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

JWUU KeJ&jU^

GADSHILL EDITION.

The Works of Charles Dickens

In Thirty-two Volumes.

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

VOL. XXXII.

CHRISTMAS STORIES.

VOL. II.

V, 32

Printed from the Edition that ivas carefully corrected ly the Author
in 1867 and 1868.

CHRISTMAS STORIES

FROM

"HOUSEHOLD WORDS" AND "ALL THE
YEAR ROUND"

By CHARLES DICKENS

WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

BY

ANDREW LANG

In Two Vols.— Vol. II.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. JULES GOODMAN

LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, LD.

NEW YORK : CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1898

CONTENTS OF YOL. II.

PAGE

MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS 1

MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY 43

DOCTOR MARIGOLD 79

MUGBY JUNCTION 127

No THOROUGHFARE 205

THE LAZY TOUR OF Two IDLE APPRENTICES 353

LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS.

VOL. II.

PAGE

DOCTOR MARIGOLD (p. 92) Frontispiece

MUGBY JUNCTION 148

No THOROUGHFARE . 322

LAZY TOUR OF Two IDLE APPRENTICES .... 438

MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS

[1863]

VOL. IL

MES. LIBBIPEB'S LODGINGS.

CHAPTER I.

HOW MRS. LIRRIPER CARRIED ON THE BUSINESS.

WHOEVER would begin to be worried with letting Lodgings
that wasn't a lone woman with a living to get is a thing
inconceivable to me, my dear; excuse the familiarity, but it
comes natural to me in my own little room, when wishing
to open my mind to those that I can trust, and I should be
truly thankful if they were all mankind, but such is not so,
for have but a Furnished bill in the window and your watch
on the mantelpiece, and farewell to it if you turn your back
for but a second, however gentlemanly the manners; nor is
being of your own sex any safeguard, as I have reason, in the
form of sugar-tongs to know, for that lady (and a fine woman
she was) got me to run for a glass of water, on the plea of
going to be confined, which certainly turned out true, but it
was in the Station-house.

Number Eighty-one Norfolk Street, Strand — situated midway
between the City and St. James's, and within five minutes'
walk of the principal places of public amusement — is my
address. I have rented this house many years, as the parish
rate-books will testify; and I could wish my landlord was as

4 MRS. LIRRIPEITS LODGINGS.

alive to the fact as I am myself; but no, bless you, not a
half a pound of paint to save his life, nor so much, my dear,
as a tile upon the roof, though on your bended knees.

My dear, you never have found Number Eighty-one Norfolk
Street Strand advertised in Bradshaw's Railway Guide, and
with the blessing of Heaven you never will or shall so find
it. Some there are who do not think it lowering themselves
to make their names that cheap, and even going the lengths
of a portrait of the house not like it with a blot in every
window and a coach and four at the door, but what will suit
Wozenham's lower down on the other side of the way will
not suit me, Miss Wozetiham having her opinions and me
having mine, though when it comes to systematic underbidding
capable of being proved on oath in a court of justice and
taking the form of " If Mrs. Lirriper names eighteen shillings
a week, I name fifteen and six," it then comes to a settlement
between yourself and your conscience, supposing for the sake
of argument your name to be Wozenham, which I am well
aware it is not or my opinion of you would be greatly
lowered, and as to airy bedrooms and a night-porter in
constant attendance the less said the better, the bedrooms
being stuffy and the porter stuff.

It is forty years ago since me and my poor Lirriper got
married at St. Clement's Danes, where I now have a sitting
in a very pleasant pew with genteel company and my own
hassock, and being partial to evening service not too crowded.
My poor Lirriper was a handsome figure of a man, with a
beaming eye and a voice as mellow as a musical instrument
made of honey and steel, but he had ever been a free liver
being in the commercial travelling line and travelling what
he called a limekiln road — " a dry road, Emma my dear,"" my
poor Lirriper says to me, " where I have to lay the dust with
one drink or another all day long and half the night, and it
wears me Emma11 — and this led to his running through a
good deal and might have run through the turnpike too
when that dreadful horse that never would stand still for a

HONOURABLE CONDUCT. 5

single instant set off, but for its being night and the gate
shut, and consequently took his wheel, my poor Lirriper and
the gig smashed to atoms and never spoke afterwards. He
was a handsome figure of a man, and a man with a jovial
heart and a sweet temper ; but if they had come up then they
never could have given you the mellowness of his voice, and
indeed I consider photographs wanting in mellowness as a
general rule and making you look like a new-ploughed field.

