 whisper
ings and envyings among the younger men. And this de
lighted John the Carrier, beyond measure ; for he was proud
to have his little wife admired, knowing that she didn't mind
it — that, if anything, she rather liked it perhaps.

The trip was a little foggy, to be sure, in the January
weather ; and was raw and cold. But who cared for such
trifles ? Not Dot, decidedly. Not Tilly Slowboy, for she
deemed sitting in a cart, on any terms, to be the highest
point of human joys ; the crowning circumstance of earthly
hopes. Not the Baby, 111 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 in the shade, near hedges and by trees, was a
pleasant occupation : to make no mention of the unexpected
shapes in which the trees themselves came starting out of
the mist, and glided into it again. The hedges were tangled
and bare, and waved a multitude of blighted garlands in the
wind ; but, there was no discouragement in this. It was
agreeable to contemplate ; for, it made the fireside warmer
in possession, and the summer greener in expectancy. The
river looked chilly ; but it was in motion, and moving at a
good pace — which was a great point. The canal was rather
slow and torpid ; that must be admitted. Never mind. It
would freeze the sooner when the frost set fairly in, and then
there would be skating, and sliding ; and the heavy old

MAY FIELDING. 255

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 blind dogs, I don't
know. He had never lived with a blind master; nor had
Mr. Boxer the elder, nor Mrs. Boxer, nor any of his re
spectable family on either side, ever been visited with blind
ness, 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 Slow-
boy, and the basket, were all got safely within doors.

May Fielding was already come ; and so was her mother
— a little querulous chip of an old lady with a peevish face,
who, in right of having preserved a waist like a bedpost, was
supposed to be a most transcendent figure ; and who, in con-
sec juence of having once been better oft', or of labouring under
an impression that she might have been, if something had
! happened which never did happen, and seemed to have never
I been particularly likely to come to pass— but it's all the

256 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

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 un
questionably 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 deer. When the repast was set forth on the
board, flanked by Caleb's contribution, which was a great
wooden bowl of smoking potatoes (he was prohibited, by
solemn compact, from producing any other viands), Tackleton
led his intended mother-in-law to the post of honour. For
the better gracing of this place at the high festival, the
majestic old soul had adorned herself with a cap, calculated
to inspire the thoughtless with sentiments of awe. She also
wore her gloves. But let us be genteel, or die !

THE PIC-NIC.

257

Caleb sat next his daughter; Dot and her eld schoolfellow
were side by side ; the good Carrier took care of the bottom
of the table. Miss Slowboy was isolated, for the time being,
from every article of furniture but the chair she sat on, that
she might have nothing else to knock the Baby's head against.

As Tilly stared about her
at the dolls and toys, they
stared at her and at the
company. The venerable old
gentlemen at the street doors
(who were all in full action)
showed especial interest in
the party, pausing occasion
ally before leaping, as if they
were listening to the conver
sation, and then plunging
wildly over and over, a great
many times, without halting for breath — as in a frantic state
of delight with the whole proceedings.

Certainly, if these old gentlemen were inclined to have a
fiendish joy in the contemplation of Tackleton's discomfiture,
they had good reason to be satisfied. Tackleton couldn't get
on at all ; and the more cheerful his intended bride became
in Dot's society, the less he liked it, though he had brought
them together for that purpose. For he was a regular dog
in the manger, was Tackleton ; and when they laughed and
he couldn't, he took it into his head, immediately, that they
must be laughing at him.

"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.

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

"Forty," John replied.

258 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

" How many yoiill add to May's, I am sure I don't know,11
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."

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 I'm
sure; I never so much as thought of him. And if I had told
you, you were ever to be married to Mr. Tackleton, why you'd
have slapped me. Wouldn't you, May ? "

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.i
John Peerybingle laughed too, in his ordinary good-natured
and contented manner; but his was a mere whisper of
laugh, to Tackleton's.

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

"Some of them are dead," said Dot; "and some of the
forgotten. Some of them, if they could stand among us a
this moment, would not believe we were the same creatures
would not believe that what they saw and heard was re
and we could forget them so. No ! they would not believ
one word of it ! "

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

MRS. FIELDING INTERPOSES. 259

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,
a dutiful and obedient child ; for which she took no credit
to herself, though she had every reason to believe it was
entirely owing to herself. With regard to Mr. Tackleton
she said, That he was in a moral point of view an undeniable
individual, and That he was in an eligible point of view a
son-in-law to be desired, no one in their senses could doubt.
(She was very emphatic here.) With regard to the family
into which he was so soon about, after some solicitation, to
be admitted, she believed Mr. Tackleton knew that, although
reduced in purse, it had some pretensions to gentility ; and
if certain circumstances, not wholly unconnected, she would
go so far as to say, with the Indigo Trade, but to which she
would not more particularly refer, had happened differently,
it might perhaps have been in possession of wealth. She
then remarked that she would not allude to the past, and
would not mention that her daughter had for some time re
jected the suit of Mr. Tackleton ; and that she would not say
a great many other things which she did say, at great length.

260 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

Finally, she delivered it as the general result of her observa
tion and experience, that those marriages in which there was
least of what was romantically and sillily called love, were
always the happiest ; and that she anticipated the greatest
possible amount of bliss — not rapturous bliss ; but the solid,
steady-going article — from the approaching nuptials. She
concluded by informing the company that to-morrow was the
day she had lived for, expressly ; and that when it was over,
she would desire nothing better than to be packed up and
disposed of, in any genteel place of burial.

As these remarks were quite unanswerable — which is the
happy property of all remarks that are sufficiently wide of
the purpose — they changed the current of the conversation,
and diverted the general attention to the Veal and Ham-Pie,
the cold mutton, the potatoes, and the tart. In order that
the bottled beer might not be slighted, John Peerybingle
proposed To-morrow: the Wedding-Day; and called upon
them to drink a bumper to it, before he proceeded on his
journey.

For you ought to know that he only rested there, and
gave the old horse a bait. He had to go some four or five
miles farther on ; and when he returned in the evening, he
called for Dot, and took another rest on his way home.
This was the order of the day on all the Pic-Nic occasions,
had been, ever since their institution.

There were two persons present, besides the bride and
bridegroom elect, who did but indifferent honour to the
toast. One of these was Dot, too flushed and discomposed
to adapt herself to any small occurrence of the moment ; the
other, Bertha, who rose up hurriedly, before the rest, and
left the table.

" 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

DOT FORGETS THE PIPE. 261

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 bve ! Time will come, I suppose, when yoi£\\ turn
out into the cold, my little friend, and leave your old father
to enjoy his pipe and his rheumatics in the chimney-corner ;
eh? Where's Dot?"

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

" Come, come ! " returned the Carrier, clapping his sound
ing 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 !

"Til— 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 have 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, for it can hardly be said to have ever met another eye ;
rather being a kind of trap to snatch it up — augmented her
confusion in a most remarkable degree.

" 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

262 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

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

BERTHA'S SORROW. 263

" 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

264 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

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,
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 Tin as
wrong as can be. Won't you, Mrs. Fielding ? "

Not even the Welsh 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

MRS. FIELDING'S LECTURE.

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 irre
sistible, that after a short affectation
of humility, she began to
enlighten her with the best
grace in the world ; and
sitting bolt upright be
fore the wicked Dot, she
did, in half an hour,
deliver more in
fallible domestic
recipes and pre
cepts, than would
(if acted 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
little needlework
— she carried the
contents of a
whole workbox

in her pocket; however 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

266 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

of the Pic-Nic that she should perform all Bertha's house
hold 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 estab
lished hour for having tea; and Tackleton came back again,
to share the meal, and spend the evening.

Caleb and Bertha had returned some time before, and Caleb
had sat down to his afternoon's work. But he couldn't settle
to it, poor fellow, being anxious and remorseful for his
daughter. It was touching to see him sitting idle on his
working-stool, regarding her so wistfully, and always saying
in his face, "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 other step," said Bertha, " The man's tread behind
you ! "

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

THE CARRIER IN HIGH SPIRITS. 267

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-corner,
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, encircling
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 like him for it!"

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

"A better subject!" cried the jovial John. "There's no
thing. Come, off with the great-coat, off with the thick
1, off with the heavy wrappers ! and a cosy half-hour by

268 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

the fire ! My humble service, Mistress. A game at cribbage,
you and I ? That's hearty. The cards and board, Dot. And
a glass of beer here, if there's any left, small wife ! "

His challenge was addressed to the old lady, who accepting
it with gracious readiness, they were soon engaged upon the
game. At first, the Carrier looked about him sometimes,
with a smile, or now and then called Dot to peep over his
shoulder at his hand, and advise him on some knotty point.
But his adversary being a rigid disciplinarian, and subject to
an occasional weakness in respect of pegging more than she
was entitled to, required such vigilance on his part, as left
him neither eyes nor ears to spare. Thus, his whole attention
gradually became absorbed upon the cards ; and he thought
of nothing else, until a hand upon his shoulder restored him
to a consciousness of Tackleton.

"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 ! Til 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

TACKLETON SHOWS THE CARRIER A SIGHT.

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.M

The Carrier looked him in the face, and recoiled a step as
if he had been struck. In one stride he was at the window,
and he saw —

Oh Shadow on the Hearth ! Oh truthful Cricket ! Oh
perfidious Wife !

He saw her, with the old man — old no longer, but erect
and gallant — bearing in his hand the false white hair that
had won his way into their desolate and miserable home.
He saw her listening to him, as he bent his head to whisper
in her ear ; and suffering him to clasp her round the waist,
as they moved slowly down the dim wooden gallery towards
the door by which they had entered it. He saw them stop,
and saw her turn — to have the face, the face he loved so, so
presented to his view ! — and saw her, with her own hands,
adjust the lie upon his head, laughing, as she did it, at his
unsuspicious nature !

He clenched his strong right hand at first, as if it would
have beaten down a lion. But opening it immediately again,
he spread it out before the eyes of Tackleton (for he was
tender of her, even then), and so, as they passed out, fell
down upon a desk, and was as weak as any infant.

He was wrapped up to the chin, and busy with his horse
and parcels, when she came into the room, prepared for going
home.

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

Could she kiss them? Could she be blithe and cheerful
in her parting? Could she venture to reveal her face to
them without a blush ? Yes. Tackleton observed her closely,
and she did all this.

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

" Did the knowledge that it was to be its wifes, then, wring

270

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

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.
Tackleton. Where's John, for goodness1 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 nun
being in their places, the old horse moved off. Boxer, th<
unconscious Boxer, running on before, running back, running
round and round the cart, and barking as triumphantly
merrily as ever.

When Tackleton had gone off likewise, escorting May anc
her mother home, poor Caleb sat down by the fire besi(
his daughter; anxious and remorseful at the core; and still
saying in his wistful contemplation of her, "Have I decer
her from her cradle, but to break her heart at last ! "

The toys that had been set in motion for the Baby, h*
all stopped, and run down, long ago. In the faint light ai
silence, the imperturbably calm dolls, the agitated rocking-
horses with distended eyes and nostrils, the old gentlemen at
the street-doors, standing half doubled up upon their failing
knees and ankles, the wry-faced nut-crackers, the very Beasi
upon their way into the Ark, in twos, like a Boarding Sclu
out walking, might have been imagined to be stricken motion
less with fantastic wonder, at Dot being false, or Tack let
beloved, under any combination of circumstances.

HE Dutch clock in the
comer struck Ten, when
the Carrier sat down by
his fireside. So troubled
and grief-worn, that he
seemed to scare the Cuckoo, v
who, having cut his
ten melodious

announcs- Ml^M^n^S?^ ments as short as

possible, plunged
back into the
Moorish Palace
again, and clap
ped 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

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

held together by innumerable threads of winning
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
hearth, now cold and dark, other and fiercer thoughts begai
to rise within him, as an angry wind comes rising in tl
night. The Stranger was beneath his outraged roof. Thi
steps would take him to his chamber-door. One blow woulc
beat it in. " You might do murder before you know it,'
Tackleton had said. How could it be murder, if he gave
villain time to grapple with him hand to hand ! He w*
the younger man.

It was an ill-timed thought, bad for the dark mood of hi*
mind. It was an angry thought, goading him to soi
avenging act, that should change the cheerful house in1
a haunted place which lonely travellers would dread to
by night ; and where the timid would see shadows struggling
in the ruined windows when the moon was dim, and h<
wild noises in the stormy weather.

He was the younger man ! Yes, yes ; some lover who
won the heart that he had never touched. Some lover
her early choice, of whom she had thought and dreamed, fc
whom she had pined and pined, when he had fancied her
happy by his side. O agony to think of it !

She had been above-stairs with the Baby, getting it
bed. As he sat brooding on the hearth, she came cl(
beside him, without his knowledge — in the turning of
rack of his great misery, he lost all other sounds — and pul
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 fa

With wonder ? No. It was his first impression, and
was fain to look at her again, to set it right. No, not wil

TERRIBLE THOUGHTS. 273

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
ing him how desolate he was become, and how the great
bond of his life was rent asunder.

The more he felt this, and the more he knew he could
have better borne to see her lying prematurely dead before
him with their little child upon her breast, the higher and
the stronger rose his wrath against his enemy. He looked
about him for a weapon.

There was a gun, hanging on the wall. He took it down,
and moved a pace or two towards the door of the perfidious
Stranger's room. He knew the gun was loaded. Some
shadowy idea that it was just to shoot this man like a wild
beast, seized him, and dilated in his mind until it grew
into a monstrous demon in complete possession of him, cast
ing 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 ;

274 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

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 lifted in the air; some indistinct design was
in his thoughts of calling out to him to fly, for God's sake,
by the window —

When, suddenly, the struggling fire illumined the whole
chimney with a glow of light ; and the Cricket on the Hearth
began to Chirp !

No sound he could have heard, no human voice, not even
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— O what a voice it was, for making household
music at the fireside of an honest man ! — thrilled through
and through his better nature, and awoke it into life and
action.

He recoiled from the door, like a man walking in his sleep,
awakened from a frightful dream ; and put the gun aside.
Clasping his hands before his face, he then sat down again
beside the fire, and found relief in tears.

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

"'I love it,1" 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.111

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

" ' This has been a happy home, John ; and I love the
Cricket for its sake!11'

" It has been, Heaven knows,11 returned the Carrier. " She
made it happy, always, — until now.11

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

" Otherwise I never could have loved her as I did,11 returned
the Carrier.

JOHN'S REVERIE.

275

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 brightened,"
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
II chimney has gone upward with a better fragrance than the

276 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

richest incense that is burnt before the richest shrines in all
the gaudy temples of this world ! — Upon your own hearth ;
in its quiet sanctuary ; surrounded by its gentle influences
and associations ; hear her ! Hear me ! Hear everything
that speaks the language of your hearth and home ! "

" 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 pre
senting them before him, as in a glass or picture. It was
not a solitary Presence. From the hearthstone, from the
chimney, from the clock, the pipe, the kettle, and the cradle;
from the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and the stairs ; from
the cart without, and the cupboard within, and the house
hold implements ; from every thing and every place with
which she had ever been familiar, and with which she had
ever entwined one recollection of herself in her unhappy
husband's mind ; Fairies came trooping forth. Not to stand
beside him as the Cricket did, but to busy and bestir them
selves. 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 know
ledge 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 sayy
" Is this the light wife you are mourning for ! "

THE HOUSEHOLD SPIRITS. 277

There were sounds of gaiety outside, musical instruments,
and noisy tongues, and laughter. A crowd of young merry
makers came pouring in, among whom were May Fielding
and a score of pretty girls. Dot was the fairest of them all ;
as young as any of them too. They came to summon her
to join their party. It was a dance. If ever little foot were
made for dancing, hers was, surely. But she laughed, and
shook her head, and pointed to her cookery on the fire,
and her table ready spread : with an exulting defiance that
rendered her more charming than she was before. And so
she merrily dismissed them, nodding to her would-be partners,
one by one, as they passed, but with a comical indifference,
enough to make them go and drown themselves immediately
if they were her admirers — and they must have been so, more
or less ; they couldn't help it. And yet indifference was not
her character. O no ! For presently, there came a certain
Carrier to the door; and bless her what a welcome she
bestowed upon him !

Again the staring figures turned upon him all at once, and
seemed to say, " 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

278 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

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 annihila
tion ; and being so, what Dot was there for them, but the
one active, beaming, pleasant little creature who had been the
light and sun of the Carrier's Home !

The Fairies were prodigiously excited when they showed her,
with the Baby, gossiping among a knot of sage old matrons,
and affecting to be wondrous old and matronly herself, and
leaning in a staid, demure old way upon her husband's arm,
attempting — she ! such a bud of a little woman — to convey the
idea of having abjured the vanities of the world in general,
and of being the sort of person to whom it was no novelty
at all to be a mother; yet in the same breath, they showed
her, laughing at the Carrier for being awkward, and pulling
up his shirt-collar to make him smart, and mincing merrily
about that very room to teach him how to dance !

They turned, and stared immensely at him when they
showed her with the Blind Girl; for, though she carried
cheerfulness and animation with her wheresoever she went, she
bore those influences into Caleb Hummer's home, heaped up
and running over. The Blind Girl's love for her, and trust
in her, and gratitude to her; her own good busy way of
setting Bertha's thanks aside; her dexterous little arts for
filling up each moment of the visit in doing something
useful to the house, and really working hard while feigning
to make holiday ; her bountiful provision of those standing
delicacies, the Veal and Ham-Pie and the bottles of Beer ; her
radiant little face arriving at the door, and taking leave ; the
wonderful expression in her whole self, from her neat foot to

TACKLETON'S WEDDING-DAY. 279

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 thought
ful night, they showed her to him sitting on her favourite
seat, with her bent head, her hands clasped on her brow, her
falling hair. As he had seen her last. And when they found
her thus, they neither turned nor looked upon him, but
gathered close round her, and comforted and kissed her, and
pressed on one another to show sympathy and kindness to
her, and forgot him altogether.

Thus the night passed. The moon went down ; the stars
grew pale ; the cold day broke ; the sun rose. The Carrier
still sat, musing, in the chimney corner. He had sat there,
with his head upon his hands, all night. All night the
faithful Cricket had been Chirp, Chirp, Chirping on the
Hearth. All night he had listened to its voice. All night
the household Fairies had been busy with him. All night
she had been amiable and blameless in the glass, except
when that one shadow fell upon it.

He rose up when it was broad day, and washed and dressed
himself. He couldn't go about his customary cheerful
avocations — he wanted spirit for them — but it mattered the
less, that it was Tackleton's wedding-day, and he had arranged
to make his rounds by proxy. He thought to have gone
merrily to church with Dot. But such plans were at an end.
It was their own wedding-day too. Ah ! how little he had
looked for such a close to such a year !

The Carrier had expected that Tackleton would pay him
an early visit; and he was right. He had not walked to
and fro before his own door, many minutes, when he saw
the Toy-merchant coming in his chaise along the road. As

280 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

the chaise drew nearer, he perceived that Tackleton was
dressed out sprucely for his marriage, and that he had
decorated his horsed 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 night, 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 stable, 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 very red eyes (for Tilly had been crying
all night long, because her mistress cried) was at the keyhole ;
and she was knocking very loud ; and seemed frightened.

"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."

The Carrier, who had turned his face from the door, signed
to him to go if he would.

DISAPPEARANCE OF THE STRANGER. 281

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. Td 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,v 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,'1 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

282 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

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
I love" — his voice, and eye, and hand, grew steadier and
firmer as he repeated these words : evidently in pursuance of
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 dwelling
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 compare with, who never could have loved my
little Dot like 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 ! " said Tackleton, with a significant shake of the
head.

"I had studied myself; I had had experience of myself;

THE CARRIER'S RESOLVE. 283

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, frivolity, 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 ! "

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 little star that ever shone, to shut her
up from day to day in my dull house, and keep my tedious
company? Did I consider how little suited I was to her
sprightly humour, and how wearisome a plodding man like
me must be, to one of her quick spirit ? Did I consider that
it was no merit in me, or claim in me, that I loved her,
when everybody must, who knew her ? Never. I took
advantage of her hopeful nature and her cheerful disposition ;
I married her. I wish I never had ! For her sake ; not
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

284 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

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
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

DOT HAS OVERHEARD THE CARRIER. 285

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"11 — 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.
I can trust her, there, or anywhere. She leaves me without

ime, 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

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

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.11

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

" Oh quite ! "

" 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.11

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

" I wish I could give it to you? 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 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

CALEB AND HIS DAUGHTER. 287

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,'1''
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 everybody,
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 (probably convul
sions), if her eyes had not encountered Caleb Plummer, leading
in his daughter. This spectacle restoring her to a sense of
the proprieties, she stood for some few moments silent, with
her mouth wide open ; and then, posting off to the bed on
which the Baby lay asleep, danced in a weird, Saint Vitus
manner on the floor, and at the same time rummaged with
her face and head among the bedclothes, apparently deriving
much relief from those extraordinary operations.

" 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, " / 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 ! "

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.

288 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

" She was afraid, I know, to hear the bells ring, and couldn't
trust herself to be so near them on their wedding-day. So
we started in good time, and came here. I have been thinking
of what I have done," 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 word 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?"

CALEB'S CONFESSION. 289

"I have wandered from the truth and lost myself, my
child,'1 said Caleb, with a pitiable expression in his bewildered
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
blind daughter, hear me and forgive me ! The world you
live in, heart of mine, doesn't exist as I have represented
it. The eyes you have trusted in, have been false to you."

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 con
cealments 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 — "

u()h 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 stern, sordid, grinding man. A hard master to you

u

290 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

and me, my dear, for many years. Ugly in his looks, and in
his nature. Cold and callous always. Unlike what I have
painted him to you in everything, my child. In everything."1

" 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
Death, and tear away the objects of my love ! O Heaven,
how blind I am ! How helpless and alone ! "

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

NOT BLIND ANY LONGER. i>91

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
his face resting on his hand. As if his child should comfort
him, 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 seen 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 herself
upon her knees before him, took the grey head to her breast.

44 It is my sight restored. It is my sight ! " she cried.
44 1 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
givver, 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 ! "

292 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

"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,'1 said
poor Caleb. " He's gone ! "

" Nothing is gone,11 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 little Haymaker in the Moorish meadow, she saw
that the clock was within a few minutes of striking, and fell,
immediately, into a nervous and excited state.

" 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 ? "

WHOSE STEP WAS IT?

'^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.'1'1

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
man rushed into the room, and flinging away his hat into the
air, came sweeping down upon them.

"Is it over?'1 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.

"lie 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

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

own clear 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?11

" 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.
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 voti will hear me now."

A SURPRISE FOR THE CARRIER. 295

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 leturned
it. I have ever since believed she did, and now I am sure
she did."*

" Heaven help me ! ** said the Carrier. " This is worse
thin all."1

"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 bestowed
herself upon another and a richer man. I had no mind to
reproach her; but I wished to see her, and to prove beyond
dispute that this was true. I hoped she might have been
forced into it, against her own desire and recollection. It
would be small comfort, but it would l>e some, I thought,
and on I came. That I might have the truth, the real
truth; observing freely for myself, and judging for myself,
without obstruction on the one hand, or presenting my own
influence (if I had any) before her, on the other; I dressed
myself unlike myself — you know how ; and waited on the road
— you know where. You had no suspicion of me; neither
had — had she,** pointing to Dot, "until I whispered in her
ear at that fireside, and she so nearly l>ctrayed me.*"

" Rut 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 — being
n. clumsy man in general,** said Dot, half laughing and half

296 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

crying — " to keep it for him. And when she — that's me, John,"
sobbed the little woman — " told him all, and how his sweet
heart had believed him to be dead ; and how she had at last
been over-persuaded by her mother into a marriage which the
silly, dear old thing called advantageous ; and when she —
that's me again, John — told him they were not yet married
(though close upon it), and that it would be nothing but a
sacrifice if it went on, for there was no love on her side ; and
when he went nearly mad with joy to hear it ; then she— -
that's me again — said she would go between them, as she had
often done before in old times, John, and would sound his
sweetheart and be sure that what she — me again, John — said
and thought was right. And it WAS right, John ! And they
were brought together, John ! And they were married, John,
an hour ago ! And here's the Bride ! And Gruff* and Tackle-
ton 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

DOT TELLS ALL. 097

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 sail about this intended marriage, dear, it
was because I remembered May and Edward such young
lovers; and knew that her heart was far away from Tackleton.
You believe that, now. Don't you, John?"

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.'1

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 talk
ing 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)

298 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

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
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 was heard again outside the
door ; and somebody exclaimed that Gruff' and Tackleton was
coming back. Speedily that worthy gentleman appeared, look
ing warm and flustered.

"Why, what the Devil's this, John Peerybingle ! " 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 !

MRS. EDWARD PLUMMER. 299

" I am sorry, sir," said Edward, holding out May's left hand,
and especially the third finger; "that the young laxly can't
accompany you to church ; but as she has been there once,
this morning, perhaps you'll excuse her."

Tacklcton 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
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 Peerybingle, 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 off
too: merely stopping at the door, to take the flowers and
favours from his horse's head, and to kick that animal once,
in the ribs, as a means of informing him that there was a
screw loose in his arrangements.

Of course it lx?came a serious duty now, to make such a

300 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

day of it, as should mark these events for a high Eeast 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
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

DOT'S FATHER AND MOTHER. 301

foreseen that she would be exposed, during her whole life, to
every species of insult and contumely ; and that she was glad
to find it was the case ; and begged they wouldn't trouble
themselves about her, — for what was she ? oh, dear ! a nobody !
— but would forget that such a being lived, and would take
their course in life without her. From this bitterly sarcastic
mood, she passed into an angry one, in which she gave vent
to the remarkable expression that the worm would turn if
trodden on ; and, after that, she yielded to a soft regret, and
said, if they had only given her their confidence, what might
she not have had it in her power to suggest ! Taking advan
tage of this crisis in her feelings, the Expedition embraced
her ; and she very soon had her gloves on, and was on her way
to John Peerybingle's in a state of unimpeachable gentility ;
with a paper parcel at her side containing a cap of state,
almost as tall, and quite as stiff', as a mitre.

Then, there were Dot's father and mother to come, in another
little chaise ; and they were behind their time ; and fears were
entertained ; and there was much looking out for them down
the road ; and Mrs. Fielding always would look in the wrong
and morally impossible direction ; and being apprised thereof,
hoped she might take the liberty of looking where she pleased.
At last they came : a chubby little couple, jogging along in
a snug and comfortable little way that quite belonged to the
Dot family ; and Dot and her mother, side by side, were
wonderful to see. They were so like each other.

Then, Dot's mother had to renew her acquaintance with
May's mother; and May's mother always stood on her gen
tility ; and Dot's mother never stood on anything but her
active little feet. And old Dot — so to call Dot's father,
I forgot it wasn't his right name, but never mind — took
liberties, and shook hands at first sight, and seemed to think
a cap but so much starch and muslin, and didn't defer himself
at all to the Indigo Trade, but said there was no help for
it now ; and, in Mrs. Fielding's summing up, was a good-
natured kind of man — but coarse, my dear.

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

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 eups 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 Fin 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.11

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 acclama
tion ; and the cake was cut by May, with much ceremony
and rejoicing.

I don't think any one had tasted it, when there came
another tap at the door, and the same man appeared again,
having under his arm a vast brown-paper parcel.

44 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

MK. TACKLKTON IN A M'AV ASPECT. 303

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.
" Fin sorry. I'm more sorry than I was this morning. I
have had time to think of it. John Peerybingle ! I'm sour
hv 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 endeavours
to squeeze his head into a narrow pitcher. He had gone
with the cart to its journey's end, very much disgusted with
the absence of his master, and stupendously rebellious to
the Deputy. After lingering about the stable for some
little time, vainly attempting to incite the old horse to the
mutinous act of returning on his own account, he had
walked into the tap-room and laid himself down before
the fire. But suddenly yielding to the conviction that the

304 THE CRICKET OX THE HEARTH.

Iteputr was a humbug, and most be abandoned, he had got
up again, turned tail, and come home.

There tra* a dance in the evening. With which general

mention of that I
recreation. I
should have left
it alone, if I'
had not some
reason to sup- *
' pose that itJ
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 be 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
|L up from his seat
r. and propose a*
dance ; for
Hcrtha's harp
was there, and
nhe had .such a
hand upon it
as you seldom

lii-itr. Dot (sly lillle piece of nfUrhtl ion when she chose)
h/iid her dancing days were over; / think because the Carrier
WUH nmoking his pipe, and she liked silting by him, best

THE DANCE. 805

Mrs. Fielding had no choice, of course, but to say her dancing
davs 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 liveliest tune.

Well ! if you'll believe me, they have not been dancing five
minutes, when suddenly the Carrier flings his pipe away, takes
Dot round the waist, dashes out into the room, and starts
off' with her, toe and heel, quite wonderfully. Tackleton no
sooner sees this, than he skims across to Mrs. Fielding, takes
her round the waist, and follows suit. Old Dot no sooner
sees this, than up he is, all alive, whisks off' Mrs. Dot in the
middle of the dance, and is the foremost there. Caleb no
sooner sees this, than he clutches Tilly Slowboy by both hands
and goes off' at score ; Miss Slowboy, firm in the belief that
diving hotly in among the other couples, and effecting any
number of concussions with them, is your only principle of
footing it.

Hark! how the Cricket joins the music with its Chirp,
Chirp, Chirp; and how the kettle hums !

*******

But what is this ! Even an 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
childVtoy lies upon the ground ; and nothing <'lse ronmins.

THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

Uobc

•

IS COKDLUXY

ILLUSTRATIONS.

TITLE
PART i
WAR
PEACE

Engraver,

Artitt.

FACE

PIECE.

Tiiompson.

D. MACLLSE, R.A.

Thompson.

D. MACLISE, R. A.

IE FIRST .

Dalziel.

R. DOYLE

313

Williams.

C. STANFIELD, R.A.

314

Williams.

C. STANFIELD, R.A.

315

MING BREAKFAST

Dalzid.

J. LEECH

327

IE SECOND.

Green.

R. DOYLE

341

Y AND CRAGGS .

Dalziel.

J. LEECH

344

JRET INTER VIEW.

Williams.

D. MACLISE, R.A. .

365

3HT OF THE RETURN.

Dalziel.

J. LEECH

374

[E THIRD .

Dalziel

R. DOYLE

379

TMEG-GRATER .

Williams.

C. STANFIELD, R.A.

381

TERS ....

Williams.

D. MACLISE, R.A. .

408

THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

NCE upon a time, it matters
little when, and in stalwart
England, it matters little where,
a fierce battle was fought. It

314

THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

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 deli
cate colour from
harmless leaves
and herbs, was
stained anew
that day by
dying men, and
marked its
frightened way
with an un
natural track.
The painted
butterfly took
blood into the
air upon the
edges of its
wings. The

stream ran red. The trodden ground
became a quagmire, whence, from sullen
pools collected in the prints of human
feet and horses' hoofs, the one prevail
ing hue still lowered and glimmered at
the sun.

Heaven keep us from a knowledge of
the sights the moon beheld upon that
field, when, coming up above the black
line of distant rising-ground, softened and blurred at the edge
by trees, she rose into the sky and looked upon the plain,
strewn with upturned faces that had once at mothers' breasts
sought mothers'* eyes, or slumbered happily. Heaven keep us
from a knowledge of the secrets whispered afterwards upon the

THE OLD BATTLE-GROUND.

315

tainted wind that bleu- across the scene of that day's work
and that night's death and suffering ! Many a lonely moon
was bright upon the battle-ground, and many a star kept
mournful watch upon it, and many a wind from every

quarter of the
earth blew over
it, before the
traces of the
fight were worn
away.

They lurked
and lingered for
a long time, but
survived in little
things ; for,
Nature, far
above the evil
passions of men,
soon recovered

Her serenity, and smiled upon
the guilty battle-ground as she
had done before, when it was
innocent. The larks sang high
above it ; the swallows skimmed
and dipped and flitted to and
fro ; the shadows of the flying
> clouds pursued each other swiftly, over
grass and corn and turnip-field and
wood, and over roof and church-spire
in the nestling town among the trees, away
H1t° the bright distance on the borders of
the sky and earth, where the red sunsets
faded. Crop were sown, and grew up, and were gathered
in ; the stream that had been crimsoned, turned a water-
null ; men whistled at the plough; gleaners and haymakers
were seen in quiet groups at work ; sheep and oxen pastured ;

316 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

boys whooped and called, in fields, to scare away the birds ;
smoke rose from cottage chimneys ; sabbath bells rang peace
fully; 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 growing there,
were still believed to leave too deep a stain upon the hand
that plucked them.

The Seasons in their course, however, though they passed as
lightly as the summer clouds themselves, obliterated, in the
lapse of time, even these remains of the old conflict ; and
wore away such legendary traces of it as the neighbouring
people carried in their minds, until they dwindled into old
wives1 tales, dimly remembered round the winter fire, and
waning every year. Where the wild flowers and berries had
so long remained upon the stem untouched, gardens arose,
and houses were built, and children played at battles on the
turf. The wounded trees had long ago made Christmas iogs,

AN OLD STONE HOUSE. 317

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 f-oldiers would have stared in, hundreds deep, at
household door and window ; and would have risen on the
hearths of quiet homes ; and would have been the garnered
store of barns and granaries ; and would have started up
between the cradled infant and its nurse ; and would have
floated with the stream, and whirled round on the mill, and
crowded the orchard, and burdened the meadow, and piled
the rickyard high with dying men. So altered was the
battle-ground, where thousands upon thousands had been
killed in the great fight.

Nowhere more altered, perhaps, about a hundred years
ago, than in one little orchard attached to an old stone
house with a honeysuckle porch ; where, on a bright autumn
morning, there were sounds of music and laughter, and where
two girls danced merrily together on the grass, while some
half-dozen peasant women standing on ladders, gathering the
apples from the trees, stopped in their work to look down,
and share their enjoyment. It was a pleasant, lively, natural
scene ; a beautiful day, a retired spot ; and the two girls,
quite unconstrained and careless, danced in the freedom and
gaiety of their hearts.

If there were no such thing as display in the world, my
private opinion is, and I hope you agree with me, that we
might get on a great deal better than we do, and might

318 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

be infinitely more agreeable company than we are. It was
charming to see how these girls danced. They had no
spectators but the apple-pickers on the ladders. They were
very glad to please them, but they danced to please them
selves (or at least you would have supposed so) ; nnd you
could no more help admiring, than they could help dancing.
How they did dance !

Not like opera-dancers. Not at all. And not like Madame
Anybody's finished pupils. Not the least. It was not
quadrille dancing, nor minuet dancing, nor even country-dance
dancing. It was neither in the old style, nor the new style,
nor the French style, nor the English style : though it may
have been, by accident, a trifle in the Spanish style, which is
a free and joyous one, I am told, deriving a delightful air of
off-hand inspiration, from the chirping little castanets. As
they danced among the orchard trees, and down the groves
of stems and back again, and twirled each other lightly round
and round, the influence of their airy motion seemed to
spread and spread, in the sun-lighted scene, like an expand
ing 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

DR. JEDDLER AND HIS TWO DAUGHTERS. 319

murmur of applause, and then, in keeping with the sound,
bestirred themselves to work again like bees.

The more actively, perhaps, because an elderly gentleman,
who was no other than Doctor Jeddler himself — it was Doctor
Jeddler's house and orchard, you should know, and these were
Doctor Jeddler's daughters — came bustling out to see what
was the matter, and who the deuce played music on his
property, before breakfast. For he was a great philosopher,
Doctor Jeddler, and not very musical.

"Music and dancing to-day ! " said the Doctor, stopping
short, and speaking to himself. " I thought they dreaded to-
ilav. 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,""1 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 preposterous
find ridiculous business called Life, every minute?"

" No, father ! "

" No, not you, of course ; you're a woman — almost," said
the Doctor. " By-thc-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,
pin-sing up her red lips to be kissed.

"There! Take my love with it," said the Doctor, im-
brinting his upon them; "and many happy returns of the—
the idea ! — of the day. The notion of wishing happy returns
n such a farce as this," said the Doctor to himself, " is good !
la ! ha ! ha ! "

Doc-tor Jeddler was, as I have said, a great philosopher,
nd the heart and mystery of his philosophy was, to look upon
he world as a gigantic practical joke; as something too

320 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

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. " Poultry-stealers, of course! Where did the min
strels come from ? "

"Alfred sent the music,11 said his daughter Grace, adjusting
a few simple flowers in her sister's hair, with which, in her
admiration of that youthful beauty, she had herself adorned
it half-an-hour before, and which the dancing had disarranged.

" Oh ! Alfred sent the music, did he ? " returned the
Doctor.

" Yes. He met it coming out of the town as he was
entering early. The men are travelling on foot, and rested
there last night ; and as it was Marion's birth-day, and he
thought it would please her, he sent them on, with a pencilled
note to me, saying that if I thought so too, they had come
to serenade her.11

"Ay, ay,11 said the Doctor, carelessly, "he always takes
your opinion.11

"And my opinion being favourable,11 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?11

"Oh, I don't know, Grace. How 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

A TRUE HEART. 321

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, u perhaps not. But I
don't know that there's any great merit in that. I — I don't
want him to be so very true. I never asked him. If he

expects that I But, dear Grace, why need we talk of

him at all, just now !"

It was agreeable to see the graceful figures of the blooming
*isters, 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
ivilfulness of what she said, and striving with it painfully.

The difference between them, in respect of age, could not
txceed 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,
mid in the steadiness of her devotion to her, older than she
ivas; 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
;he idle imposition practised on themselves by young people,
vho believed for a moment, that there could be anything
«rious in such bubbles, and were always undeceived — always !

But, the home-adorning, self-denying qualities of Grace,
nd her sweet temper, so gentle and retiring, yet including
o much constancy and bravery of spirit, seemed all expressed
him in the contrast between her quiet household figure

THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

•mid 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 re
searches), 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 ! Holloa ! "
A small man, with an uncommonly sour and discontented
face, emerged from the house, and returned to this 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
done getting in the apples, could I?'1 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.