My poor Lirriper being behindhand with the world and
being buried at Hatfield church in Hertfordshire, not that
it was his native place but that he had a liking for the
Salisbury Arms where we went upon our wedding-day and
passed as happy a fortnight as ever happy was, I went round
to the creditors and I says "Gentlemen I am acquainted
with the fact that I am not answerable for my late husband's
debts but I wish to pay them for I am his lawful wife and
his good name is dear to me. I am going into the Lodgings
gentlemen as a business and if I prosper every farthing that
my late husband owed shall be paid for the sake of the love
I bore him, by this right hand." It took a long time to
do but it was done, and the silver cream -jug which is
between ourselves and the bed and the mattress in my room
up-stairs (or it would have found legs so sure as ever the
Furnished bill was up) being presented by the gentlemen
engraved "To Mrs. Lirriper a mark of grateful respect for
her honourable conduct" gave me a turn which was too
.much for my feelings, till Mr. Betley which at that time had
the parlours and loved his joke says " Cheer up Mrs. Lirriper,
you should feel as if it was only your christening and they
were your godfathers and godmothers which did promise for
you." And it brought me round, and I don't mind confessing
to you my dear that I then put a sandwich and a drop of
sherry in a little basket and went down to Hatfield churchyard
outside the coach and kissed my hand and laid it with a
kind of proud and swelling love on my husband's grave,
though bless you it had taken me so long to clear his name

6 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS.

that my wedding-ring was worn quite fine and smooth when
I laid it on the green green waving grass.

I am an old woman now and my good looks are gone but
that's me my dear over the plate-warmer and considered like
in the times when you used to pay two guineas on ivory and
took your chance pretty much how you came out, which
made you very careful how you left it about afterwards because
people were turned so red and uncomfortable by mostly
guessing it was somebody else quite different, and there was
once a certain person that had put his money in a hop
business that came in one morning to pay his rent and his
respects being the second floor that would have taken it
down from its hook and put it in his breast-pocket — you
understand my dear — for the L, he says of the original — only
there was no mellowness in his voice and I wouldn't let him,
but his opinion of it you may gather from his saying to it
" Speak to me Emma ! " which was far from a rational
observation no doubt but still a tribute to its being a likeness,
and I think myself it was like me when I was young and
wore that sort of stays.

But it was about the Lodgings that I was intending to hold
forth and certainly I ought to know something of the business
having been in it so long, for it was early in the second year
of my married life that I lost my poor Lirriper and I set up
at Islington directly afterwards and afterwards came here,
being two houses and eight-and-thirty years and some losses
and a deal of experience.

Girls are your first trial after fixtures and they try you
even worse than what I call the Wandering Christians,
though why they should roam the earth looking for bills
and then coming in and viewing the apartments and stickling
about terms and never at all wanting them or dreaming of
taking them being already provided, is a mystery I should
be thankful to have explained if by any miracle it could be.
It's wonderful they live so long and thrive so on it but I
suppose the exercise makes it healthy, knocking so much and

WANDERING CHRISTIANS. 7

going from house to house and up and down stairs all day,
and then their pretending to be so particular and punctual
is a most astonishing thing, looking at their watches and
saying "Could you give me the refusal of the rooms till
twenty minutes past eleven the day after to-morrow in the
forenoon, and supposing it to be considered essential by my
friend from the country could there be a small iron bedstead
put in the little room upon the stairs ? " Why when I was
new to it my dear I used to consider before I promised and
to make my mind anxious with calculations and to get quite
wearied out with disappointments, but now I says " Certainly
by all means" well knowing it's a Wandering Christian and
I shall hear no more about it, indeed by this time I know
most of the Wandering Christians by sight as well as they
know me, it being the habit of each individual revolving
round London in that capacity to come back about twice a
year, and it's very remarkable that it runs in families and
the children grow up to it, but even were it otherwise I
should no sooner hear of the friend from the country which
is a certain sign than I should nod and say to myself You're
a Wandering Christian, though whether they are (as I have
heard) persons of small property with a taste for regular
employment and frequent change of scene I cannot undertake
to tell you.

Girls as I was beginning to remark are one of your first
and your lasting troubles, being like your teeth which begin
with convulsions and never cease tormenting you from the
time you cut them till they cut you, and then you don't
want to part with them which seems hard but we must all
succumb or buy artificial, and even where you get a will nine
times out of ten you'll get a dirty face with it and naturally
lodgers do not like good society to be shown in with a smear
of black across the nose or a smudgy eyebrow. Where they
pick the black up is a mystery I cannot solve, as in the case
of the willingest girl that ever came into a house half-starved
poor thing, a girl so willing that I called her Willing Sophy

8 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS.