CLEMENCY NKWCOME. 323

She was about thirty years old, and had a sufficiently plump
ind cheerful face, though it was twisted up into an odd
repression of tightness that made it comical. But, the ex
traordinary homeliness of her gait and manner, would have
superseded any face in the world. To say that she had two
eft legs, and somebody elses arms, and that all four limbs
teemed to be out of joint, and to start from perfectly wrong
>laccs when they were set in motion, is to offer the mildest
mtline of the reality. To say that she was perfectly content
tnd satisfied with these arrangements, and regarded them
us being no business of hers, and that she took her arms
tnd legs as they came, and allowed them to dispose of them-
elves just as it happened, is to render faint justice to her
iquanimity. Her dress was a prodigious pair of self-willed
hoes, that never wanted to go where her feet went; blue
tockings ; a printed gown of many colours, and the most
lideous pattern procurable for money ; and a white apron.
>he always wore short sleeves, and always had, by some
,ccident, grazed elbows, in which she took so lively an interest,
hat she was continually trying to turn them round and get
mpossible views of them. In general, a little cap placed
omewhere on her head ; though it was rarely to be met with
11 the place usually occupied in other subjects, by that article
f dress ; but, from head to foot she was scrupulously clean,
,nd maintained a kind of dislocated tidiness. Indeed, her
uidable anxiety to be tidy and compact in her own con-
cience as well as in the public eye, gave rise to one of her most
tart ling evolutions, which was to grasp herself sometimes by

sort of wooden handle (part of her clothing, and familiarly
ailed a busk), and wrestle as it were with her garments, until
hey fell into a symmetrical arrangement.

Such, in outward form and garb, was Clemency Newcome ;
rho was supposed to have unconsciously originated a corrup-
ion of her own Christian name, from Clementina (but nobody
new, for the deaf old mother, a very phenomenon of age,
•horn she had supported almost from a child, was dead, and

324 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

she had no other relation) ; who now busied herself in pre
paring the table, and who stood, at intervals, with her bare red
arms crossed, rubbing her grazed elbows with opposite hands,
and staring at it very composedly, until she suddenly remem
bered something else she wanted, and jogged oft* 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, like a gentle
man 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
told you. Nothing serious in life ! What do you call law ? "

"A joke," replied the Doctor.

I

en

THINGS ARE TOO EASY. 325

"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 seised 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
givv 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

326 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

and baskets, entered the orchard at a brisk pace, and with
an air of gaiety and hope that accorded well with the morn
ing, these three drew together, like the brothers of the sister
Fates, or like the Graces most effectually disguised, or like
the three weird prophets on the heath, and greeted him.

" 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
partnership between Jonathan Snitchey and Thomas Craggs
than the subsisting articles of agreement in that wise con
templated, 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 after
wards, than by hinting that Mr. Craggs may possibly have
considered it " too easy."

Perhaps to change the subject, Dr. Jeddler made a
hasty move towards the breakfast, and they all sat down at

TIIK PARTING BREAKFAST.

327

table. Grace presided ; but so discreetly stationed herself,
as to cut off her sister and Alfred from the rest of the
company. Snitchey and Craggs sat at opposite corners, with
the blue bag
between them
for safety; the
Doctor took his
usual position,
opposite to
Grace. Cle
mency hovered
gal van ical ly
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.

" Meat r said
Britain, ap
proaching Mr.
Snitchey, with
the carving
knife and fork
in his hands,
and throwing
the question at
him like a
missile.

" Certainly," returned the lawyer.

" Do you want any ?" to Craggs.

" Lean and well done," replied that gentleman.

328 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

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,1" said Snitchey and Craggs,
who seemed to have no present idea of leaving ofl'.

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 stretch
ing 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. J329

" To-day ! " cried the Doctor. " Hear him ! Ha, ha, ha !
Of all days in the foolish year. Why, on this day, the
great battle was fought on this ground. On this ground
where we now sit, where I saw my two girls dance this
morning, where the fruit has just been gathered for our
eating from these trees, the roots of which are struck in
Men, not earth, — so many lives were lost, that within my
recollection, generations afterwards, a churchyard full of
bones, and dust of bones, and chips of cloven skulls, has
been dug up from underneath our feet here. Yet not a
hundred people in that battle knew for what they fought, or
whv ; not a hundred of the inconsiderate rejoicers in the vic-
torv, 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/"1

" 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
altogether, I do observe a serious side — now, really, a some
thing tangible, and with a purpose and intention in it —

330 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

Clemency Nevvcome 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.

" It's this evil-inclined blue bag," said Clemency, " always
tripping up somebody ! "

" With a purpose and intention in it, I was saying," re
sumed Snitchey, "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 overrun by soldiers —
trespassers every man of 'em — and laid waste by fire and
sword. He, he, he ! The idea of any man exposing himself,
voluntarily, to fire and sword ! Stupid, wasteful, positively
ridiculous; you laugh at your fellow-creatures, you know,
when you think of it ! But take this smiling country as it
stands. Think of the laws appertaining to real property ;
to the bequest and devise of real property ; to the mortgage
and redemption of real property ; to leasehold, freehold, and
copyhold estate ; think," said Mr. Snitchey, with such great
emotion that he actually smacked his lips, " of the complicated
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 prospect
may give rise ; and acknowledge, Dr. Jeddler, that there is a
green spot in the scheme about us ! 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
would take a little more beef and another cup of tea.

" I don't stand up for life in general," he added, rubbin<
his hands and chuckling, "it's full of folly ; full of something

INFIDELITY AND FAITH. 3S1

worse. Professions of trust, and confidence, and unselfishness,
and all that ! Bah, bah, bah ! We see what the/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
Snitchev, rolling his head and winking his eye, as if he would
have added, "you may do this instead !"

" Well, Alfred ! " cried the Doctor, " what do you say now ? "

" I say, sir," replied Alfred, " that the greatest favour you
could do me, and yourself too, I am inclined to think, would
be to try sometimes to forget this battle-field and others
like it in that broader battle-field of Life, on which the sun
looks every day."

" Really, I'm afraid that wouldn't soften his opinions, Mr.
Alfred," said Snitchev. " 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 con
verted, even by my friend Snitchey here, or my good spinster
sister, Martha Jeddler; who had what she calls her domestic

332 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

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, in
cluding Heaven knows how many loving mothers and good
enough girls like mine here, anything but mad for a battle-
field. The same contradictions prevail in everything. One
must either laugh or cry at such stupendous inconsistencies;
and I prefer to laugh."

Britain, who had been paying the profoundest and most
melancholy attention to each speaker in his turn, seemed
suddenly to decide in favour of the same preference, if a deep
sepulchral sound that escaped him might be construed into a
demonstration of risibility. His face, however, was so perfectly
unaffected by it, both before and afterwards, that although
one or two of the breakfast party looked round as being
startled by a mysterious noise, nobody connected the offender
with it.

Except his partner in attendance, Clemency Newcome ; who
rousing him with one of those favourite joints, her elbows,
inquired, in a reproachful whisper, what he laughed at.

" 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 everyday!" cried Clemency, giving him
a lunge with the other elbow, as a mental stimulant. "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

-

LITTLE BRITAIN. 333

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 defined
his real state more accurately than might be supposed. For,
serving as a sort of man Miles to the Doctor's Friar Bacon,
and listening day after day to innumerable orations addressed
by the Doctor to various people, all tending to show that his
very existence was at best a mistake and an absurdity, this
unfortunate servitor had fallen, by degrees, into such an abyss
of confused and contradictory suggestions from within and
without, that Truth at the bottom of her well, was on the
level surface as compared with Britain in the depths of his
mystification. The only point he clearly comprehended, was,
that the new element usually brought into these discussions
h\ Snitchey and Craggs, never served to make them clearer,
and always seemed to give the Doctor a species of advantage
and confirmation. Therefore, he looked upon the Firm as
one of the proximate causes of his state of mind, and held
them in abhorrence accordingly.

"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 as the Grammar
School down here was able to give you, and your studies in
London could add to that, and such practical knowledge as a
dull old country Doctor like myself could graft upon both;
you are away, now, into the world. The first term of proba
tion 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 scliools 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 sav, Marion ? "

THE BATTLE OF LIFE..

Marion, trifling with her teacup, seemed to say — but she
didn't say it — that he was welcome to forget, if lie 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,'1'' 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 delivered."

"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. New-
come ? "

" 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 ? "

" A little," answered Clemency.

" The marriage service, night and morning, eh ? " observed
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.

CLEMENCY'S THIMBU-!. 335

Grace, however, interposing, explained that each of the
articles in question bore an engraved motto, and so formed
the pocket library of Clemency Newcome, who was not much
given to the study of books.

" 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 sav, Mrs.
Newcome ? "

"I an't married, Mister,1" 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-papen,
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
linger, and rattled the nutmeg-grater : the literature 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.
gnitchey, diverting himself at her expense. " And what does
the thimble say?"

336 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

"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 life ! " said Craggs.

" And the nutmeg-grater ? " inquired the head of the Firm.

" The grater says,1' 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 lie 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 en
gaged in feeble attempts to make the thimble and nutmeg-
grater (a new idea to him) square with anybody's system of

MR. BRITAIN SIGNS HIS NAME. 337

philosophy; and, in short, bewildering himself as much as
ever his great namesake has done with theories and schools.
Hut, Clemency, who was his good Genius — though he had
the meanest possible opinion of her understanding, by reason
of her seldom troubling herself with abstract speculations,
and being always at hand to do the right thing at the right
time — having produced the ink in a twinkling, tendered him
the further service of recalling him to himself by the applica
tion 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 in
sisted on pausing to look at them before writing (the cramped
hand, to say nothing of the phraseology, being so much
Chinese to him), and also on turning them round to see
whether there was anything fraudulent underneath ; and how,
having signed his name, he became desolate as one who had
parted with his property and rights ; I want the time to tell.
Also, how the blue bag containing his signature, afterwards
had a mysterious interest for him, and he couldn't leave it ;
also, how Clemency Newcome, in an ecstasy of laughter at the
idea of her own importance and dignity, brooded over the
whole table with her two elbows, like a spread eagle, and re
posed her head upon her left arm as a preliminary to the
formation of certain cabalistic characters, which required a
deal of ink, and imaginary counterparts whereof she executed
at the same time with her tongue. Also, how, having once
tasted ink, she became thirsty in that regard, as tame tigers
are said to be after tasting another sort of fluid, and wanted
to sign everything, and put .her name in all kinds of places.

z

338

THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

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.

" Britain ! " said the Doctor. " Run to the gate, and
watch for the coach. Time flies, Alfred.1'1

" Yes, sir, yes," returned the young man, hurriedly. " Dear
Grace ! a moment ! Marion — so young and beautiful, so
winning and so much admired, dear to my heart as nothing
else in life is — remember ! I leave Marion to you ! "

"She has ahvays 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?*1 she answered with a quiet smile.

" And yet, Grace — Sister, seems the natural word.11

" Use it ' " she said quickly. " I am glad to hear it. Call
me nothing else."

" And yet, sister, then,11 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,11 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

MARION GO-ENTRUSTED TO GRACE. 339

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 her lover.

" And when the time comes, as it must one day,1'1 said
Alfred, — "I wonder it has never come yet, but Grace knows
best, for Grace is always right — when she will want a friend
to open her whole heart to, and to be to her something of
what she has been to us — then, Marion, how faithful we
will prove, and what delight to us to know that she, our
dear good sister, loves and is loved again, as we would
have her ! "

Still the younger sister looked into her eyes, and turned
not — even towards him. And still those honest eyes looked
back, so calm, serene, and cheerful, on herself and on her
love".

"And when all that is past, and we are old, and living
(as we must !) together — close together — talking often of old
times,'1 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 his heart. Released from
his embrace, she again clung to her sister ; and her eyes, with

340 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

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 f — 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 ! M 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"1 sake !
Shake hands, Britain ! Marion, dearest heart, good bve !
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,"'1 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 ! It breaks my heart."

mm SECOHD.

NITCHEY 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

342 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

so far within the general denomination, that now they
took a shot at this Plaintiff, and now aimed a chop at that
Defendant, now made a heavy charge at an estate in
Chancery, and now had some light skirmishing among an
irregular body of small debtors, just as the occasion served,
and the enemy happened to present himself. The Gazette
was an important and profitable feature in some of their
fields, as in fields of greater renown ; and in most of the
Actions wherein they showed their generalship, it was 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 conse
quence of the vast amount of smoke by which they were
surrounded.

The offices of Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs stood convenient,
with an open door down two smooth steps, in the market
place; so that any angry farmer inclining towards hot water,
might tumble into it at once. Their special council-chamber
and hall of conference was an old back-room up-stairs, with
a low dark ceiling, which seemed to be knitting its brows
gloomily in the consideration of tangled points of law. It
was furnished with some high-backed leathern chairs, garnished
with great goggle-eyed brass nails, of which, every here
and there, two or three had fallen out — or had been picked
out, perhaps, by the wandering thumbs and forefingers of
bewildered clients. There was a framed print of a great
judge in it, every curl in whose dreadful wig had made a
man's hair stand on end. Bales of papers filled the dusty
closets, shelves, and tables ; and round the wainscot there
were tiers of boxes, padlocked and fireproof, with people's
names painted outside, which anxious visitors felt them
selves, 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 compre
hending one word of what they said.

Snitchey and Craggs had each, in private life as in

SNITCHEY AND CRAGGS. 343

professional existence, a partner of his own. Snitchey and
Craggs were the best friends in the world, and had a real
confidence in one another; but, Mrs. Snitchey, by a dispen
sation not uncommon in the affairs of life, was on principle
suspicious of Mr. Craggs; and Mrs. (Yaggs 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 objection
able 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, / think, and I hope you may never find my
words come true/'1 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
Craggs's eye/'1 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,""1
which they both considered the Blue chamber, and common
enemy, full of dangerous (because unknown) machinations.

In this office, nevertheless, Snitchey and Craggs made honey
for their several hives. Here, sometimes, they would linger,
of a fine evening, at the window of their council -chamber
overlooking the old battle-ground, and wonder (but that was
generally at assize time, when much business had made them
sentimental) at the folly of mankind, who couldn't always
be at peace with one another and go to law comfortably.
Here, days, and weeks, and months, and years, passed over
them : their calendar, the gradually diminishing number of
brass nails in the leathern chairs, and the increasing bulk of
papers on the tables. Here, nearly three years' flight had
thinned the one and swelled the other, since the breakfast
in the orchard ; when they sat together in consultation at
night.

Not alone; but, with a man of thirty, or about that

344

THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

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, ponder
ing moodily.
Messrs. Snit
ch e y and
Craggs sat
opposite each
other at a
neighbouring
desk. One of
the fireproof
boxes, mi pad
locked 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
i!j j 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

rL--^r===^ 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.

MR. WARDEN. 345

"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?1"
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 ? "

" 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 search
ing 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 client.

" Mr. Craggs," said Snitchey, " will you oblige me with a
pinch of snuft'? 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."

346 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

" 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,1' repeated Snitchey. " 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.1"
" Hundreds," said the client. " And I have spent
thousands ! "

" 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. WARDEN IS IN LOVE. 347

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.

" 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

348 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

volume than any of your law books. Besides, do you think I
have lived 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. CYaggs."

" 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
is no part of it to interfere in a mere love affair, which I am
obliged to confide to you. I am not going to carry the
young lady off, without her own consent. There's nothing
illegal in it. I never was Mr. Heathfield's bosom friend. I
violate no confidence of his. I love where he loves, and I
mean to win where he would win, if I can."

" He can't, Mr. Craggs," said Snitchey, evidently anxious
and discomfited. " He can't do it, sir. She dotes on Mr.
Alfred."

MR. WARDEN'S INTENTIONS. l<49

" Docs she ? " returned the client.

" Mr. Craggs, she dotes on him, sir,"1 persisted Snitchev.

" 1 didn't live six weeks, some few months ago, in the
Doctor's house for nothing ; and I doubted that soon,1"1
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,11 said the client, smiling at the attention and
perplexity expressed in Mr. Snitchey 's shining eye, and at his
cautious way of carrying on the conversation, and making
himself informed upon the subject ; " 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 —
si ic 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
lau<rh ; " 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 circum
stances ; has the not unfavourable reputation — with a country
girl — of having lived thoughtlessly and gaily, without doing
much harm to anybody ; and who, for his youth and figure,
and so forth — this may seem foppish again, but upon my soul
I don't mean it in that light — might perhaps pass muster in
a crowd with Mr. Alfred himself."

There was no gainsaying the last clause, certainly ; and Mr.
Snitchey, glancing at him, thought so. There was something

350 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

naturally graceful and pleasant in the very carelessness of
his air. It seemed to suggest, of his comely face and well-
knit figure, that they might be greatly better if he chose :
and that, once roused and made earnest (but he never had
been earnest yet), he could be full of fire and purpose. " A
dangerous sort of libertine," thought the shrewd lawyer, " to
seem to catch the spark he wants, from a young lady's eves."

" Now, observej 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 charge
able 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 con
sent, 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) 1 hope to rescue his child,
my Marion, from what I see — I know — she dreads, and con
templates 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

THIS DAY MONTH. 351

grounds, and many an acre besides, will come back to me one
day, as you know and say ; and Marion will probably be
richer — on your showing, who are never sanguine — ten years
hence as my wife, than as the wife of Alfred Heathfield,
whose return she dreads (remember that), and in whom or in
any man, my passion is not surpassed. Who is injured yet?
It is a fair case throughout. My right is as good as his, if
she decide in my 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."

44 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 ! "

44 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 ! "

44 Take care of the stairs, sir," replied Snitchey ; 44 for she
don't shine there. Good night!"

44 Good night ! "

So they both stood at the stair-head with a pair of office-
candles, watching him down. When he had gone awav, they
stood looking at each other.

44 What do you think of all this, Mr. Craggs ?" said Snitchey.

Mr. Craggs shook his head.

u 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.

44 It was," said Mr. Craggs.

*' Perhaps] he deceives hiinsejf altogether," pursued Mr.

THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

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
her character becoming stronger and more resolved of late.
More like her sister's."

" Mrs. Craggs was of the same opinion," returned Craggs.

"I'd 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 wray 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.

IN THE DOCTOR'S STUDY. 353

They were very beautiful to look upon. Two better faces
for a fireside, never made a fireside bright and sacred. Some
thing 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 mother
less 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.

" ' And being in her own home,1 " read Marion, from the
book ; " ' her home made exquisitely dear by these remem
brances, she now began to know that the great trial of her
heart must soon come on, and could not be delayed. O Home,
our comforter and friend when others fall away, to part with
whom, at any step between the cradle and the grave ' " —

k4 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. O 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 I"

" Dear Marion, read no more to-night," said Grace — for
she was weeping.

2 A

354 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

" I cannot," she replied, and closed the book. " The words
seem all on five ! "

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?'1'1 said the Doctor.

" Oh, bless you, nothing an't the matter with me," returned
Clemency — and truly too, to judge from her well-soaped face,
in which there gleamed as usual the very soul of good-
humour, which, ungainly as she was, made her quite engaging.
Abrasions on the elbows are not generally understood, it is
true, to range within that class of personal charms called
beauty-spots. But, it is better, going through the world, to
have the arms chafed in that narrow passage, than the
temper : and Clemency's was sound and whole as any beauty's
in the land.

" 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 himself
seemed alarmed, for the moment ; but quickly regained his

ALFRED COMING HOME. 355

composure, as ('leniency, having had recourse to both her
pockets — beginning with the right one, going away to the
wrong one, and afterwards coining back to the right one
again — produced a letter from the Post-office.

"Britain was riding by on a errand,1" she chuckled, handing
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 deal's, directly/'

"Directly !" exclaimed Marion.