down upon her knees scrubbing early and late and ever
cheerful but always smiling with a black face. And I says
to Sophy, " Now Sophy my good girl have a regular day for
your stoves and keep the width of the Airy between yourself
and the blacking and do not brush your hair with the
bottoms of the saucepans and do not meddle with the snuffs
of the candles and it stands to reason that it can no longer
be" yet there it was and always on her nose, which turning
up and being broad at the end seemed to boast of it and
caused warning from a steady gentleman and excellent lodger
with breakfast by the week but a little irritable and use of a
sitting-room when required, his words being " Mrs. Lirriper I
have arrived at the point of admitting that the Black is a man
and a brother, but only in a natural form and when it can't
be got off." Well consequently I put poor Sophy on to other
work and forbid her answering the door or answering a bell
on any account but she was so unfortunately willing that
nothing would stop her flying up the kitchen-stairs whenever
a bell was heard to tingle. I put it to her " O Sophy Sophy
for goodness' goodness' sake where does it come from ? " To
which that poor unlucky willing mortal bursting out crying
to see me so vexed replied " I took a deal of black into me
ma'am when I was a small child being much neglected and I
think it must be, that it works out," so it continuing to work
out of that poor thing and not having another fault to find
with her I says " Sophy what do you seriously think of my
helping you away to New South Wales where it might not
be noticed?" Nor did I ever repent the money which was
well spent, for she married the ship's cook on the voyage
(himself a Mulotter) and did well and lived happy, and so
far as ever I heard it was not noticed in a new state of society
to her dying day.

In what way Miss Wozenham lower down on the other
side of the way reconciled it to her feelings as a lady (which
she is not) to entice Mary Anne Perkinsop from my service
is best known to herself, I do not know and I do not wish to

TRIALS WITH GIRLS. 9

know how opinions are formed at Wozenhanvs on any point.
But Mary Anne Perkinsop although I behaved handsomely
to her and she behaved unhandsomely to me was worth her
weight in gold as overawing lodgers without driving them
away, for lodgers would be far more sparing of their bells
with Mary Anne than I ever knew them to be with Maid
or Mistress, which is a great triumph especially when accom
panied with a cast in the eye and a bag of bones, but it was
the steadiness of her way with them through her father's
having failed in Pork. It was Mary Anne's looking so
respectable in her person and being so strict in her spirits
that conquered the tea-and-sugarest gentleman (for he weighed
them both in a pair of scales every morning) that I have
ever had to deal with and no lamb grew meeker, still it
afterwards came round to me that Miss Wozenham happening
to pass and seeing Mary Anne take in the milk of a milkman
that made free in a rosy-faced way (I think no worse of him)
with every girl in the street but was quite frozen up like the
statue at Charing-cross by her, saw Mary Anne's value in
the lodging business and went as high as one pound per
quarter more, consequently Mary Anne with not a word
betwixt us says "If you will provide yourself Mrs. Lirriper
in a month from this day / have already done the same,"
which hurt me and I said so, and she then hurt me more
by insinuating that her father having failed in Pork had laid
her open to it.

My dear I do assure you it's a harassing thing to know
what kind of girls to give the preference to, for if they are
lively they get belPd off their legs and if they are sluggish
you suffer from it yourself in complaints and if they are
sparkling-eyed they get made love to, and if they are smart
in their persons they try on your Lodgers1 bonnets and if
they are musical I defy you to keep them away from bands
and organs, and allowing for any difference you like in their
heads their heads will be always out of window just the same.
And then what the gentlemen like in girls the ladies don't.

10 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS.

which is fruitful hot water for all parties, and then there's
temper though such a temper as Caroline Maxey's I hope not
often. A good-looking black-eyed girl was Caroline and a
comely-made girl to your cost when she did break out and
laid about her, as took place first and last through a new-
married couple come to see London in the first floor and
the lady very high and it was supposed not liking the good
looks of Caroline having none of her own to spare, but
anyhow she did try Caroline though that was no excuse. So
one afternoon Caroline comes down into the kitchen flushed
and flashing, and she says to me "Mrs. Lirriper that
woman in the first has aggravated me past bearing," I says
" Caroline keep your temper," Caroline says with a curdling
laugh " Keep my temper ? YouVe right Mrs. Lirriper, so I
will. Capital D her ! " bursts out Caroline (you might have
struck me into the centre of the earth with a feather when
she said it) "I'll give her a touch of the temper that /
keep ! " Caroline downs with her hair my dear, screeches
and rushes up-stairs, I following as fast as my trembling legs
could bear me, but before I got into the room the dinner-
cloth and pink-and-white service all dragged off upon the
floor with a crash and the new-married couple on their backs
in the firegrate, him with the shovel and tongs and a dish
of cucumber across him and a mercy it was summer-time.
"Caroline" I says "be calm," but she catches off my cap
and tears it in her teeth as she passes me, then pounces on
the new-married lady makes her a bundle of ribbons takes
her by the two ears and knocks the back of her head upon
the carpet Murder screaming all the time Policemen running
down the street and WozenhanVs windows (judge of my
feelings when I came to know it) thrown up and Miss
Wozenham calling out from the balcony with crocodile's tears
"It's Mrs. Lirriper been overcharging somebody to madness
— shell be murdered — I always thought so — Pleeseman save
her!" My dear four of them and Caroline behind the
chiffoniere attacking with the poker and when disarmed