" What ! The story-book is soon forgotten ! " said the
Doctor, pinching her cheek. "I thought the news would drv
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,111
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,11 said the cheerful voice
of her sister Grace, kissing her in congratulation. " Long
looked forward to, dearest, and come at last.11

356 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

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 shown. 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 himself
down in his easy-chair again, stretched out his slippered feet
once more upon the rug, read the letter over and over a
great many times, and talked it over more times still.

"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!'1* mused the Doctor. "That
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,11 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

A TRUST NOBLY DISCHARGED. 357

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."1

"I am afraid I have changed sadly for the worse, since,1"
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.1"

"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. My
three years1 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 discharged ; and
that I have loved you, all the time, dearer and dearer every
; and O ! 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 tor a moment
down, when her sister spoke so fervently : and with it
ic old song the Doctor liked to hear. And the Doctor,
:ill reposing in his easy-chair, with his slippered feet
:hed out before him on the rug, listened to the tune.

".>

358 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

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 accomplished
her mission and lingered in the room until she had made
herself a party to the news, descended to the kitchen, where
her coadjutor, Mr. Britain, was regaling after supper, sur
rounded 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 flatter
ing 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 elbo\v,
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 jollier in all respects. It
seemed as if his face had been tied up in a knot before, and
was now untwisted and smoothed out.

"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 ! "

" Lor ! " replied his fair companion, with her favourite twist
of her favourite joints. " I wish it was me, Britain ! "

" Wish what was you ? "

CLEMENCY AND MR. 1WITAIN. 359

" 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.
" 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?"

" Youl\ 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, re
quired 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."

360 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

" 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 inquiring
turn of mind ; and I've read a good many books about the
general Rights of things and Wrongs of things, for I went
into the literary line myself, when I began life."

"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 discussions
in this house, which soured my spirits fresh ; and my opinion
after all is, that, as a safe and comfortable sweetener of the
same, and as a pleasant guide through life, there's nothing
like a nutmeg-grater."

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 cetrcr, eh!" observed
Clemency, folding her arms comfortably in her delight at
this avowal, and patting her elbows. "Such a short cut,
an't it?"

" 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.

1

A CURIOUS NOISE! ,%1

" Ah ! " said Mr. Britain. " But, the most extraordinary
thing, Clemmy, is that I should live to he brought round,
through you. Thafs the strange part of it. Through
you ! Why, 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."

" Fin 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 lips, and laughed till the
teal's ran down his face. " What a natural you are, Clemmy ! "
lie said, shaking his head, with an infinite relish of the joke,
and wiping his eyes. Clemency, without the smallest inclina
tion 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 abed up
stairs?"

" Yes, all abed 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 satis-
faction's sake. Undo the door while I light this, Clemmy."

362 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

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;1'
but sallied out, nevertheless, armed with the poker, and
casting the light of the lantern far and near in all
directions.

" It's as quiet as a churchyard,11 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.1'

" I am sure. And I may trust you, may I not ? There is
no one else just now, in whom I can trust.11

"Yes,11 said Clemency, with all her heart.

" There is some one out there,11 pointing to the door,
"whom I must see, and speak with, to-night. Michael
Warden, for God's sake retire ! Not now ! 11

Clemency started with surprise and trouble as, following
the direction of the speaker's eyes, she saw a dark figure
standing in the doorway.

"In another moment you may be discovered,11 said Marion.
" Not now ! AVait, 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,'1 said Mr. Britain, as he locked and barred the door.

MARION RETURNS. 363

One of the effects of having a lively imagination. Halloa !
Vhy, what's the matter ? "

Clemency, who could not conceal the effects of her surprise
ml concern, was sitting in a chair : pale, and trembling from
icad to foot.

" Matter ! " she repeated, chafing her hands and elbows,
ervously, and looking anywhere but at him. " That's good
ii you, Britain, that is ! After going and frightening one
ut of one's life with noises and lanterns, and I don't know
fhat all. Matter ! Oh, yes ! "

"If you're frightened out of your life by a lantern,
'lemmy," said Mr. Britain, composedly blowing it out and
langing it up again, "that apparition's very soon got rid of.
Jut you're as bold as brass in general," he said, stopping to
•bserve her ; " and were, after the noise and the lantern too.
iVhat have you taken into your head ? Not an idea, eh ? "

But, as Clemency bade him good night very much after
icr usual fashion, and began to bustle about with a show of
;oing to bed herself immediately, Little Britain, after giving
itterance to the original remark that it was impossible to
iccotint for a woman's whims, bade her good night in return,
md 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
ne, while I speak to him, outside."

Timid as her manner was, it still evinced a resolute and
ettled purpose, such as Clemency could not resist. She softly
mbarred the door : but before turning the key, looked round
m the young creature waiting to issue forth when she should
>pen it.

The face was not averted or cast down, but looking full
jpon her, in its pride of youth and beauty. Some simple sense
)f the slightness of the barrier that interposed itself between
;he happy home and honoured love of the fair girl, and what
night be the desolation of that home, and shipwreck of its
learest treasure, smote so keenly on the tender heart of

364 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

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. " Fll 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 arc 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 lai
beyond the threshold, Marion passed quickly, holding by hei
hand.

In the dark night he joined her, and they spoke together
earnestly and long; and the hand that held so fast by
Clemency's, now trembled, now turned deadly cold, now
clasped and closed on hers, in the strong feeling of the
speech it emphasised unconsciously. When they returned, IK
followed to the door, and pausing there a moment, seized th<
other hand, and pressed it to his lips. Then, stealthilj
withdrew.

THE SECRET INTERVIEW.

365

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 tran
quil and serene,
and bending
over her fond
sister in her
slumber, look
upon her face
and smile —
though sadly :
murmuring as
she kissed her
forehead, how
that Grace had
been a mother
to her, ever, and
she loved her
as a child !

Could draw
the passive arm
about her neck

when lying down to rest — it seemed to cling there, of its own
will, protectingly and tenderly even in sleep — and breathe
upon the parted lips, God bless her !

366 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

Could sink into a peaceful sleep, herself ; but for one dream,
in which she cried out, in her innocent and touching voice,
that she was quite alone, and they had all forgotten her.

A month soon passes, even at its tardiest pace. The month
appointed to elapse between that night and the return, was
quick of foot, and went by, like a vapour.

The day arrived. A raging winter day, that shook the
old house, sometimes, as if it shivered in the blast. A day
to make home doubly home. To give the chimney-corner
new delights. To shed a ruddier glow upon the faces gathered
round the hearth, and draw each fireside group into a closer
and more social league, against the roaring elements without.
Such a wild winter day as best prepares the way for shut-out
night ; for curtained rooms, and cheerful looks ; for music,
laughter, dancing, light, and jovial entertainment !

All these the Doctor had in store to welcome Alfred back.
They knew that he could not arrive till night; and they
would make the night air ring, he said, as he approached.
All his old friends should congregate about him. He should
not miss a face that he had known and liked. No ! They
should every one be there !

So, guests were bidden, and musicians were engaged, and
tables spread, and floors prepared for active feet, and bountiful
provision made, of every hospitable kind. Because it was
the Christmas season, and his eyes were all unused to
English holly and its sturdy green, the dancing-room was
garlanded and hung with it ; and the red berries gleamed
an English welcome to him, peeping from among the
leaves.

It was a busy day for all of them : a busier day for
none of them than Grace, who noiselessly presided every
where, 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,

"THIS DAY MONTH" IS COME. 367

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 mar
riage wreath,'1 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,'1 she returned.

" Ay, but there is a greater happiness in store. In such
another home, as cheerful and as bright as this looks now,'1
said Grace, " Alfred and his young wife will soon be living.11

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.11

" Well,'1 cried the Doctor, bustling in. " Here we are,
all ready for Alfred, eh ? He can't be here until pretty late
— an hour or so before midnight — so there'll be plenty of
time for making merry before he comes. He'll not find us
with the ice unbroken. Pile up the fire here, Britain ! Let
it shine upon the holly till it winks again. It's a world of
nonsense, Puss ; true lovers and all the rest of it — all 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 Tin the father
of two handsome girls.11

368 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

" All 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
prepared to meet 'em. Kiss me, Puss. Forgive ! Why, what
a silly child you are ! If you had vexed and crossed me fifty
times a day, instead of not at all, I'd forgive you everything,
but such a supplication. Kiss me again, Puss. There !
Prospective and retrospective — a clear score between us. Pile
up the fire here ! Would you freeze the people on this bleak
December night ! Let us be light, and warm, and merry,
or I'll not forgive some of you ! "

So gaily the old Doctor carried, it ! And the fire was
piled up, and the lights were bright, and company arrived,
and a murmuring of lively tongues began, and already there
was a pleasant air of cheerful excitement stirring through
all the house.

More and more company came flocking in. Bright eyes
sparkled upon Marion ; smiling lips gave her joy of his
return ; sage mothers fanned themselves, and hoped she
mightn't be too youthful and inconstant for the quiet round
of home ; impetuous fathers fell into disgrace for too much
exaltation of her beauty ; daughters envied her ; sons envied
him ; innumerable pairs of lovers profited by the occasion ;
all were interested, animated, and expectant.

Mr. and Mrs. Craggs came arm in arm, but Mrs. Snitchey
came alone. " Why, what's become of him ? " inquired the
Doctor.

The feather of a Bird of Paradise in Mrs. Snitchey's

MARION NOT MISSING. ,%9

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 office," said Mrs. Craggs.

" I wish it was burnt down,"" said Airs. Snitchcy.

" 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 Mi's. Snitchcy.

" 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 deceiving
him behind his back, and he would find it out when it was
too late.

Still, Mr. Craggs, without much heeding these remarks,
looked uneasily about until his eye rested on Grace, to whom
he immediately presented himself.

" 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,

o n
A U

370 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

with an air of satisfaction, in their sheath again, and in his
pocket.

Now the music struck up, and the dance commenced. The
bright fire crackled and sparkled, rose and fell, as though it
joined the dance itself, in right good fellowship. Sometimes,
it roared as if it would make music too. Sometimes, it
flashed and beamed as if it were the eye of the old room : it
winked too, sometimes, like a knowing patriarch, upon the
youthful whisperers in corners. Sometimes, it sported with
the holly-boughs ; and, shining on the leaves by fits and
starts, made them look as if they were in the cold wintei
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 exulta
tion leaped and bounded, like a mad thing, up the broad ok
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 on
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 withl
the tide in that shell of a boat of his, and so goes out to sea^

THE ENEMY OF DOMESTIC PEACE. 371

on this dark night ! — a dare-devil he is — before the wind.
There's no such lonely road- anywhere else. That's one
tiling. The tide flows, he says, an hour before midnight —
about this time. Fin 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
l>efore him. "I understand you. Don't mention names, and
don't let us seem to be talking secrets. I don't know what
to think ; and to tell VQU 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.'1'

"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
extreme vibration, and the little bells were ringing quite
audibly.

" It has been the theme of general comment, Mr. Snitchey,"
said Mi*s. Snitchey. " I hope the office is satisfied."

"Satisfied with what, my dear?" asked Mr. Snitchey.

" With the exposure of a defenceless wroman 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 / never avowed that the office was the enemy
of your peace."

"No," said Mrs. Craggs, ringing a perfect peal upon the

372 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

little bells. " Not you, indeed. You wouldn't be worthy of
the office, if you had the candour to.11

" As to my having been away to-night, my dear," said Mr.
Snitchey, giving her his arm, "the deprivation has been
mine, Tin 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 ; /'m no companion to you, Mr.
Snitchey.11

"Yes, yes, you are, my dear," he interposed,

"No, no, Fm not," said Mrs. Snitchey with a majestic
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 impossible 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

THE DANCE AT ITS HEIGHT.

a burglar? — which, by the way, was hardly a clear illustra
tion 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
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 re
spectable 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 breath
less Mr. Craggs began to doubt already, whether country
dancing had been made " too easy," like the rest of life ; and

374

THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

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 every
where. 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 ceil
ing that its
glow might set %
off their bright
faces, and it
kindled up a
general illumi
nation 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

ALFRED'S RETURN. 375

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.

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 ? "

44 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?"

44 Just twelve, sir. He can't be long, sir."

44 Stir up the fire, and throw another log upon it," said
the Doctor. 44 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 wave:! his hat, and cheered out, loudr
as if the light were they,, and they could see and hear him,

376 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

as he dashed towards them through the mud and mire,
triumphantly.

Stop ! He knew the Doctor, and understood what he had
done. He would not let it be a surprise to them. But he
could make it one, yet, by going forward on foot. If the
orchard-gate were open, he could enter there ; if not, the wall
was easily climbed, as he knew of old ; and he would be
among them in an instant.

He dismounted from the chaise, and telling the driver —
even that was not easy in his agitation — to remain behind
for a few minutes, and then to follow slowly, ran on with
exceeding swiftness, tried the gate, scaled the wall, jumped
down on the other side, and stood panting in the old
orchard.

There was a frosty rime upon the trees, which, in the faint
light of the clouded moon, hung upon the smaller branches
like dead garlands. Withered leaves crackled and snapped
beneath his feet, as he crept softly on towards the house.
The desolation of a winter night sat brooding on the
earth, and in the sky. But, the red light came cheerily
towards him from the windows; figures passed and repassed
there ; and the hum and murmur of voices greeted his ear
sweetly.

Listening for hers : attempting, as he crept on, to detach
it from the rest, and half believing that he heard it : he had
nearly reached the door, when it was abruptly opened, and
a figure coming out encountered his. It instantly recoiled
with a half-suppressed cry.

"Clemency,11 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

MARION LOST. 377

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 hand.

"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,
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
the view of offering consolation ; some admonished him that
Grace must be removed into the house, and that he prevented
it. He never heard them, and he never moved.

The snow fell fast and thick. He looked up for a moment

378

THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

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.

- ^V^t-—

HE 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

long the clouds ; and the old battle-ground, sparkling
illiantly and cheerfully at sight of it in one green place,

380 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

flashed a responsive welcome there, which spread along the
country side as if a joyful beacon had been lighted up, and
answered from a thousand stations.

How beautiful the landscape kindling in the light, and
that luxuriant influence passing on like a celestial presence,
brightening everything ! The wood, a sombre mass before,
revealed its varied tints of yellow, green, brown, red : its
different forms of trees, with raindrops glittering on their
leaves and twinkling as they fell. The verdant meadow-
land, bright and glowing, seemed as if it had been blind, a
minute since, and now had found a sense of sight wherewith
to look up at the shining sky. Corn-fields, hedge-rows,
fences, homesteads, and clustered roofs, the steeple of the
church, the stream, the water-mill, all sprang out of the
gloomy darkness smiling. Birds sang sweetly, flowers raised
their drooping heads, fresh scents arose from the invigorated
ground ; the blue expanse above, extended and diffused itself ;
already the sun's slanting rays pierced mortally the sullen
bank of cloud that lingered in its flight ; and a rainbow,
spirit of all the 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

THE NUTMEG-GRATER.

381

and ale, and neat wines, and good beds ; and an affecting
picture of a brown jug frothing over at the top. Upon the
window-sills were flowering plants in bright red pots, which
made a lively show against the white front of the house ;
and in the darkness of the doorway there were streaks of

light, which glanced off from the surfaces of bottles and
tankards.

On the door-step, appeared a proper figure of a landlord,
too; for, though he was a short man, he was round and
broad, and stood with his hands in his pockets, and his legs
just wide enough apart to express a mind at rest upon the

382 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

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 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, ai
uncommon sign. It was called The Nutmeg-Grater. Anc
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.

MR. BRITAIN'S BETTER HALF. 383

" 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 we 11 -saturated
umbrella spread out to dry behind her, was the plump figure
of a matronly woman, with her bare arms folded across a
basket which she carried on her knee, several other baskets
and parcels lying crowded around her, and a certain bright
good nature in her face and contented awkwardness in her
manner, as she jogged to and fro with the motion of her
carriage, which smacked of old times, even in the distance.
Upon her nearer approach, this relish of by-gone days was
not diminished ; and when the cart stopped at the Nutmeg-
Grater door, a pair of shoes, alighting from it, slipped nimbly
through Mr. Britain's open arms, and came down with a
substantial weight upon the pathway, which shoes could
hardly have belonged to any one but Clemency Newcome.

In fact they did belong to her, and she stood in them, and a
rosy comfortable-looking soul she was : with as much soap on
her glossy face as in times of yore, but with whole elbows now,
that had grown quite dimpled in her improved condition.

" You're late, Clemmy ! " 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 ? "

384 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

" Hearty, Clemrny, hearty."

" Bless their precious faces ! " said Mrs. 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,11 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 — seventeen pound
four, paid into the Bank — Doctor Heathfield's charge for little
Clem — you'll guess what that is — Doctor Heathfield won't
take nothing again, Ben."

" 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.
"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."

MR. WARDEN ABROAD.

385

"'To be sold by Auction;11 read the host of the
Nutmeg-Grater, "'unless previously disposed of by private
contract/'"

" They always put that," said Clemency.

" Yes, but they don't always put this,"" he returned. " I^ook
here, 'Mansion,' &c. — 'offices,' &c., 'shrubberies," £c., 'ring
fence,'' &c. 'Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs,' &c., '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, Beri, 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 thoughtful
brow, and bustled off to look after the children.

Though the host of the Nut meg- Grater had a lively regard
for his good-wife, it was of the old patronising kind, and she
amused him mightily. Nothing would have astonished him
so much, as to have known for certain from any third party,
that it was she who managed the whole house, and made him,
by her plain straightforward thrift, good-humour, honesty, and
industry, a thriving man. So easy it is, in any degree of life (as
the world very often finds it), to take those cheerful natures
that never assert their merit, at their own modest valuation ;
and to conceive a flippant liking of people for their outward
oddities and eccentricities, whose innate worth, if we would
look so far, might make us blush in the comparison !

386 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

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 — chuckling
all the time, over her capacity for business — when, return
ing 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 declare,11
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, 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."

A TRAVELLER. {387

" 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;
" Fin 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 life, as that I didn't say
an angry word to him, and hadn't any angry feeling towards
him, even then ; for he repented that truly, afterwards. How
often he has sat in this room, and told me over and over
again he was sorry for it ! — the last time, only yesterday,
when you were out. How often he has sat in this room, and
talked to me, hour after hour, about one thing and another,
in which he made believe to be interested ! — but only for the
sake of the days that are gone by, and because he knows she
used to like me, Ben ! "

" 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, Tin 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 pound."

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

388 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

and saluted the guest. " Will you please to walk up-stairs,
sir? There's a very nice room up-stairs, sir."

"Thank you,11 said the stranger, looking earnestly at Mr.
Britain's wife. " May I come in here ? "

" Oh, surely, if you like, sir," returned Clemency, admitting
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 ; speaking
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 ? "

I

A LONG STORV.

389

"Since when, sir?1" 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
all ; but, I think he's happy now. He has taken on with
his sister since then, and goes to see her very often. That
did him good, directly. At first, he was sadly broken down ;
and it was enough to make one's heart bleed, to see him
wandering about, railing at the world ; but a great change
for the better came over him after a year or two, and then
he began to like to talk about his lost daughter, and to
praise her, ay and the world too! and was never tired of
saying, with the tears in his poor eyes, how beautiful and
good she was. He had forgiven her then. That was about
the same time as Miss Grace's marriage. Britain, you
remember?"

Mr. Britain remembered very well.

"The sister t* 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 veal's, 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

390 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

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.