A TOUCH OF CAROLINE'S TEMPER. 11

prize-fighting with her double fists, and down and up and
up and down and dreadful ! But I couldn't bear to see the
poor young creature roughly handled and her hair torn when
they got the better of her, and I says " Gentlemen Policemen
pray remember that her sex is the sex of your mothers and
sisters and your sweethearts, and God bless them and you ! "
And there she was sitting down on the ground handcuffed,
taking breath against the skirting-board and them cool with
their coats in strips, and all she says was " Mrs. Lirriper I'm
sorry as ever I touched you> for you're a kind motherly old
thing," and it made me think that I had often wished I had
been a mother indeed and how would my heart have felt if I
had been the mother of that girl ! Well you know it turned
out at the Police-office that she had done it before, and she
had her clothes away and was sent to prison, and when she
was to come out I trotted off to the gate in the evening with
just a morsel of jelly in that little basket of mine to give
her a mite of strength to face the world again, and there I
met with a very decent mother waiting for her son through
bad company and a stubborn one he was with his half-boots
not laced. So out came Caroline and I says "Caroline come
along with me and sit down under the wall where it's retired
and eat a little trifle that I have brought with me to do you
good," and she throws her arms round my neck and says
sobbing " O why were you never a mother when there are such
mothers as there are ! " she says, and in half a minute more
she begins to laugh and says "Did I really tear your cap to
shreds ? " and when I told her " You certainly did so Caroline "
she laughed again and said while she patted my face "Then
why do you wear such queer old caps you dear old thing?
If you hadn't worn such queer old caps I don't think I should
have done it even then." Fancy the girl! Nothing could
get out of her what she was going to do except O she would
do well enough, and we parted she being very thankful and
kissing my hands, and I nevermore saw or heard of that girl,
except that I shall always believe that a very genteel cap

12 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS.

which was brought anonymous to me one Saturday night in
an oilskin basket by a most impertinent young sparrow of a
monkey whistling with dirty shoes on the clean steps and
playing the harp on the Airy railings with a hoop-stick
came from Caroline.

What you lay yourself open to my dear in the way of
being the object of uncharitable suspicions when you go into
the Lodging business I have not the words to tell you, but
never was I so dishonourable as to have two keys nor would
I willingly think it even of Miss Wozenham lower down on
the other side of the way sincerely hoping that it may not
be, though doubtless at the same time money cannot come
from nowhere and it is not reason to suppose that Bradshaws
put it in for love be it blotty as it may. It is a hardship
hurting to the feelings that Lodgers open their minds so wide
to the idea that you are trying to get the better of them
and shut their minds so close to the idea that they are trying
to get the better of you, but as Major Jackman says to me
"I know the ways of this circular world Mrs. Lirriper, and
that's one of 'em all round it" and many is the little ruffle
in my mind that the Major has smoothed, for he is a clever
man who has seen much. Dear dear, thirteen years have
passed though it seems but yesterday since I was sitting
with my glasses on at the open front parlour window one
evening in August (the parlours being then vacant) reading
yesterday's paper my eyes for print being poor though still
I am thankful to say a long sight at a distance, when I hear
a gentleman come posting across the road and up the street
in a dreadful rage talking to himself in a fury and d'ing and
c'ing somebody. " By George ! " says he out loud and clutch
ing his walking-stick, "I'll go to Mrs. Lirriper's. Which is
Mrs. Lirriper's?" Then looking round and seeing me he
flourishes his hat right off his head as if I had been the
queen and he says, "Excuse the intrusion Madam, but
pray Madam can you tell me at what number in this street
there resides a well-known and much-respected lady by the