" 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 cir
cumstances under which she was recalling these events, and
looked quickly at the stranger. Seeing that his face was
turned toward the window, and that he seemed intent upon
the prospect, she made some eager signs to her husband, and
pointed to the bill, and moved her mouth as if she were
repeating with great energy, one word or phrase to him over
and over again. As she uttered no sound, and as her dumb
motions like most of her gestures were of a very extraordinary
kind, this unintelligible conduct reduced Mr. Britain to the
confines of despair. He stared at the table, at the stranger,
at the spoons, at his wife — followed her pantomime with
looks of deep amazement and perplexity — asked in the same
language, was it property in danger, was it he in danger, was
it she — answered her signals with other signals expressive of
the deepest distress and confusion — followed the motions of
her lips — guessed half aloud "milk and water," "monthly
warning," " mice and walnuts " — and couldn't approach her
meaning.

THE TRAVELLER RECOGNISED. 391

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, 1 believe, could explain,""
said Clemency, drawing her breath quickly.

" Who may that be ? " asked the stranger.

" Mr. Michael Warden ! " answered Clemency, almost in a
shriek : at once conveying to her husband what she would
have had him understand before, and letting Michael Warden
know that he was recognised.

"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

392 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

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,11 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.

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

MR. SNITCHEY AND HIS CLIENT. 393

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 impossibilities — 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
everything new and old, in these old scenes ; and it was out
side 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 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

394 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

six months since I have known the truth, and heen assured
that you lost her.1'

" 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 client.

" I do, sir ! " replied Snitchey ; " and I have also reason to
know that it will be broken to her sister to-morrow evening.
They have given her that promise. In the meantime, perhaps
you'll give me the 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 evening. It's a
very good place to dine at, Mr. Warden : your own property,
by-the-bye. Self and Craggs (deceased) took a chop here
sometimes, and had it very comfortably served. Mr. Craggs,
sir," 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 life, I
regret to say, as easy to have and to hold as his theory made
it out, or he would have been among us now. It's a great
loss to me. He was my right arm, my right leg, my right
ear, my right eye, was Mr. Craggs. I am paralytic without
him. He bequeathed his share of the business to Mrs. Craggs,
her executors, administrators, and assigns. His name remains
in the Firm to this hour. I try, in a childish sort of a way,
to make believe, sometimes, he's alive. You may observe

WAIT TILL TO-MORROW! 395

that I speak for Self and Craggs — deceased, sir — deceased,"
said the tender-hearted attorney, waving his pocket-handker
chief.

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
accident to its head, in a fit of giddiness — and all the other
preparations in the kitchen for their dinner.

To-morrow was a bright and peaceful day ; and nowhere
wt-re the autumn tints more beautifully seen, than from the
quiet orchard of the Doctor's house. The snows of many
winter nights had melted from that ground, the withered

396 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

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
sight in her old home now, even than that home had been
at first, without her. But, a lady sat in the familiar place,
from whose heart she had never passed away ; in whose true
memory she lived, unchanging, youthful, radiant with all
promise and all hope ; in whose affection — and it was a
mother's now, there was a cherished little daughter playing
by her side — she had no rival, no successor; upon whose
gentle lips her name was trembling then.

The spirit of the lost girl looked out of those eyes. Those
eyes of Grace, her sister, sitting with her husband in the
orchard, on their wedding-day, and his and Marion's birth-day.

He had not become a great man ; he had not grown rich ;
he had not forgotten the scenes and friends of his youth ; he
had not fulfilled any one of the Doctor's old predictions.
But, in his useful, patient, unknown visiting of poor men's
homes ; and in his watching of sick beds ; and in his daily
knowledge of the gentleness and goodness flowering the 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 glory round their heads.

He lived to better purpose on the altered battle-ground,
perhaps, than if he had contended restlessly in more ambitious
lists ; and he was happy with his wife, dear Grace.

GRACE AND HER HUSBAND.

397

And Marion. Had he forgotten her ?

44 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, count
ing to-night as one, we have sat here on her birth-day, and
spoken together of that happy return, so eagerly expected and
so long deferred. Ah when will it be ! When will it be ! "

Her husband attentively observed her, as the tears collected
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 would 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."

398 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

"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
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."

MARIONS BIRTH-DAY. &J9

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."

"AVhat 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?1'

" I am afraid to think," she said.

There was that emotion in his face, despite its steady
ga/e, 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 ! "

She raised her head, and, looking at him, told him she was
ready. As she stood, and looked upon him going away, her
face was so like Marion's as it had been in her later days
at home, that it was wonderful to see. He took the child
with him. She called her back — she bore the lost girl's
name — and pressed her to her bosom. The little creature,
being released again, sped after him, and Grace was left
alone.

She knew not what she dreaded, or what hoped; but
remained there, motionless, looking at the porch by which
they had disappeared.

Ah ! what was that, emerging from its shadow ; standing
on its threshold ! That figure, with its white garments

400 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

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 ! O 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 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

MARION FOUND. 401

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.1*

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 ; was so devoted, and
so noble ; that it plucked its love away, and kept its secret
from all eyes but mine — Ah ! what other eyes were quickened
by such tenderness and gratitude ! — and was content to
sacrifice itself to me. But, I knew something of its depths.
I knew the struggle it had made. I knew its high, 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 ! "

" () Marion ! O Marion ! "

2 D

402 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

"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 lias followed, and which has made us both so
happy, Grace ! I wrote to good Aunt Martha, for a refuge
in her house : I did not then tell her all, but something of
my story, and she freely promised it. While I was contesting
that step with myself, and with my love of yon, and home,
Mr. Warden, brought here by an accident, became, for some
time, our companion.'1

"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 — hope
less 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 ? "

MARION'S STORY. 403

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.
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, imbetrothed : 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.

404 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

"This is a weary day for me,11 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,'1 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
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
younger 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

A HOLE IN THE DOCTOR'S PHILOSOPHY. 405

that are some set-off against the miseries and wickedness of
Battle-Fields ; and it is a world we need be careful how we
libel, Heaven forgive us, for it is a world of sacred mysteries,
and its Creator only knows what lies beneath the surface of
His lightest image ! "

You would not be the better pleased with my rude pen, if
it dissected and laid open to your view the transports of this
family, long severed and now reunited. Therefore, I will not
follow the poor Doctor through his humbled recollection of the
sorrow he had had, when Marion was lost to him ; nor, will I
tell how serious he had found that world to be, in which some
love, deep-anchored, is the portion of all human creatures ;
nor, how such a trifle as the absence of one little unit in the
great absurd account, had stricken him to the ground. Nor,
how, in compassion for his distress, his sister had, long ago,
revealed the truth to him by slow degrees, and brought him
to the knowledge of the heart of his self-banished daughter,
and to that daughter's side.

Nor, how Alfred Heathfield had been told the truth, too,
in the course of that then current year ; and Marion had
seen him, and had promised him, as her brother, that on her
birth-day, in the evening, Grace should know it from her
lips at last.

" 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 Mr. Craggs
was a man who could endure to be convinced, sir. He was
always open to conviction. If he were open to conviction,
now, I — this is weakness. Mrs. Snitchey, my dear," — at his

406 THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

summons that lady appeared from behind the door, " you are
among old friends."

Mrs. Snitchey having delivered hef 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?"

" 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
have wiser and more charitable eyes another time. Mis
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.

A STRANGER IN THE ORCHARD. 4-07

'* 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 observed
by any of the group ; for they had little spare attention to
bestow, and that had been monopolised by the ecstasies of
Clemency. He did not appear to wish to be observed,
but stood alone, with downcast eyes ; and there was an air
of dejection about him (though he was a gentleman of a
gallant appearance) which the general happiness rendered
more remarkable.

None but the quick eyes of Aunt Martha, however,
remarked him at all; but, almost as soon as she espied
him, she was in conversation with him. Presently, going
to where Marion stood with Grace and her little name
sake, she whispered something in Marion's ear, at which she
started, and appeared surprised ; but soon recovering from
her confusion, she timidly approached the stranger, in Aunt
Martha's company, and engaged in conversation with
him too.

" 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

408

THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

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 differ
ence 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,1 will
you be so good ;
and ril have
the two mottoes
painted up in
the parlour in
stead of my
wife's portrait."

"And let me,"
said a voice be
hind them ; it
was the stran
ger'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

FORGET AND FORGIVE! 409

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 forgotten, yet with some profit too, I would fain
hope, from one,"11 he glanced at Marion, " to whom I made
my humble supplication for forgiveness, when I knew her
merit and my deep tin worthiness. 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, leaning
easily upon his scythe, that Michael Warden never went
away again, and never sold his house, but opened it afresh,
maintained a golden means of hospitality, and had a wife,
the pride and 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 GHOSTS BARGAIN.

for

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

PAGR

The Gift Bestowed . . 417

CHAPTER II.
The Gift Diffused 447

CHAPTER III.

The Gift Reversed 494

ILLUSTRATIONS.

FRONTISPIECE

TITLE

ILLUSTRATED PAGE TO CHAP. I.

THE LIGHTHOUSE .

MlLLY AND THE OLD MAN .
REDLAW AND THE PHANTOM.
REDLAW AND THE BOY
ILLUSTRATED DOUP>LE-PAGE TO

CHAP. II. .
THE TETTERBYS .
MlLLY AND THE STUDENT
THE EXTERIOR OF THE OLDI

COLLEGE . . . . J
THE BOY BEFORE THE FIRE .
ILLUSTRATED PAGE TO )

CHAP. Ill f

JOHNNY AND MOLOCH .
MlLLY AND THE CHILDREN .
THE CHRISTMAS PARTY IN THE )

GREAT DINNER HALL . J

Engraver.

Martin cfc Corbould.
Martin <fc Corbould.
Martin & Corbould.

T. Williams. {

Martin & Corbould.
Smith & Chdtnam.
Smith <k Chdtnam.

Arti.it. PAGE

J. TENNIEL

J. TENNIEL

J. TENNIEL . 417

C. STANFIELD, 42o

XV. A.

F. STONE . 427

J. LEECH . 43G

J. LEECH . 444

Martin A Corbouhl. J. TENNIEL 448-9

Smith & Chdtnam.
Martin <fc Corbould.

T. Williams. j

Smith & Cheltnam. J. LEECH

Martin cfc Corbould. J. TENNIEL . 494

J. LEECH . 45G
F. STONE . 472

C. STANFIELD, ,„-
R.A.

491

Smith & Cheltnam.
Dalziel.

T. Williams. {

J. LEECH . 500

F. STONE . 508

C. STANFIELD, gor
R.A.

THE HAUNTED MAN.

CHAPTER I.

THE GIFT BESTOWED.

EVERYBODY said so.

Far be it from me to acsert that what every
body savs 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 some
times be right ;
"but that's no
rule," as the
ghost of Giles
Scroggins says
in the ballad.

The dread
word, GHOST,
recalls me.

Everybody
said he looked
like a haunted
man. The ex
tent of my
2 E

418 THE HAUNTED MAN.

present claim for everybody is, that they were so far right.
He did.

Who could have seen his hollow cheek, his sunken brilliant
eye ; his black attired figure, indefinably grim, although well-
knit and well-proportioned; his grizzled hair hanging, like
tangled sea-weed, about his face, — as if he had been, through
his whole life, a lonely mark for the chafing and beating of
the great deep of humanity, — but might have said he looked
like a haunted man ?

Who could have observed his manner, taciturn, thoughtful,
gloomy, shadowed by habitual reserve, retiring always and
jocund never, with a distraught air of reverting to a bygone
place and time, or of listening to some old echoes in his mind,
but might have said ft was the manner of a haunted man ?

Who could have heard his voice, slow-speaking, deep, and
grave, with a natural fulness and melody in it which he seemed
to set himself against and stop, but might have said it was
the voice of a haunted man ?

Who that had seen him in his inner chamber, part library
and part laboratory, — for he was, as the world knew, far and
wide, a learned man in chemistry, and a teacher on whose lips
and hands a crowd of aspiring ears and eyes hung daily, —
who that had seen him there, upon a winter night, alone,
surrounded by his drugs and instruments and books ; the
shadow of his shaded lamp a monstrous beetle on the wall,
motionless among a crowd of spectral shapes raised there by
the flickering of the fire upon the quaint objects around him ;
some of these phantoms (the reflection of glass vessels that
held liquids), trembling at heart like things that knew his
power to uncombine them, and to give back their component
parts to fire and vapour ; — who that had seen him then, his
work done, and he pondering in his chair before the rusted
grate and red flame, moving his thin mouth as if in speech,
but silent as the dead, would not have said that the man
seemed haunted and the chamber too ?

Who might not, by a very easy flight of fancy, have

A VAULT-LIKE DWELLING. 419

believed that everything about him took this haunted tone,
and that he lived on haunted ground ?

His dwelling was so solitary and vault-like, — an old, retired
part of an ancient endowment for students, once a brave
edifice planted in an open place, but now the obsolete whim
of forgotten architects ; smoke -oge-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, wonder
ing what nook it was ; its sun-dial in a little bricked-up
corner, where no sun had straggled for a hundred years, but
where, in compensation for the sun's neglect, the snow would
lie for weeks when it lay nowhere else, and the black east
wind would spin like a huge humming-top, when in all other
places it was silent and still.

His dwelling, at its heart and core — within doors — at his
fireside — was so lowering and old, so crazy, yet so strong, with
its worm-eaten beams of wood in the ceiling, and its sturdy
floor shelving downward to the great oak chimney-piece ; so
environed and hemmed in by the pressure of the town, yet so
remote in fashion, age, and custom ; so quiet, yet so thunder
ing 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.

420

THE HAUNTED MAN.

When the wind was blowing, shrill and shrewd, with the
going down of the blurred sun. When it was just so

dark, as that
the forms of
things were
indistinct and
big — but not
wholly lost.
When sitters
by the fire

began to see wild faces and
figures, mountains and abysses,
ambuscades and armies, in
the coals. When people in
the streets bent
down their
heads and
ran before
the weather.
When those
who were
obliged to
meet it, were
stopped at
angry cor
ners, stung
snow-flakes
alighting on
by wandering
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

GHOSTLY SURROUNDINGS. 421

the busy and the quiet streets fast blackening otherwise.
AY hen stray pedestrians, shivering along the latter, looked
down at the glowing fires in kitchens, and sharpened their
sharp appetites by sniffing up the fragrance of whole miles
of dinners.

When travellers by land were bitter cold, and looked
wearily on gloomy landscapes, rustling and shuddering in the
blast. When mariners at sea, outlying upon icy yards, were
tossed and swung above the howling ocean dreadfully. When
lighthouses, on rocks and headlands, showed solitary and
watchful ; and benighted sea-birds breasted on against their
ponderous lanterns, and fell dead. When little readers of
story-books, by the firelight, trembled to think of Cassim
Baba cut into quarters, hanging in the Robbers' Cave, or had
some small misgivings that the fierce little old woman, with
the crutch, who used to start out of the box in the merchant
Abudah's bedroom, might, one of these nights, be found upon
the stairs, in the long, cold, dusky journey up to bed.

When, in rustic places, the last glimmering of daylight died
away from the ends of avenues ; and the trees, arching over
head, were sullen and black. When, in parks and woods, the
high wet fern and sodden moss and beds of fallen leaves, and
trunks of trees, were lost to view, in masses of impenetrable
shade. When mists arose from dyke, and fen, and river.
When lights in old halls and in cottage windows, were a
cheerful sight. When the mill stopped, the wheelwright
and the blacksmith shut their workshops, the turnpike-gate
closed, the plough and harrow were left lonely in the fields,
the labourer and team went home, and the striking of the
church clock had a deeper sound than at noon, and the
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.

THE HAUNTED MAN.

When they danced upon the floors, and walls, and ceilings
of inhabited chambers, Avhile 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 Englishmen,
and wanting to grind people's bones to make his bread.

When these shadows brought into the minds of older people,
other thoughts, and showed them different images. When
they stole from their retreats, in the likenesses of forms and
faces from the past, from the grave, from the deep, deep gulf,
where the things that might have been, and never were, are
always wandering.

When he sat, as already mentioned, gazing at the fire.
When, as it rose and fell, the shadows went. and came. When
he took no heed of them, with his bodily eyes ; but, let them
come or let them go, looked fixedly at the fire. You should
have seen him, then.

When the sounds that had arisen with the shadows, and
come out of their lurking places at the twilight summons,
seemed to make a deeper stillness all about him. When the
wind was rumbling in the chimney, and sometimes crooning,
sometimes howling, in the house. When the old trees outside
were so shaken and beaten, that one querulous old rook,
unable to sleep, protested now and then, in a feeble, dozy,
high-up " 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 gliding

MR. WILLIAM SWIDGEU.

423

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 !

"Tin humbly fearful, sir," said a fresh-coloured busy man,
holding the door open with his foot for the admission of
himself and a wooden tray he carried, and letting it go again
by very gentle and careful degrees, when he and the tray
had got in, lest it should close noisily, " 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 oft* her balance by the elements. She is not formed
superior to that"

" No," returned Mr. Redlaw good-naturedly, though abruptly.

"No, sir. Mrs. William may be taken off her balance by
Earth ; as, for example, last Sunday week, when sloppy and
greasy, and she going out to tea with her newest sister-in-law,
and having a pride in herself, and wishing to appear perfectly
spotless though pedestrian. Mrs. Wrilliam may be taken off
her balance by Air ; as being once over-persuaded by a friend
to try a swing at Peckham Fair, which acted on her 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

4J4 THE HAUNTED MAN.

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. William 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. Why
there's my father, sir, superannuated keeper and custodian
of this Institution, eigh-tv-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
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 ottr voluntary contributions, —

MRS. WILLIAM'S MOTHERLY FEELING. 425

Butter. In fact, sir, my father is a family in himself—
Castors — to take care of; and it happens all for the hest 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.

"Mi's. Wrilliam has been at it again, sir!" said the keeper,
as he stood wanning a plate at the fire, and pleasantly
shading his face with it. Air. 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 courses 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, thev puts their
heads into the Lodge, one after another, and liave 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, Tin 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
pei-son by. If Mrs. William is known by something better

426 THE HxVUNTED MAN.

than her name — I allude to Mrs. William's qualities and
disposition — never mind her name, though it is Svvidgcr,
by rights. Let 'em call her Swidge, Widge, Bridge — Lord !
London Bridge, Blackfriars, Chelsea, Putney, Waterloo, or
Hammersmith 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. William's light hair stood on end all over
his head, and seemed to draw his eyes up with it in an
excess of bustling readiness for anything, the dark brown hair
of Mrs. William was carefully smoothed down, and waved
away under a trim tidy cap, in the most exact and quiet
manner imaginable. Whereas Mr. William's very trousers
hitched themselves up at the ankles, as if it were not in
their iron-grey nature to rest without looking about them,
Mrs. William's neatly-flowered skirts — red and white, like
her own pretty face — were as composed and orderly, as if
the very wind that blew so hard out of doors could not
disturb one of their folds. Whereas his coat had something
of a fly-away and half-off appearance about the collar and
breast, her little bodice was so placid and neat, that there
should have been protection for her, in it, had she needed
any, with the roughest people. Who could have had the
heart to make so calm a bosom swell with grief, or throb
with fear, or flutter with a thought of shame ! To whom
would its repose and peace have not appealed against
disturbance, like the innocent slumber of a child !

" Punctual, of course, Milly," said her husband, relieving
her of the tray, " or it wouldn't be you. Here's Mrs.

MILLY AND THE OLD MAN.

427

William, sir ! — He looks lonelier than ever to-night,"
whispering to his wife, as he was taking the tray, "and
ghostlier altogether.**'

Without any show of hurry or noise, or any show of herself
even, she was so calm and quiet, Milly-
set the dishes she had brought upon the
table, — Mr. William, after much clatter
ing 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?'1'' asked Mr. Red law, 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. William,
striking in with the
butter- boat. " Berries
is so seasonable to the
time of year ! — Brown
gravy ! "

"Another Christmas come?
another year gone ! " mur
mured 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 noise
lessly trimmed with her scissors, and decorated the room with,

428 THE HAUNTED MAN.

\vhile 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. Red law —
proud to say — and wait till spoke to ! Merry Christmas,
sir, and happy New Year, and many of 'cm. 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 plate away, and,, rising from the
table, walked across the room to where the old man stood
looking at a little sprig of holly in his hand.

" 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

MERRY AND HAPPY. 429

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 birds1 eyes were so
bright, perhaps, because the berries that they lived on in
the winter were so bright. I recollect that. And Tin 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 "cm 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 1em all, boys and girls,
little children and babies, many a year, when the berries like
these were not shining half so bright all round us, as their
bright faces. Many of '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."

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

430 THE HAUNTED MAN.

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 Eliza
beth'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 panelling.
I was going to say — he has helped to keep my memory green,
I thank him ; for, going round the building every year, as
I'm a-doing now, and freshening up the bare rooms with
these branches and berries, freshens up my bare old brain.
One year brings back another, and that year another, and
those others numbers ! At last, it seems to me as if the
birth-time of our Lord was the birth-time of all I have
ever had affection for, or mourned for, or delighted in, — and
they're a pretty many, for I'm eighty-seven ! "

" Merry and happy," murmured Redlaw to himself.

The room began to darken strangely.

EMBARRASSMENT OF MR. SWIDGER. 431

"So you see, sir,"" pursued old Philip, whose hale wintry
cheek had warmed into a ruddier glow, and whose blue eyes
had brightened while he spoke, " I have plenty to keep, when
I keep this present season. Now, whereas my quiet Mouse?
Chattering's the sin of my time of life, and there's half the
building to do vet, 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. Red law
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 Switlger, looking towards his wife in considerable
embarrassment. "Mrs. William's got her eye upon me."

" But you're not afraid of Mi's. William's eye ? "

" Why, no, sir," returned Mr. Swidger, " that's what I 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 Shak-
speare in comparison with myself. Down in the Buildings,
you know, my love. — Student."

432 THE HAUNTED MAN.

"Student?r repeated Mr. Redlaw, raising his head.
"That's what I say, sir!" cried Mr. William, in the utmost
animation of assent. "If i-t 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
from any haste or confusion, "that William 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, persuasively
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 con
fidence, but that's quite different. They all confide in Mrs.
AVilliam ; they all trust her. A man, sir, couldn't have got
a whisper out of him ; but woman, sir, and Mrs. William
combined — ! "

"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.

THE POOH STUDENT. 433

" 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. Red law 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
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. 13ut I know he is poor,
and lonely, and I think he is somehow 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
Millv, "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.
AYhere's my son William ? Wiliam, 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

2 F

434 THE HAUNTED MAN.

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,
this very night, when she was coming home (why it's not
above a couple of hours ago), a creature more like a young
wild beast than a young child, shivering upon a door-step.
What does Mrs. William do, but brings it home to dry it,
and feed it, and keep it till our old Bounty of food and
flannel is given away, on Christmas morning ! If it ever felt
a fire before, it'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

HIS DREAD COMPANION.

and the year afore. Ha, ha! / remember — though Fm
eighty-seven ! ' Lord, keep my memory green ! ' It's a very
good prayer, Mr. lledlaw, 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!1 Ifs 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 him, in that
place where it had been gathering so darkly, it took, by
slow degrees, — or out of it there came, by some unreal, 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
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 ! v he said.

" Here again ! " replied the Phantom,

THE HAUNTED MAN.

" 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,11 replied the Ghost.

"No. Unbidden," exclaimed the Chemist.
" Unbidden be it,11 said the Spectre. " It is enough,
am here.11

MORBID REMEMBRANCE. 437

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 look
ing at the other. But, now, the haunted man turned, sud
denly, and stared upon the Ghost. The Ghost, as sudden in
its motion, passed to before the chair, and stared on him.

The living man, and the animated image of himself dead,
might so have looked, the one upon the other. An awful
survey, in a lonely and remote part of an empty old pile of
building, on a winter night, with the loud wind going by
upon its journey of mystery — whence, or whither, no man
knowing since the world began — and the stars, in 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.

"No mother's self-denying 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.

438 THE HAUNTED MAN.

" 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, with an evil smile, drew
closer to the chair, and resting its chin upon its folded
hands, its folded hands upon the back, and looking down into
his face with searching eyes, that seemed instinct with fire,
went on :

" 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
inferior nature might cherish, arose in my own heart. I was
too poor to bind its object to my fortune then, by any thread
of promise or entreaty. I loved her far too well, to seek to
do it. But, more than ever I had striven in my life, I strove
to climb ! Only an inch gained, brought me something nearer
to the height. I toiled up ! In the late pauses of my labour
at that time — my sister (sweet companion !) still sharing with
me the expiring embers and the cooling hearth, — when day
was breaking, what pictures of the future did I see ! "

" I saw them, in the fire, but now," he murmured. " They

A SORROW AND A WRONG. 439

conic 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, extending 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 sympathy,
as if it were a younger brother's or a son's. Sometimes I even
wonder when her heart first inclined to him, and how it had
been affected towards me. — Not lightly, once, I think. — But
that is nothing. Early unhappiness, a wound from a hand I
loved and trusted, and a loss that nothing can replace, out
live 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!"

440

THE HAUNTED MAN.

" 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 1 " 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," pro
ceeded 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."

i4 Tempter," answered Redlaw, " whose hollow look and
voice I dread more than words can express, and from whom

THE GIFT OFFERED. 441

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,'1 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 ! It is 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 ? AVhat 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 recollections.
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

442 THE HAUNTED MAN.

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. " / would
fjrget it if I could ! Have / thought that, alone, or has
it been the thought of thousands upon thousands, genera
tion 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 ? "

"It "is!"

"!T 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

A BABY SAVAGE. 443

its like in all whom you approach !" a shrill cry reached his
years. 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 which he
was accustomed to pass into and out of the theatre where he
lectured, — which adjoined his room. Associated with youth
and animation, and a high amphitheatre of faces which his
entrance charmed to interest in a moment, it was a ghostly
place when all this life was faded out of it, and stared upon
him like an emblem of Death.

" 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 crouched down in a corner.

"What is it?11 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 comer.

A bundle of tatters, held together by & 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 blootl
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 b'jast,

444

THE HAUNTED MAN.

the boy crouched down as he was looked at, and looked
back again, and interposed his arm to ward off the ex
pected blow.

"Til bite;1 he said, "if you hit me !"

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

WITHOUT A NAME.

445

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.

"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. " Til 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, sha'n't I? Ain't I
hungry every day?"

446 ^ THE HAUNTED MAN.

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.

"Til not go there, to-night," he murmured faintly.

" Til 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
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 GIFf 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 comer, where they might have reposed
snugly enough in the sleep of innocence, but for a consti
tutional 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

O

(like those accursed Picts and Scots who beleaguer the early
historical studies of most young Britons), and then withdrew
to their own territory.

In addition to the stir attendant on these inroads, and the
retorts of the invaded, who pursued hotly, and made lunges
at the bed-clothes, under which the marauders took refuge,
another little boy, in another little bed, contributed his mite
of confusion to the family stock, by casting his boots upon
the waters ; in other words, by launching these and several
small objects inoffensive in themselves, though of a hard

448

THE HAUNTED MAN.

substance considered as missiles, at the disturbers of his
repose, — who were not slow to return these compliments.

Besides which, another little boy — the biggest there, but
still little — was tottering to and fro, bent on one side, and
considerably affected in his knees by the weight of a large
baby, which he was supposed, by a fiction that obtains
sometimes in sanguine families, to be hushing to sleep. But
oh! the inexhaustible regions of contemplation and watch
fulness into which this baby's eyes were then only beginning
to compose themselves to stare, over his unconscious shoulder !
It was a very Moloch of a baby, on whose insatiate altar
the whole existence of this particular young brother was
offered up a daily sacrifice. Its personality may be said to
have consisted in its never being quiet, in any one place,
for five consecutive minutes, and never going to sleep when
required. " Tetterby's baby " was as well known in the

neighbourhood
as the postman
or the pot-boy.
It roved from
door-step to
door-step, in
the arms of
little Johnny
Tetterby, and
lagged heavily
at the rear of
troops of juve
niles who fol-
lowed the
Tumblers or
the Monkey,

and came up, all on one side, a little too late for everything
that was attractive, from Monday morning until Saturday
night. Wherever childhood congregated to plav, there was
little Moloch making Johnny fag and toil. Wherever Johnny

TETTERBY AND CO.

449

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 con
tent to catch
meek glimpses of
things in general
from behind its
skirts, or over
its limp flapping
bonnet, and to

go staggering about with it like a
very little porter with a very large parcel,
which was not directed to anybody,
and could never be delivered anywhere.

The small man who sat in the small
parlour, making fruitless attempts to read
his newspaper peaceably in the midst of this
disturbance, was the father of the family,
and the chief of the firm described in the
inscription over the little shop front, by the
name and title of A. TETTERBY AND Co., NEWSMEN. Indeed,
strictly speaking, he was the only personage answering to that
designation ; as Co. was a mere poetical abstraction, altogether
baseless and impersonal.

450 THE HAUNTED MAN.

Tetterby's was the corner shop in Jerusalem Buildings.
There was a good show of literature in the window, chiefly
consisting of picture-newspapers out of date, and serial pirates,
and footpads. Walking-sticks, likewise, and marbles, were
included in the stock in trade. It had once extended into
the light confectionery line ; but it would seem that those
elegancies of life were not in demand about Jerusalem
Buildings, for nothing connected with that branch of 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 representa
tion 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 livelihood out
of Jerusalem Buildings in one way or other, and appeared to
have done so indifferently in all, that the best position in
the firm was too evidently Co/s ; Co., as a bodiless creation,

MR. TETTERBY'S REMONSTRANCE. 451

being untroubled with the vulgar inconveniences of hunger
and thirst, being chargeable neither to the poors-rates nor
the assessed taxes, and having no young family to provide for.

Tetterby himself, however, in his little parlour, as already
mentioned, having the presence of a young family impressed
upon his mind in a manner too clamorous to be disregarded,
or to comport with the quiet perusal of a newspaper, laid
down his paper, wheeled, in his distraction, a few times
round the parlour, like an undecided carrier-pigeon, made an
ineffectual rush at one or two flying little figures in bed
gowns that skimmed past him, and then, bearing suddenly
down upon the only unoffending member of the family, boxed
the ears of little Moloch's nurse.

" 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 vou 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

452

THE HAUNTED MAN.

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. Tetter by 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 apparently,
mesmeric influence on him of the boots, who instantly fell
into a deep sleep, though he had been, but a moment before,
broad awake, and in the highest possible feather. Nor was
it lost upon the two young architects, who retired to bed,
in an adjoining closet, with great privacy and speed. The
comrade of the Intercepted One also shrinking into his nest
with similar discretion, Mr. Tetterby, when he paused for
breath, found himself unexpectedly in a scene of peace.

" My little woman herself,'1 said Mr. Tetterby, wiping his
flushed face, " could hardly have clone 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.1 Think of your own remarkable mother,
my boys,11 said Mr. Tetterby, " and know her value while she
is still among you ! "

He sat down in his chair by the fire, and composed himself,
cross-legged, over his newspaper.

"Let anybody, I don't care who it is, get out of bed
again,11 said Tetterby, as a general proclamation, delivered in

MR. TETTERBY'S LITTLE WOMAN. 453

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 ! " said his
father, " and how thankful you ought to be ! ' It is not
generally known,*1 Johnny ," he was now referring to the screen
again, " ' but it is a fact ascertained, by accurate calculations,
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.'1

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 ? "

" Here's mother, and 'Dolphus too, father ! " exclaimed
Johnny, " I think/1

" 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 re
markable for being robust and portly ; but considered with
reference to her husband, her dimensions became magnificent.
Nor did they assume a less imposing proportion, when studied
with reference to the size of her seven sons, who were but
diminutive. In the case of Sally, however, Mrs. Tetterby
had asserted herself, at last ; as nobody knew better than the
victim Johnny, who weighed and measured that exacting idol
every hour in the day.

454 THE HAUNTED MAN.

Mrs. Tetterby, who had been marketing, and carried a
basket, threw back her bonnet and shawl, and sitting down,
fatigued, commanded Johnny to bring his sweet charge to
her straightway, for a kiss. Johnny having complied, and
gone back to his stool, and again crushed himself, Master
Adolphus Tetterby, who had by this time unwound his Torso
out of a prismatic comforter, apparently interminable, re
quested the same favour. Johnny having again complied,
and again gone back to his stool, and again crushed himself,
Mr. Tetterby, struck by a sudden thought, preferred the same
claim on his own parental part. The satisfaction of this
third desire completely exhausted the sacrifice, who had
hardly breath enough left to get back to his stool, crush
himself again, and pant at his relations.

" 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 upper
most), 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 himself
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 the 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

MRS. TETTERBY IS PUT OUT. 455

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 inven
tion, remarkable, like many great discoveries, for its simplicity,
consisted in varying the first vowel in the word " paper," and
substituting, in its stead, at different periods of the day, all
the other vowels in grammatical succession. Thus, before
daylight in the winter time, he went to and fro, in his little
oilskin cap and cape, and his big comforter, piercing the
heavy air with his cry of "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.

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

456

THE HAUNTED MAN.

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, look
ing round again,
"you said that
before. Which
is the way the

thing ! "
Mrs. Tetterby.
"Sophia! "re
monstrated her
husband, " you
said that before,
too."

" Well, Til
say it again if
you like," re
turned Mrs.
Tetterby. "Oh
nothing — there !
And again if
you like, oh
nothing — there !
And again if you like, oh nothing— now then ! "

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 ? "
"Tin sure / don't know," she retorted. "Don't ask me,
Who said I was put out at all ? / never did."

SUPPER PREPARATIONS. 457

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
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!11 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 "

458 THE HAUNTED MAN.

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 shell 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
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
were not absolutely pork, had lived near it ; so, upon the
whole, there was the flavour of a middle-sized pig. It was

MRS. TETTERBY RECOVERS HER TEMPER. 459

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 ex
ceedingly, and once or twice imposed upon him the necessity
of a charge, before which these guerilla troops retired in all
directions and in great confusion.

Mi*s. 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 sud
denly on the unlucky Johnny (who was full of sympathy),
and demanded why he was wallowing there, in gluttony and
idleness, instead of coming forward with the baby, that the
sight of her might revive his mother. Johnny immediately
approached, borne down by its weight ; but Mi's. Tetterby
holding out her hand to signify that she was not in a con
dition to bear that trying appeal to her feelings, he was
interdicted from advancing another inch, on pain of perpetual
hatred from all his dearest connections ; and accordingly
retired to his stool again, and crushed himself as before.

After a pause, Mrs. Tetterby said she was better now, and
began to laugh.

"My little woman," said her husband, dubiously, "are

460 THE HAUNTED MAN.

you quite sure you're better ? Or are you, Sophia, about
to break out in a fresh direction ? "

" No, 'Dolphus, no," replied his wife. " Tin 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.11

" 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,

MRS. TETTERBY'S CONFESSION. 461

such delightful things to have — and there was so much
calculating and calculating necessary, before I durst lay out
a sixpence for the commonest thing; and the basket was
so large, and wanted so much in it ; and my stock of money
was so small, and would go such a little way ; — you hate
me, don't you, '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
trudging 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, 'Dolph us, 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 enjoyments we had ever had — they seemed
so poor and insignificant, I hated them. I could have
trodden on them. And I could think of nothing else, except
our being poor, and the number of mouths there were at
home."

" Well, well, my dear," said Mr. Tetterby, shaking her
hand encouragingly, " that's truth after all. We are }>oor,
and there are a number of mouths at home here."

"Ah! but, Dolf, Dolf!" cried his wife, laying her hands

462 THE HAUNTED MAN.

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 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 do it ! "

The good woman, quite carried away by her honest
tenderness and remorse, was weeping with all her heart, when
she started up with a scream, and ran behind her husband.
Her cry was so terrified, that the children started from their
sleep and from their beds, and clung about her. Nor did
her gaze belie her voice, as she pointed to a pale man in
a black cloak who had come into the room.

" Look at that man ! Look there ! What does he want ? "

" My dear," returned her husband, " 111 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.'1

" 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 niotiqn of her eyes, as if she
had lost something.

INFECTED AIR.

463

" Arc 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 himself
to the pale visitor in the black cloak, who stood still, and
whose eyes were bent upon the ground.

"Wrhat may be your pleasure, sir," he asked, "with us?"

" I fear that my coming in unperceived," returned the
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 if 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.

464 THE HAUNTED MAN.

"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
taking the candle from the newsman, he touched him on the
breast. Withdrawing his hand hastily, almost as though he
had wounded him by accident (for he did not know in
what part of himself his new power resided, or how it was
communicated, or how the manner of its reception varied in
different persons), he turned and ascended the stair.

But when he reached the top, he stopped and looked
down. The wife was standing in the same place, twisting
her ring round and round upon her finger. The husband,
with his head bent forward on his breast, was musing heavily
and sullenly. The children, still clustering about the mother,
gazed timidly after the visitor, and nestled together when
they saw him looking down.

"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

THE SICK STUDENT. 465

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 interchange
a word.

The Chemist, paler than before, stole upward like a thief ;
looking back upon the change below, and dreading equally
to go on or return.

" What have I done ! " he said, confusedly. " What am I
going to do ! "

"To be the benefactor of mankind,11 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,11 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!11

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?11 said the voice. "But I need
not ask her. There is no one else to come here.11

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.

466 THE HAUNTED MAN.

"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.'1'1

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 wrere 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.

" 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.

THE CHEMIST AND THE STUDENT. 467

" I heard, by an accident, by what accident is no matter,
that one of my class was ill and solitary. I received no other
description of him, than that he lived in this street. Begin
ning 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 Red law.

" 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 yesterday at
the first mention of this student's case, than the breathing
man himself, glanced again at the student leaning with his
hand upon the couch, and looked upon the ground, and in
the air, as if for light for his blinded mind.

" I remembered your name,1" 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 young man, who had heard him with increasing
agitation, raised his downcast eyes to his face, and clasping

468 THE HAUNTED MAN.

his hands together, cried with sudden earnestness and with
trembling lips :

" Mr. Redlaw ! You have discovered me. You know my
secret ! "

"Secret?" said the Chemist, harshly. "/ 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 contemptuous 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 Longford — "

"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

HER SON. 469

itself a well-assorted or a happy one. From infancy, I have
heard you spoken of with honour and respect — with some
thing that was almost reverence. I have heard of such
devotion, of such fortitude and tenderness, of such rising up
against the obstacles which press men down, that my fancy,
since I learnt my little lesson from my mother, has shed a
lustre on your name. At last, a poor student myself, from
whom could I learn but you ? "'

lledlaw, 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 indescrib
able 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 Red law'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

470 THE HAUNTED MAN.

recoil, and by the sternness of his repulsion ; and he passed his
hand, thoughtfully, across his forehead.