MAJOR JACKMAN. 13

name of Lirriper?" A little flustered though I must say
gratified I took oft* my glasses and courtesied and said " Sir,
Mrs. Lirriper is your humble servant." " Astonishing ! " says
he. " A million pardons ! Madam, may I ask you to have
the kindness to direct one of your domestics to open the
door to a gentleman in search of apartments, by the name of
Jackman ?" I had never heard the name but a politer
gentleman I never hope to see, for says he "Madam I am
shocked at your opening the door yourself to no worthier a
fellow than Jemmy Jackman. After you Madam. I never
precede a lady.1' Then he comes into the parlours and he
sniffs, and he says " Hah ! These are parlours ! Not musty
cupboards " he says " but parlours, and no smell of coal-sacks.1'
Now my dear it having been remarked by some inimical to
the whole neighbourhood that it always smells of coal-sacks
which might prove a drawback to Lodgers if encouraged, I
says to the Major gently though firmly that I think he is
referring to Arundel or Surrey or Howard but not Norfolk.
"Madam" says he "I refer to Wozenham's lower down
over the way — Madam you can form no notion what Wozen
ham's is — Madam it is a vast coal-sack, and Miss Wozenham
has the principles and manners of a female heaver — Madam
from the manner in which I have heard her mention you
I know she has no appreciation of a lady, and from the
manner in which she has conducted herself towards me I
know she has no appreciation of a gentleman — Madam my
name is Jackman — should you require any other reference
than what I have already said, I name the Bank of England
— perhaps you know it!" Such was the beginning of the
Major's occupying the parlours and from that hour to this
the same and a most obliging Lodger and punctual in all
respects except one irregular which I need not particularly
specify, but made up for by his being a protection and at
all times ready to fill in the papers of the Assessed Taxes
and Juries and that, and once collared a young man with the
drawing-room clock under his coat, and once on the parapets

H MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS.

with his own hands and blankets put out the kitchen chimney
and afterwards attending the summons made a most eloquent
speech against the Parish before the magistrates and saved
the engine, and ever quite the gentleman though passionate.
And certainly Miss Wozenham's detaining the trunks and
umbrella was not in a liberal spirit though it may have been
according to her rights in law or an act / would myself have
stooped to, the Major being so much the gentleman that
though he is far from tall he seems almost so when he has
his shirt-frill out and his frock-coat on and his hat with the
curly brims, and in what service he was I cannot truly tell
you my dear whether Militia or Foreign, for I never heard
him even name himself as Major but always simple "Jemmy
Jackman" and once soon after he came when I felt it my
duty to let him know that Miss Wozenham had put it
about that he was no Major and I took the liberty of adding
" which you are sir " his words were " Madam at any rate I
am not a Minor, and sufficient for the day is the evil thereof"
which cannot be denied to be the sacred truth, nor yet his
military ways of having his boots with only the dirt brushed
off taken to him in the front parlour every morning on a
clean plate and varnishing them himself with a little sponge
and a saucer and a whistle in a whisper so sure as ever his
breakfast is ended, and so neat his ways that it never soils
his linen which is scrupulous though more in quality than
quantity, neither that nor his mustachios which to the best
of my belief are done at the same time and which are as
black and shining as his boots, his head of hair being a lovely
white.

It was the third year nearly up of the Major's being in
the parlours that early one morning in the month of February
when Parliament was coming on and you may therefore
suppose a number of impostors were about ready to take
hold of anything they could get, a gentleman and a lady
from the country came in to view the Second, and I well
remember that I had been looking out of window and had

CONSULTING THE MAJOR. 15

watched them and the heavy sleet driving down the street
together looking for bills. I did not quite take to the face
of the gentleman though he was good-looking too but the
lady was a very pretty young thing and delicate, and it
seemed too rough for her to be out at all though she had
only come from the Adelphi Hotel which would not have
been much above a quarter of a mile if the weather had been
less severe. Now it did so happen my dear that I had been
forced to put five shillings weekly additional on the second
in consequence of a loss from running away full dressed as if
going out to a dinner-party, which was very artful and had
made me rather suspicious taking it along with Parliament,
so when the gentleman proposed three months certain and
the money in advance and leave then reserved to renew on
the same terms for six months more, I says I was not quite
certain but that I might have engaged myself to another
party but would step down-stairs and look into it if they
would take a seat. They took a seat and I went down to
the handle of the Major's door that I had already began
to consult finding it a great blessing, and I knew by his
whistling in a whisper that he was varnishing his boots which
was generally considered private, however he kindly calls out
" If it's you, Madam, come in," and I went in and told him.

"Well, Madam," says the Major rubbing his nose — as I
did fear at the moment with the black sponge but it was only
his knuckle, he being always neat and dexterous with his
fingers — "well, Madam, I suppose you would be glad of the
money ? "

I was delicate of saying "Yes" too out, for a little extra
colour rose into the Major's cheeks and there was irregularity
which I will not particularly specify in a quarter which I
will not name.

" I am of opinion, Madam," says the Major " that when
money is ready for you — when it is ready for you, Mrs.
Lirriper — you ought to take it. What is there against it,
Madam, in this case up-stairs?"

16 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS.

"I really cannot say there is anything against it sir, still
I thought I would consult you."

" You said a newly-married couple, I think, Madam ? " says
the Major.

I says "Ye-es. Evidently. And indeed the young lady
mentioned to me in a casual way that she had not been
married many months.""