"The past is past,'1 said the Chemist. "It dies like the
brutes. Who talks to me of its traces in my life ? He
raves or lies ! What have I to do with your distempered
dreams? If you want money, here it is. I came to offer
it; and that is all I came for. There can be nothing else
that brings me here," he muttered, holding his head again,
with both his hands. "There can be nothing else, and
yet-

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!"

MILLY AND THE STUDENT. 471

lied law 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.

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 noiselessly
about the room, set everything exactly in its place, and in the

472

THE HAUNTED MAN.

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 it costs very little, and will save your

eyes, too, from the light. My William says the room should
not be too light just now, when you are recovering so well,
or the glare might make you giddy."

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."

THE CONTAGION SPREADS. 473

" 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
thanklessly, that, after he had thrown himself down again,
she stood timidly pausing. However, she resumed her seat,
and her needle, without having directed even a murmuring
look towards him, and was soon as busy as before.

" 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 rejoined

474 THE HAUNTED MAN.

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/1

Her fingers stopped, and she looked at him.

" I can't be made to feel the more obliged by your
exaggerating 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 walk
ing to and fro with an intolerant air, and stopping now and
then.

"I say again, I am much obliged to you. Why weaken
my sense of what is your due in obligation, by preferring
enormous claims upon me ? Trouble, sorrow, affliction,
adversity ! One might suppose I had been dying a score of
deaths here ! "

"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."

A DREADFUL GIFT. 475

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 indignant
as she was calm, as angry in her look as she was gentle, as
loud of tone as she was low and clear, she might have left
no sense of her departure in the room, compared with that
which fell upon the lonely student when she went away.

He was gazing drearily upon the place where she had
been, when Redlaw came out of his concealment, and came to
the door.

"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 rue ? What
curse have you brought upon me? Give me back myself!"

"Give me back myself ! " exclaimed Redlaw like a madman.
" 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

476 THE HAUNTED MAN.

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, w'hich the winds tossed into unintelligible
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
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, form
ing a part of the chief quadrangle. There was a little cloister

.THE OLD COLLEGE. 477

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

478 THE HAUNTED MAN.

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.

" 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 white
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?"

REDLAW AND HIS GUIDE. 479

" 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 Til 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
contact, was not nearly equal to the cold vague terror with
which he saw this baby-monster put it at defiance. It chilled
his blood to look on the immovable impenetrable thing, in
the likeness of a child, with its sharp malignant face turned
up to his, and its almost infant hand, ready at the bars.

" Listen, boy ! " he said. " You shall take me where you
please, so that you take me where the people are very miser
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 Til go."

The Chemist laid a few shillings, one by one, in his extended
hand. To count them was beyond the boy's knowledge, but
he said " 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

480 THE HAUNTED MAN.

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
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 lie saw her in
her glory, surrounded by a host of stars he still knew by the
names and histories which human science has appended to
them ; but where he saw nothing else he had been wont to
see, felt nothing he had been wont to feel, in looking up
there, on a bright night.

The third was when he stopped to listen to a plaintive
strain of music, but could only hear a tune, made manifest
to him by the dry mechanism of the instruments and his
own ears, with no address to any mystery within him, without
a whisper in it of the past, or of the future, powerless upon
him as the sound of last year's running water, or the rushing
of last year's wind.

At each of these three times, he saw with horror that, in

LODGINGS FOR TRAVELLERS. 481

spite of the vast intellectual distance between them, and their
being unlike each other in all physical respects,1 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 Travel lers" painted on it.

Redlaw looked about him ; from the houses, to the waste
piece of ground on which the houses stood, or rather did not
altogether tumble down, unfenced, undrained, unlighted, and
bordered by a sluggish ditch; from that, to the sloping line
of arches, part of some neighbouring viaduct or bridge with
which it was surrounded, and which lessened gradually, towards
them, until the last but one was a mere kennel for a dog,
the last a plundered little heap of bricks ; from that, to the
child, close to him, cowering and trembling with the cold, and
limping on one little foot, while he coiled the other round his
leg to warm it, yet staring at all these things with that fright
ful likeness of expression so apparent in his face, that Redlaw
started from him.

Ciln there!" said the boy, pointing out the house again.
"Til 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.

2 i

THE HAUNTED MAN.

"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
wends.

" I am come here to give relief, if I can,"" he said. " Are
you thinking of any wrong ? *

She frowned at him, and then laughed ; and then her laugh
prolonged itself into a shivering sigh, as she dropped hoi-
head again, and hid her fingers in her hair.

u 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

SORROW, WRONG, AND TROUBLE! 483

he saw the type of thousands, when he saw her, drooping at
his feet.

" What arc 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 wrong done to
you ? In spite of all that you can do, docs 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. Hut
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."

"Til 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 hod ever come near her.

" Sorrow, wrong, and trouble ! " he muttered, turning his
fearful gaze away. "All that connects her with the state
from which she has fallen, has those roots ! In the name of
God, let me go by ! "

Afraid to look at her again, afraid to touch her, afraid to

484 THE HAUNTED MAN.

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 amaze
ment, 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

THE FAVOURITE SON. 485

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 comer
of the room. He seemed to be about his own age; and
although he knew no such hopeless decay and broken man as
he appeared to be, there was something in the turn of his
figure, as he stood with his back towards him, and now went
out at the door, that made him pass his hand uneasily across
his brow.

" William," he said in a gloomy whisper, " who is that
man ? "

" Why you see, sir," returned Mr. William, " that's what
I say, myself. Why should a man ever go and gamble, and
the like of that, and let himself down inch by inch till he
can't let himself down any lower ! "

"Has he done so?" asked Redlaw, glancing after him
with the same uneasy action as before.

" Just exactly that, sir," returned William Swidger, " as I'm
told. He knows a little about medicine, sir, it seems; and
having been wayfaring towards London with my unhappy
brother that you see here," Mr. William passed his coat-sleeve
across his eyes, " and being lodging up-stairs for the night —
what I say, you see, is that strange companions come together
here sometimes — he looked in to attend upon him, and came
for us at his request. What a mournful spectacle, sir ! But
that's where it is. It's enough to kill my father ! "

Redlaw looked up, at these words, and, recalling where he
was and with whom, and the spell he earned 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.

486

THE HAUNTED MAN.

" Was it only yesterday," he said, " when I observed the
memory of this old man to be a tissue of sorrow and trouble,
and shall I be afraid, to-night, to shake it ? Are such
remembrances as I can drive away, so precious to this dying
man that I need fear for him ? No ! Ill 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.

" My boy ! My son George ! " said old Philip.

"You spoke, just now, of my being mother's favourite,
long ago. It's a dreadful thing to think now, of long ago !"

" No, no, no ! " returned the old man. " Think of it.
Don't say it's dreadful. It's not dreadful to me, my son."

"It cuts you to the heart, father." For the old man's
tears were falling on him.

" Yes, yes," said Philip, " so it does ; but it does me good.
It's a heavy sorrow to think of that time, but it does me
good, George. Oh, think of it too, think of it too, and your
heart will be softened more and more ! Where's my son
William ? William, my boy, your mother loved him dearly
to the last, and with her latest breath said, ' Tell him
I forgave him, blessed him, and prayed for him.' Those
were her words to me. I have never forgotten them, and I'm
eighty-seven !"

"Father!" said the man upon the bed, "I am dying, I
know. I am so far gone, that I can hardly speak, even
of what my mind most runs on. Is there any hope for me
beyond this bed ? "

" There is hope," returned the old man, " for all who are
softened and penitent. There is hope for all such. Oh ! "
he exclaimed, clasping his hands and looking up, "I was
thankful, only yesterday, that I could remember this unhappy
son when he was an innocent child. But what a comfort it

THE OLD MAN'S SUPPLICATION. 487

is, now, to think that even God himself has that remem
brance of him ! "

Red law 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 back ! Not as he is, but as he was then, let him
cry to thee, as he has so often seemed to cry to us ! "

As the old man lifted up his trembling hands, the son,
for whom he made the supplication, laid his sinking head
against him for support and comfort, as if he were indeed
the child of whom he spoke.

When did man ever tremble, as Redlaw trembled, in the
silence that ensued ! He knew it must come upon them,
knew that it was coming fast.

" My time is very short, my breath is shorter," said the
sick man, supporting himself on one arm, and with the other
groping in the air, "and I remember there is something on
my mind concerning the man who was here just now. Father
and William— wait !— is there really anything in black, out
there?"

" Yes, yes, it is real," said his aged father.

"Is it a man?"

"What I say myself, George," interposed his brother,
bending kindly over him. "It's Mr. Redlaw."

488 THE HAUNTED MAN.

" I thought I had dreamed of him. Ask him to come here."

The Chemist, whiter than the dying man, appeared before
him. Obedient to the motion of his hand, he sat upon the
bed.

"It has been so ripped up, to-night, sir," said the sick
man, laying his hand upon his heart, with a look in which
the mute, imploring agony of his condition was concentrated,
"by the sight of my poor old father, and the thought of all
the trouble I have been the cause of, and all the wrong and
sorrow lying at my door, that "

Was it the extremity to which he had come, or was it
the dawning of another change, that made him stop ?

" — that what I can do right, with my mind running on
so much, so fast, I'll try to do. There was another man
here. Did you see him ? "

Redlaw could not reply by any word ; for when he saw
that fatal sign he knew so well now, of the wandering hand
upon the forehead, his voice died at his lips. But he made
some indication of assent.

" He is penniless, hungry, and destitute. He is completely
beaten down, and has no resource at all. Look after him !
Lose no time ! I know he has it in his mind to kill himself."

It was working. It was on his face. His face was
changing, hardening, deepening in all its shades, and losing
all its sorrow.

" Don't you remember ? Don't you know him ? " he pursued.

He shut his face out for a moment, with the hand that
again wandered over his forehead, and then it lowered on
Redlaw, reckless, ruffianly, and callous.

" Why, d — n you ! " he said, scowling round, " what have
you been doing to me here ! I have lived bold, and I mean
to die bold. To the Devil with you ! "

And so lay down upon his bed, and put his arms up, over
his head and ears, as resolute from that time to keep out all
access, and to die in his indifference.

If Redlaw had been struck by lightning, it could not have

THE GIFT BESIDE A DEATH-BED. 489

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 yqu 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 re
sentment. " No such wretch as that, has any claim on me.
My children are pleasant to look at, and they wait upon me,
and get my meat and drink ready, and are useful to me. I've
a right to it ! I'm eighty-seven ! "

"You're old enough to be no older," muttered William,
looking at him grudgingly, with his hands in his pockets.
" I don't know what good you are, myself. We could have
a deal more pleasure without you."

" My son, Mr. Redlaw ! " said the old man. " My son, too !
The boy talking to me of my son ! Why, what has he
ever done to give me any pleasure, I should like to know ? "

"I don't know what you have ever done to give me any
pleasure," said William, sulkily.

" Let me think," said the old man. " For how many
Christmas times running, have I sat in my warm place, and
never had to come out in the cold night air ; and have made
good cheer, without being disturbed by any such uncomfort
able, wretched sight as him there ? Is it twenty, William ? "

" Nigher forty, it seems," he muttered. " Why, when I
look at my father, sir, and come to think of it," addressing
Redlaw, with an impatience and irritation that were quite
new, " I'm whipped if I can see anything in him but a
calendar of ever so many years of eating and drinking, and
making himself comfortable, over and over again."

" I — Fin eighty-seven," said the oltl man, rambling on,

490

THE HAUNTED MAN.

childishly and weakly, " and I don't know as I ever was much
put out by anything. Tm not going to begin now, because
of what he calls my son. He's not my son. I've had a
power of pleasant times. I recollect once — no I don't — no,
it's broken off. It was something about a game of cricket
and a friend of mine, but it's somehow broken off'. I wonder
who he was — I suppose I liked him ? And I wonder what
became of him — I suppose he died? But I don't know.
And I don't care, neither ; I don't care a bit."

In his drowsy chuckling, and the shaking of his head,
he put his hands into his waistcoat-pockets. In one of
them he found a bit of holly (left there, probably last night),
which he now took out, and looked at.

"Berries, eh?" said the old man. "Ah! It's a pity
they're not good to eat. I recollect, when I was a little
chap about as high as that, and out a-walking with — let me
see — who was I out a-walking with ? — no, I don't remember
how that was. I don't remember as I ever walked with any
one particular, or cared for any one, or any one for me.
Berries, eh ? There's good cheer when there's berries. Well ;
I ought to have my share of it, and to be waited on, and
kept warm and comfortable ; for I'm eighty-seven, and a
poor old man. I'm eigh-ty-seven. Eigh-ty-seven ! "

The drivelling, pitiable manner in which, as he repeated
this, he nibbled at the leaves, and spat the morsels out; the
cold, uninterested eye with which his youngest son (so
changed) regarded him ; the determined apathy with which
his eldest son lay hardened in his sin ; — impressed themselves
no more on Redlaw's observation ; for he broke his way
from the spot to which his feet seemed to have been fixed,
and ran out of the house.

His guide came crawling forth from his place of refuge,
and was ready for him before he reached the arches.

" Back to the woman's ? " he inquired.

" Back, quickly ! " answered Redlaw. " Stop nowhere on
the way."

THE BOY BEFORE THE FIRE. 491

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, accom
panied 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 his hands, began
furtively to pick it up. When he had done so, he crept near
the fire, and, sitting down in a great chair before it, took from
his breast some broken scraps of food, and fell to munching,
and to staring at the blaze, and now and then to glancing at
his shillings, which he kept clenched up in a bunch, in one hand.

492 THE HAUNTED MAN.

/

" And this," said Redlaw, gazing on him with increased
repugnance and fear, " is the only one companion I have left
on earth."

How long it was before he was aroused from his 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 ! "
" 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 ! "

PRAYER FOR RELIEF.

493

All this time he held the boy, who was half-mad to pass
him, and let her in.

" Phantoms ! Punishers of impious thoughts ! " cried Red-
law, gazing round in anguish. " Look upon me ! From the
darkness of my mind, let the glimmering of contrition that
I know is there, shine up, and show my misery ! In the
material world, as I have long taught, nothing can be spared ;
no step or atom in the wondrous structure could be lost,
without a blank being made in the great universe. I know,
now, that it is the same with good and evil, happiness and
sorrow, in the memories of men. Pity me ! Relieve me ! "

There was no response, but her " Help me, help me, let
me in ! " and the boy's struggling to get to her.

" Shadow of myself ! Spirit of my darker hours ! * cried
Redlaw, in distraction. "Come back, and haunt me day
and night, but take this gift away ! Or, if it must still
rest with me, deprive me of the dreadful power of giving it
to others. Undo what I have done. Leave me benighted,
but restore the day to those whom I have cursed. As I
have spared this woman from the first, and as I never will
go forth again, but will die here, with no hand to tend me,
save this creature's who is proof against me, — hear me ! "

The only reply still was, the boy struggling to get to her,
while he held him back ; and the cry, increasing in its
energy, " Help ! let me in. He was your friend once, how
shall he be followed, how shall he be saved ? They are all
changed, there is no one else to help me, pray, pray, let
me in ! "

CHAPTER III.

THE GIFT REVERSED.

NIGHT was still heavy in the sky. On open
plains, from hill-tops, and from the decks of soli
tary 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

CHRISTMAS MUSIC.

19.5

cast, were their concealments from him, and imperfect revela
tions 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 whi tenet!
ashes of the fire, as of its yielding up its last breath. Before
it on the ground the boy lay fast asleep. In his chair, the
Chemist sat, as he had sat there since the calling at his door
had ceased — like a man turned to stone.

At such a time, the Christmas music he had heard before,
began to play. He listened to it at first, as he had listened
in the 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
wondering ; a gentle trembling came upon him ; and at last
his eyes filled with tears, and he put his hands before them,
and bowed down his head.

His memory of sorrow, wrong, and trouble, had not come
back to him ; he knew that it was not restored ; he had no
passing belief or hope that it was. But some dumb stir
within him made him capable, again, of being moved by what
was hidden, afar off, in the music. If it were only that it
told him sorrowfully the value of what he had lost, he
thanked Heaven for it with a fervent gratitude.

As the last chord died upon his ears, he raised his head

496 THE HAUNTED MAN.

to listen to its lingering vibration. Beyond the boy, so that
his sleeping figure lay at its feet, the Phantom stood, im
movable 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 ! "

"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 ? "

SEEK HER OUT. 497

" 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 without dread ?
Oh, let her give me any sign of hope ! "

The Phantom looked upon the shade as he did — not at
him — and gave no answer.

" At least, say this — has she, henceforth, the consciousness
of any power to set right what I have done ? "

"She has not," the Phantom answered.

" Has she the power bestowed on her without the conscious
ness?"

The Phantom answered : " Seek her out." And her shadow
slowly vanished.

They were face to face again, and looking on each other,
as intently and awfully as at the time of the bestowal of the
gift, across the boy who still lay on the ground between them,
at the Phantom's feet.

"Terrible instructor," said the Chemist, sinking on his knee
before it, in an attitude of supplication, " by whom I was re
nounced, 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

2 K

-

!!)!)

this land i there i* no one riHen from the «tatc of childhood,
but shall bo responsible in IUM or her degree for this enormity.
There in not iv country throughout the earth on which it
would not bring a eurnc, Thrn- in no religion upon eartli that
it would not deny ; there JH no jieople upon earth it would
not put to shame."

The Chemist clasped his hands, and looked, with trembling
fear and pity, from the sleeping boy to the Phantom, standing
above him with its finger pointing down.

44 Behold, I Hay," pursued the Spectre, " the perfect type of
what it was your choice to be. Your influence is powerless
here, because from this child's bosom you can banish nothing.
His thoughts have been in * terrible companionship1 with
yours, because you have gone down to his unnatural level. He
is the growth of man's indifference ; you are the growth of
man's presumption. The beneficent design of Heaven is in
each case, overthrown, and from the two poles of the im
material 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
constancy, shook off the finer particles of snow that had
accumulated on his dull old face in the night, and looked
out at the little white wreaths eddying round and round
him. Doubtless some blind groping of the morning made
its way down into the forgotten crypt so cold and earthy,
where the Norman arches were half buried in the ground,
and stirred the dull deep sap in the lazy vegetation hang
ing to the walls, and quickened the slow principle of life

500

THE HAUNTED MAN.

f|i til

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
window to the eyes, so proof
linst their seductions, of Je
rusalem Build
ings. Adolphus
had been out
so long already,
that he was
halfway on to
Morning Pep
per. Five small
Tetterbys,
whose ten round
eyes were much
inflamed by soap
and friction,
were in the tor
tures of a cool
wash in the back
kitchen ; Mrs.
Tetterby pre
siding. 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,

YOUNG MOLOCH. 501

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 certainly cut
enough, on the showing of Mrs. Tetterby, to make a hand
some dental provision for the sign of the Bull and Mouth.
All sorts of objects were impressed for the rubbing of its
gums, notwithstanding that it always carried, dangling at its
waist (which was immediately under its chin), a bone ring,
large enough to have represented the rosary of a young nun.
Knife-handles, umbrella- tops, the heads of walking-sticks
selected from the stock, the fingers of the family in general,
but especially of Johnny, nutmeg-graters, crusts, the handles
of doors, and the cool knobs on the tops of pokers, were
among the commonest instruments indiscriminately applied
for this baby's relief. The amount of electricity that must
have been rubbed out of it in a week, is not to be
calculated. Still Mrs. Tetterby always said "it was coming
through, and then the child would be herself;" and still it
never did come through, and the child continued to be
somebody else.