The Major rubbed his nose again and stirred the varnish
round and round in its little saucer with his piece of sponge
and took to his whistling in a whisper for a few moments.
Then he says " You would call it a Good Let, Madam ? "

"O certainly a Good Let sir."

"Say they renew for the additional six months. Would
it put you about very much Madam if — if the worst was to
come to the worst?" said the Major.

"Well I hardly know," I says to the Major. "It depends
upon circumstances. "Would you object Sir for instance?"

" I ? " says the Major. " Object ? Jemmy Jackman ? Mrs.
Lirriper close with the proposal."

So I went up-stairs and accepted, and they came in next
day which was Saturday and the Major was so good as to
draw up a Memorandum of an agreement in a beautiful round
hand and expressions that sounded to me equally legal and
military, and Mr. Edson signed it on the Monday morning
and the Major called upon Mr. Edson on the Tuesday and
Mr. Edson called upon the Major on the Wednesday and
the Second and the parlours were as friendly as could be
wished.

The three months paid for had run out and we had got
without any fresh overtures as to payment into May my dear,
when there came an obligation upon Mr. Edson to go a business
expedition right across the Isle of Man, which fell quite
unexpected upon that pretty little thing and is not a place
that according to my views is particularly in the way to
anywhere at any time but that may be a matter of opinion.
So short a notice was it that he was to go next day, and

WATCHING FOR THE POSTMAN. 17

dreadfully she cried poor pretty, and I am sure I cried too
when I saw her on the cold pavement in the sharp east wind
— it being a very backward spring that year — taking a last
leave of him with her pretty bright hair blowing this way
and that and her arms clinging round his neck and him
saying "There there there. Now let me go Peggy." And
by that time it was plain that what the Major had been so
accommodating as to say he would not object to happening
in the house, would happen in it, and I told her as much
when he was gone while I comforted her with my arm up
the staircase, for I says "You will soon have others to keep
up for my pretty and you must think of that.*"

His letter never came when it ought to have come and
what she went through morning after morning when the
postman brought none for her the very postman himself
compassionated when she ran down to the door, and yet we
cannot wonder at its being calculated to blunt the feelings
to have all the trouble of other people's letters and none of
the pleasure and doing it oftener in the mud and mizzle
than not and at a rate of wages more resembling Little
Britain than Great. But at last one morning when she
was too poorly to come running down-stairs he says to me
with a pleased look in his face that made me next to love
the man in his uniform coat though he was dripping wet "I
have taken you first in the street this morning Mrs. Lirriper,
for here's the one for Mrs. Edson." I went up to her bed
room with it as fast as ever I could go, and she sat up in
bed when she saw it and kissed it and tore it open and then
a blank stare came upon her. "It's very short!" she says
lifting her large eyes to my face. " O Mrs. Lirriper it's very
short!" I says "My dear Mrs. Edson no doubt that's
because your husband hadn't time to write more just at
that time." " No doubt, no doubt," says she, and puts her
two hands on her face and turns round in her bed.

I shut her softly in and I crept down-stairs and I tapped
at the Major's door, and when the Major having his thin

VOL. ii. c

18 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS.

slices of bacon in his own Dutch oven saw me he came out
of his chair and put me down on the sofa. " Hush ! " says
he, " I see something's the matter. Don't speak — take time."
I says "O Major I'm afraid there's cruel work up-stairs."
"Yes yes," says he "I had begun to be afraid of it — take
time." And then in opposition to his own words he rages
out frightfully, and says " I shall never forgive myself Madam,
that I, Jemmy Jackman, didn't see it all that morning — didn't
go straight up-stairs when my boot-sponge was in my hand
— didn't force it down his throat — and choke him dead with
it on the spot ! "

The Major and me agreed when we came to ourselves that
just at present we could do no more than take on to suspect
nothing and use our best endeavours to keep that poor young
creature quiet, and what I ever should have done without
the Major when it got about among the organ-men that
quiet was our object is unknown, for he made lion and tiger
war upon them to that degree that without seeing it I could
not have believed it was in any gentleman to have such a
power of bursting out with fire-irons walking-sticks water -jugs
coals potatoes off his table the very hat oft* his head, and at
the same time so furious in foreign languages that they would
stand with their handles half-turned fixed like the Sleeping
Ugly — for I cannot say Beauty.

Ever to see the postman come near the house now gave me
such a fear that it was a reprieve when he went by, but in
about another ten days or a fortnight he says again, " Here's
one for Mrs. Edson. — Is she pretty well?" "She is pretty
well postman, but not well enough to rise so early as she used "
which was so far gospel-truth.

I carried the letter in to the Major at his breakfast and
I says tottering "Major I have not the courage to take it
up to her."

" It's an ill-looking villain of a letter," says the Major.

"I have not the courage Major" I says again in a tremble
" to take it up to her."