The tempers of the little Tetterbys had sadly changed
with a few hours. Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby themselves were
not more altered than their offspring. Usually they were an
unselfish, good-natured, yielding little race, sharing short-
commons when it happened (which was pretty often) con
tentedly and even generously, and taking a great deal of
enjoyment out of a very little meat. But they were fighting
now, not only for the soap and water, but even for the 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
Johnny— rose against the baby ! Yes, Mrs. Tetterby, going
to the door bv a mere accident, saw him viciously pick out

502 THE HAUNTED MAN.

a weak place in the suit of armour where a slap would tell,
and slap that blessed child.

Mrs. Tetterby had him into the parlour by the collar, in
that same flash of time, and repaid him the assault with usury
thereto.

" You brute, you murdering little boy," said Mrs. Tetterby.
" Had you the heart to do it?"

" Why don't her teeth come through, then," retorted
Johnny, in a loud rebellious voice, " instead of bothering
me? How would you like it yourself?"

" Like it, sir ! " said Mrs. Tetterby, relieving him of his
dishonoured load.

" Yes, like it," said Johnny. " How would you ? Not at
all. If you was, me, you'd go for a soldier. I will, too.
There an't no babies in the army."

Mr. Tetterby, who had arrived upon the scene of action,
rubbed his chin thoughtfully, instead of correcting the rebel,
and seemed rather struck by this view of a military life.

"I wish I was in the army myself, if the child's in the
right," said Mrs. Tetterby, looking at her husband, "for I
have no peace of my life here. I'm a slave — a Virginia
slave ; " some indistinct association with their weak descent
on the tobacco trade perhaps suggested this aggravated 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 as
piration, " 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.

THE SHADOW ON THE TETTERBYS. 503

'• 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
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 precipitated
themselves with great ardour, as if such ground were the only
ground on which they could now agree; and having, with no
visible remains of their late soft-hearted ness, 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,"1
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 mar
riages, I've done it myself. I know quite enough about

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

504 THE HAUNTED MAN.

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. Fin wiser, now.11

" Bah ! wiser, indeed ! " said Mrs. Tetterby. " Are you
better?"

The question sounded some discordant note in Mr.
Tetterby 's breast. He ruminated dejectedly, and passed his
hand across and across his forehead.

" Better ! " murmured Mr. Tetterby. " I don't know as
any of us are better, or happier either. Better, is it ? "

He turned to the screen, and traced about it with his
finger, until he found a certain paragraph of which he was
in quest.

" This used to be one of the family favourites, I recollect,'1
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,11 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.

AN OUTRAGE ON DR. WATTS. 505

" I do mean it," said his wife.

"Why, then I mean to say," pursued Mr. Tetterby, as
sulkily and surlily as she, " that there are two sides to that
affair; and that / was the sacrifice; and that I wish the
sacrifice hadn't been accepted. "

". I wish it hadn't, Tetterby, with all my heart and soul I
do assure you," said his wife. " You can't wish it more than
I do, Tetterby."

" I don't know what I saw in her," muttered the newsman,
*'• I'm sure :— certainly, if I saw anything, it's not there now.
I was thinking so, last night, after supper, by the fire. She's
fat, she's ageing, she won't bear comparison with most other
women."

" He's common-looking, he has no air with him, he's small,
he's beginning to stoop, and he's getting bald," muttered
Mrs. Tetterby.

"I must have been half out of my mind when I did it,"
muttered Mr. Tetterby.

"My senses must have forsook me. That's the only way
in which I can explain it to myself," said Mrs. Tetterby, with
elaboration.

In this mood they sat down to breakfast. The little
Tetterbys were not habituated to regard that meal in the
light of a sedentary occupation, but discussed it as a dance
or trot; rather resembling a savage ceremony, in the
occasional shrill whoops, and brandishings of bread and
butter, with which it was accompanied, as well as in the
intricate filings off into the street and back again, and the
hoppings up and down the 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

506 THE HAUNTED MAN.

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. " Kerens Mrs. William coming down the
street ! "

And if ever, since the world began, a young boy took a
baby from a cradle with the care of an old nurse, and hushed
and soothed it tenderly, and tottered away with it cheerfully,
Johnny was that boy, and Moloch was that baby, as they
went out together !

Mr. Tetterby put down his cup ; Mrs. Tetterby put down
her cup. Mr. Tetterby rubbed his forehead ; Mrs. Tetterby
rubbed hers. Mr. Tetterby's face began to smooth and
brighten ; Mrs. Tetterby ''s began to smooth and brighten.

" Why, Lord forgive me," said Mr. Tetterby to himself,
" what evil tempers have I been giving way to ? What has
been the matter here ! "

" How could I ever treat him ill again, after all I said and
felt last night ! " sobbed Mrs. Tetterby, with her apron to
her eyes.

" Am I a brute," said Mr. Tetterby, " or is there any good
in me at all? Sophia! My little woman!"

" "Dolphus dear," returned his wife.

"I — I've been in a state of mind," said Mr. Tetterby,
" that I can't abear to think of, Sophy."

THE ATMOSPHERE BRIGHTENS. 507

" Oh ! It's nothing to what I've been in, Dolf," cried his
wife in a great burst of grief.

"My Sophia," said Mr. Tetterby, "don't take on. I never
shall forgive myself. I must have nearly broke your heart,
I know."

"No, Dolf, no. It was me ! Me ! " cried Mrs. Tetterby.

"My little woman," said her husband, "don't. You make
me reproach myself dreadful, when you show such a noble
spirit. Sophia, my dear, you don't know what I thought. I
showed it bad enough, no doubt; but what I thought, my
little woman ! " —

" Oh, dear Dolf, don't ! Don't ! " cried his wife.

"Sophia," said Mr. Tetterby, "I must reveal it. I
couldn't rest in my conscience unless I mentioned it. My
little woman — "

" Mrs. William's very nearly here ! " screamed Johnny at
the door.

" My little woman, I wondered how," gasped Mr. Tetterby,
supporting himself by his chair, " I wondered how I had ever
admired you — I forgot the precious children you have brought
about me, and thought you didn't look as slim as I could
wish. I — I never gave a recollection," said Mr. Tetterby,
with severe self-accusation, " to the cares you've had as my
wife, and along of me and mine, when you might have had
hardly any with another man, who got on better and was
luckier than me (anybody might have found such a man
easily, I am sure); and I quarrelled with you for having
aged a little in the rough years you have lightened for
me. Can you believe it, my little woman ? I hardly can
myself."

Mrs. Tetterby, in a whirlwind of laughing and crying,
caught his face within her hands, and held it there.

"Oh, Dolf!" she cried. "I am so happy that you thought
so ; I am so grateful that you thought so ! For I thought
that you were common-looking, Dolf; and so you are, my
dear, and may you be the commonest of all sights in my

508

THE HAUNTED MAN.

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,

i/«t«

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

MILLVS RECEPTION. 509

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 I are you all so glad to see me, too, this bright
Christmas morning?'" said Milly, clapping her hands in a
pleasant wonder. "Oh dear, how delightful this is!"

More shouting from the children, more kissing, more
trooping round her, more happiness, more love, more joy,
more honour, on all sides, than she could bear.

"Oh dear!" said Milly, "what delicious tears you make
me shed. How can I ever have deserved this ! What have
I done to be so loved ? "

" Who can help it ! " cried Mr. Tetterby.

"Who can help it!" cried Mrs. Tetterby.

"Who can help it!" echoed the children, in a joyful
chorus. And they danced and trooped about her again, and
clung to her, and laid their rosy faces against her dress, and
kissed and fondled it, and could not fondle it, or her, enough.

" I never was so moved," said Milly, drying her eyes, "as I
have been this morning. I must tell you, as soon as I can
speak. — Mr. Redlaw came to me at sunrise, and with a
tenderness in his manner, more as if I had been his darling
daughter than myself, implored me to go with him to where
William's brother George is lying ill. We went together,
and all the way along he was so kind, and so subdued, and
seemed to put such trust and hope in me, that I could not
help crying with pleasure. When we got to the house, we
met a woman at the door (somebody had bruised and hurt
her, I am afraid) who caught me by the hand, and blessed
me as I passed."

510 THE HAUNTED MAN.

"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 overflowed, and I could have done nothing but
sob and cry, if the sick man had not begged me to sit down
by him, — which made me quiet of course. As I sat there,
he held my hand in his until he sunk in a doze ; and even
then, when I withdrew my hand to leave him to come
here (which Mr. Redlaw was very earnest indeed in wishing
me to do), his hand felt for mine, so that some one else was
obliged to take my place and make believe to give him my
hand back. Oh dear, oh dear," said Milly, sobbing. " How
thankful and how happy I should feel, and do feel, for
all this ! "

While she was speaking, Redlaw had come in, and, after
pausing for a moment to observe the group of which she was
the centre, had silently ascended the stairs. Upon those
stairs he now appeared again ; remaining there, while the
young student passed him, and came running down.

"Kind nurse, gentlest, best of creatures," he said, falling
on his knee to her, and catching at her hand, "forgive my
cruel ingratitude ! "

"Oh dear, oh dear!" cried Milly innocently, "here's
another of them ! Oh dear, here's somebody else who likes
me. What shall I ever do ! "

GOOD NEWS FOR THE STUDENT. 511

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 re
stored. 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 Mifly, 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
stairs.

"Hush! No," said Milly.

"It can be no one else."

"Indeed," said Milly, "are you sure?"

512

THE HAUNTED MAN.

"It is not " Before he could say more, sne 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."11

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.

A FAR BETTER GIFT. 513

He was conscious that, as he redeemed, through Milly,
more and more of the evil he had done, and as he was more
and more with her, this change ripened itself within him.
Therefore, and because of the attachment she inspired him
with (but without other hope), he felt that he was quite
dependent on her, and that she was his staff' in his
affliction.

So, when she asked him whether they should go home now,
to where the old man and her husband were, and he readily
replied " yes " — being anxious in that regard — he put his arm
through hers, and walked beside her; not as if he were the
wise and learned man to whom the wonders of nature were
an open book, and hers were the uninstructed mind, but as
if their two positions were reversed, and he knew nothing,
and she all.

He saw the children throng about her, and caress her, as
he and she went away together thus, out of the house ; he
heard the ringing of their laughter, and their merry voices ;
he saw their bright faces, clustering around him like flowers ;
he witnessed the renewed contentment and affection of their
parents ; he breathed the simple air of their poor home,
restored to its tranquillity; he thought of the unwholesome
blight he had shed upon it, and might, but for her, have
been diffusing then ; and perhaps it is no wonder that he
walked submissively beside her, and drew her gentle bosom
nearer to his own.

AVhen 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

514 THE HAUNTED MAN.

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?1"
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. "/
have been in an ugly sort of dream, I think. How are you,
father? Are you pretty well?"

"Strong and brave, my boy,1' returned the old man.

It was quite a sight to see Mr. William shaking hands with
his father, and patting him on the back, and rubbing him
gently down with his hand, as if he could not possibly do
enough to show an interest in him.

" What a wonderful man you are, father ! — How are you,
father ? Are you really pretty hearty, though ? " said William,
shaking hands with him again, and patting him again, and
rubbing him gently down again.

"I never was fresher or stouter in my life, my boy."

" What a wonderful man you are, father ! But that's
exactly where it is," said Mr. William, with enthusiasm.
" When I think of all that my father's gone through, and all
the chances and changes, and sorrows and troubles, that have
happened to him in the course of his long life, and under
which his head has grown grey, and years upon years have
gathered on it, I feel as if we couldn't do enough to honour
the old gentleman, and make his old age easy. — How are
you, father? Are you really pretty well, though?"

Mr. William might never have left off repeating this
inquiry, and shaking hands with him again, and patting him
again, and rubbing him down again, if the old man had not
espied the Chemist, whom until now he had not seen.

A GOOD PRAYKH. 515

ftl 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 ! Fm 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,11 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
always a-burning on Christmas Day in what Ufced to be, before
our ten poor gentlemen commuted, our great Dinner Hall.
I was there; and I recollect, as I was stirring up the blaxe
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 mv 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,1 says the young lady —
'My husband,' says my poor wife. — 'Lord, keep his memory
of me, green, and do not let me be forgotten ! ' r

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.

516 THE HAUNTED MAN.

" 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,11 he said, "in the other room. I don't
want him"

"What man does he mean?" asked Mr. William.

" Hush ! " said Milly.

Obedient to a sign from her, he and his old father softly
withdrew. As they went out, unnoticed, Redlaw beckoned
to the boy to come to him.

" I like the woman best,"" he answered, holding to her
skirts.

" You are right," said Redlaw, with a faint smile. " But
you needn't fear to come to me. I am gentler than I was.
Of all the world, to you, poor child!"

The boy still held back at first, but yielding little by little
to her urging, he consented to approach, and even to sit down
at his feet. As Redlaw laid his hand upon the shoulder of
the child, looking on him with compassion and a fellow-
feeling, he put out his other hand to Milly. She stooped
down on that side of him, so that she could look into his
face ; and after silence, said :

" Mr. Redlaw, may I speak to you ? "

" Yes," he answered, fixing his eyes upon her. " Your
voice and music are the same to me."

" May I ask you something ? "'

THE STUDENTS FATHER. 517

" What you will."

" Do you remember what I said, when I knocked at your
door last night ? About one who was your friend once, and
who stood on the verge of destruction ? "

"Yes. I remember," he said, with some hesitation.

" Do you understand it ? "

He smoothed the boy's hair— looking at her fixedly the
while, and shook his head.

"This person," said Milly, in her clear, soft voice, which
her mild eyes, looking at him, made clearer and softer,
"I found soon afterwards. I went back to the house, and,
with Heaven's help, traced him. I was not too soon. A very
little and I should have been too late."

He took his hand from the boy, and laying it on the back
of that hand of hers, whose timid and yet earnest touch
addressed him no less appealingly than her voice and eyes,
looked more intently on her.

"He is the father of Mr. Edmund, the young gentleman
we saw just now. His real name is Longford. — You recollect
the name ? "

"I recollect the name."

" And the man ? "

"No, not the man. Did he ever wrong me?"

" Yes."

" Ah ! Then it's hopeless — hopeless."

He shook his head, and softly beat upon the hand he held,
as though mutely asking her commiseration.

"I did not go to Mr. Edmund last night," said Milly.—
"You will listen to me just the same as if you did remember
all?"

"To every syllable you say."

"Both, because I did not know, then, that this really was
his father, and because I was fearful of the effect of such
intelligence upon him, after his illness, if it should be. Since
I have known who this person is, I have not gone either ; but
that is for another reason. He has long been separated from

518 THE HAUNTED MAN.

his wife and son — has been a stranger to his home almost
from this son's infancy, I learn from him — and has abandoned
and deserted what he should have held most dear. In all
that time he has been falling from the state of a gentleman,
more and more, until — " she rose up, hastily, and going out
for a moment, returned, accompanied by the wreck that
Red law 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. " I believe it would."

His eyes wandered to the figure standing near the door,
but came back speedily to her, on whom he gazed intently,
as if he strove to learn some lesson from every tone of her
voice, and every beam of her eyes.

"I have no learning, and you have much," said Milly; "I
am not used to think, and you are always thinking. May
1 ^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

FORGIVENESS. 519

be restored, as we will hope and pray it may be, would it
not be a blessing to you to recall at once a wrong and its
forgiveness ? "

He looked at the figure by the door, and fastened his
attentive eyes on her again ; a ray of clearer light appeared
to him to shine into his mind, from her bright face.

" He cannot go to his abandoned home. He does not
seek to go there. He knows that he could only carry shame
and trouble to those he 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. Rut
from the day on which I made my first step downward, in

520 THE HAUNTED MAN.

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.11

Redlaw made a hasty motion with his hand, as if he would
have put that subject on one side.

" I speak ," the other went on, " like a man taken from the
grave. I should have made my own grave, last night, had it
not been for this blessed hand."

" Oh dear, lie likes me too ! " sobbed Milly, under her
breath. "That's another!"

" I could not have put myself in your way, last night, even
for bread. But to-day, my recollection of what has been is
so strongly stirred, and is presented to me, I don't know
how, so vividly, that I have dared to come at her suggestion,
and to take your bounty, and to thank you for it, and to
beg you, Redlaw, in your dying hour, to be as merciful to
me in your thoughts, as you are in your deeds."

He turned towards the door, and stopped a moment on
his way forth.

" I hope my son may interest you for his mother's sake. I
hope he may deserve to do so. Unless my life should be
preserved a long time, and I should know that I have not
misused your aid, I shall never look upon him more."

Going out, he raised his eyes to Redlaw for the first time.
Redlaw, whose steadfast gaze was fixed upon him, dreamily
held out his hand. He returned and touched it — little more
— with both his own — and bending down his head, went
slowly out.

A CHERISHED MEMORY. v>i

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 sav,
father !" exclaimed her admiring husband. "There's a
motherly feeling in Mrs. William's breast that must and will
have went ! "

" Ay, ay," said the old man ; " you're right. My son
William's right ! v

" It happens all for the best, Milly dear, no doubt," said
Mr. William, tenderly, " that we have no children of our
own ; and yet I sometimes wish you had one to love and
cherish. Our little dead child that you built such hopes upon,
and that never breathed the breath of life — it has made you
quiet-like, Milly."

" I am very happy in the recollection of it, William dear,"
she answered. " I think of it every day."

" I was afraid you thought of it a good deal."

"Don't say afraid ; it is a comfort to me; it speaks to me
in so many ways. The innocent thing that never lived on
earth, is like an angel to me, William."

"You are like an angel to father and me," said Mr.
William, softly. " I know that."

" When I think of all those hopes I built upon it, and
the many times I sat and pictured to myself the little
smiling face upon my bosom that never lay there, and the
sweet eyes turned up to mine that never opened to the
light," said Milly, " I can feel a greater tenderness, I think,
for all the disappointed hopes in which there is no harm.
When I see a beautiful child in its fond mother's arms, I
love it all the better, thinking that my child might have

522 THE HAUNTED MAN.

been like that, and might have made my heart as proud and
happy."

Red law 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 ! "

Hedlaw fell upon his knees, with a loud cry.

" O 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 my thanks, and bless
her ! "

Then, he folded her to his heart ; and Milly, sobbing more
than ever, cried, as she laughed, " He is come back to him
self ! He likes me very much indeed, too ? Oh dear, dear,
dear me, here's another ! "

THE CHRISTMAS PARTY. 523

Then, the student entered, leading by the hand a lovely
girl, who was afraid to come. Anil Red law 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 go<xl hope there,
ready for them, of George, who had been visited again by
his father and brother, and by Milly, and again left in a
quiet sleep. There, present at the dinner, too, were the
Tetterbys, including young Adolphus, who arrived in his
prismatic comforter, in good time for the beef. Johnny
and the baby were too late, of course, and came in all

524 THE HAUNTED MAN.

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 lineao-e,

t? '

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 gradu
ally 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 GREAT DINNER HALL. 525

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

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.

BINDING SECT. ^PR 101980

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SUPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO UBRARY

PR Dickens, Charles

4550 Works Gadshill ed.

E97
v.18

0

SI