A DREADFUL LETTER. 19

After seeming lost in consideration for some moments the
Major says, raising his head as if something new and useful
had occurred to his mind " Mrs. Lirriper, I shall never forgive
myself that I, Jemmy Jackman, didn't go straight up-stairs
that morning when my boot-sponge was in my hand — and
force it down his throat — and choke him dead with it."

"Major" I says a little hasty "you didn't do it which is
a blessing, for it would have done no good and I think your
sponge was better employed on your own honourable boots."

So we got to be rational, and planned that I should tap
at her bedroom door and lay the letter on the mat outside
and wait on the upper landing for what might happen, and
never was gunpowder cannon-balls or shells or rockets more
dreaded than that dreadful letter was by me as I took it to
the second floor.

A terrible loud scream sounded through the house the
minute after she had opened it, and I found her on the floor
lying as if her life was gone. My dear I never looked at
the face of the letter which was lying open by her, for there
was no occasion.

Everything I needed to bring her round the Major brought
up with his own hands, besides running out to the chemist's
for what was not in the house and likewise having the fiercest
of all his many skirmishes with a musical instrument represent
ing a ball-room I do not know in what particular country and
company waltzing in and out at folding-doors with rolling
eyes. When after a long time I saw her coming to, I slipped
on the landing till I heard her cry, and then I went in and
says cheerily "Mrs. Edson you're not well my dear and it's
not to be wondered at," as if I had not been in before.
Whether she believed or disbelieved I cannot say and it
would signify nothing if I could, but I stayed by her for
hours and then she God ever blesses me ! and says she will
try to rest for her head is bad.

"Major," I whispers, looking in at the parlours, "I beg
and pray of you don't gp put."

20 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS.

The Major whispers, "Madam, trust me I will do no such
a thing. How is she ? "

I says "Major the good Lord above us only knows what
burns and rages in her poor mind. I left her sitting at her
window. I am going to sit at mine."

It came on afternoon and it came on evening. Norfolk is
a delightful street to lodge in — provided you don't go lower
down — but of a summer evening when the dust and waste
paper lie in it and stray children play in it and a kind of a
gritty calm and bake settles on it and a peal of church-
bells is practising in the neighbourhood it is a trifle dull,
and never have I seen it since at such a time and never
shall I see it evermore at such a time without seeing the
dull June evening when that forlorn young creature sat at
her open corner window on the second and me at my open
corner window (the other corner) on the third. Something
merciful, something wiser and better far than my own sel£
had moved me while it was yet light to sit in my bonnet
and shawl, and as the shadows fell and the tide rose I
could sometimes — when I put out my head and looked at
her window below — see that she leaned out a little looking
down the street. It was just settling dark when I saw her
in the street.

So fearful of losing sight of her that it almost stops my
breath while I tell it, I went down-stairs faster than I ever
moved in all my life and only tapped with my hand at the
Major's door in passing it and slipping out. She was gone
already. I made the same speed down the street and when
I came to the corner of Howard-street I saw that she had
turned it and was there plain before me going towards the
west. O with what a thankful heart I saw her going along !

She was quite unacquainted with London and had very
seldom been out for more than an airing in our own street
where she knew two or three little children belonging to
neighbours and had sometimes stood among them at the
street looking at the water. She must be going at hazard I

TOWARDS THE RIVER. 21

knew, still she kept the bye-streets quite correctly as long as
they would serve her, and then turned up into the Strand.
But at every corner I could see her head turned one way,
and that way was always the river way.

It may have been only the darkness and quiet of the
Adelphi that caused her to strike into it but she struck into
it much as readily as if she had set out to go there, which
perhaps was the case. She went straight down to the Terrace
and along it and looked over the iron rail, and I often woke
afterwards in my own bed with the horror of seeing her do
it. The desertion of the wharf below and the flowing of the
high water there seemed to settle her purpose. She looked
about as if to make out the way down, and she struck out
the right way or the wrong way — I don't know which, for I
don't know the place before or since — and I followed her the
way she went.

It was noticeable that all this time she never once looked
back. But there was now a great change in the manner of
her going, and instead of going at a steady quick walk with
her arms folded before her, — among the dark dismal arches
she went in a wild way with her arms opened wide, as if
they were wings and she was flying to her death.

We were on the wharf and she stopped. I stopped. I
saw her hands at her bonnet-strings, and I rushed between
her and the brink and took her round the waist with both
my arms. She might have drowned me, I felt then, but she
could never have got quit of me.

Down to that moment my mind had been all in a maze
and not half an idea had I had in it what I should say to
her, but the instant I touched her it came to me like magic
and I had my natural voice and my senses and even almost
my breath.

" Mrs. Edson ! " I says " My dear ! Take care. How ever
did you lose your way and stumble on a dangerous place like
this ? Why you must have come here by the most perplexing
streets in all London. No wonder you are lost, I'm sure.

22 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS.

And this place too ! Why I thought nobody ever got here,
except me to order my coals and the Major in the parlours
to smoke his cigar!" — for I saw that blessed man close by,
pretending to it.

" Hah— Hah— Hum !" coughs the Major.

" And good gracious me " I says, " why here he is ! "

"Halloa! who goes there?" says the Major in a military
manner.

"Well!" I says, "if this don't beat everything! Don't
you know us Major Jackman?"

"Halloa!" says the Major. "Who calls on Jemmy Jack-
man ? " (and more out of breath he was, and did it less like
life than I should have expected.)

"Why here's Mrs. Edson Major" I says, "strolling out
to cool her poor head which has been very bad, has missed
her way and got lost, and Goodness knows where she might
have got to but for me coming here to drop an order into
my coal merchant's letter-box and you coming here to smoke
your cigar ! — And you really are not well enough my dear " I
says to her " to be half so far from home without me. — And
your arm will be very acceptable I am sure Major" I says
to him "and I know she may lean upon it as heavy as she
likes." And now we had both got her — thanks be Above !
— one on each side.

She was all in a cold shiver and she so continued till I laid
her on her own bed, and up to the early morning she held
me by the hand and moaned and moaned " O wicked, wicked,
wicked ! " But when at last I made believe to droop my
head and be overpowered with a dead sleep, I heard that
poor young creature give such touching and such humble
thanks for being preserved from taking her own life in her
madness that I thought I should have cried my eyes out on
the counterpane and I knew she was safe.

Being well enough to do and able to afford it, me and the
Major laid our little plans next day while she was asleep
worn out, and so I says to her as soon as I could do it nicely :

A LITTLE PLAN CONCOCTED. 23

" Mrs. Edson my dear, when Mr. Edson paid me the rent
for these farther six months "

She gave a start and I felt her large eyes look at me, but
I went on with it and with my needlework.

« — I can't say that I am quite sure I dated the receipt
right. Could you let me look at it?"

She laid her frozen cold hand upon mine and she looked
through me when I was forced to look up from my needle
work, but I had taken the precaution of having on my
spectacles.

"I have no receipt" says she.

"Ah! Then he has got it" I says in a careless way.
" It's of no great consequence. A receipt's a receipt."

From that time she always had hold of my hand when I
could spare it which was generally only when I read to her,
for of course she and me had our bits of needlework to plod
at and neither of us was very handy at those little things,
though I am still rather proud of my share in them too
considering. And though she took to all I read to her, I
used to fancy that next to what was taught upon the Mount
she took most of all to His gentle compassion for us poor
women and to His young life and to how His mother was
proud of Him and treasured His sayings in her heart. She
had a grateful look in her eyes that never never never will
be out of mine until they are closed in my last sleep, and
when I chanced to look at her without thinking of it I would
always meet that look, and she would often offer me her
trembling lip to kiss, much more like a little affectionate half
broken-hearted child than ever I can imagine any grown
person.

One time the trembling of this poor lip was so strong and
her tears ran down so fast that I thought she was going to
tell me all her woe, so I takes her two hands in mine and
I says :

" No my dear not now, you had best not try to do it now.
Wait for better times when you have got over this and

24 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS.

are strong, and then you shall tell me whatever you will.
Shall it be agreed?"

With our hands still joined she nodded her head many
times, and she lifted my hands and put them to her lips
and to her bosom.

"Only one word now my dear" I says. "Is there any
one?"

She looked inquiringly "Any one?"

"That I can go to?"

She shook her head.

"No one that I can bring ?*

She shook her head.

"No one is wanted by me my dear. Now that may be
considered past and gone."

Not much more than a week afterwards — for this was far
on in the time of our being so together — I was bending over
at her bedside with my ear down to her lips, by turns
listening for her breath and looking for a sign of life in
her face. At last it came in a solemn way — not in a flash
but like a kind of pale faint light brought very slow to
the face.

She said something to me that had no sound in it, but I
saw she asked me :

"Is this death?"

And I says:

"Poor dear poor dear, I think it is."

Knowing somehow that she wanted me to move her weak
right hand, I took it and laid it on her breast and then folded
her other hand upon it, and she prayed a good good prayer
and I joined in it poor me though there were no words spoke.
Then I brought the baby in its wrappers from where it lay,
and I says :

"My dear this is sent to a childless old woman. This is
for me to take care of."

The trembling lip was put up towards my face for the last
time, and I dearly kissed it

MASTER JEMMY'S CAP. 25

" Yes my dear," I says. " Please God ! Me and the
Major/'

I don't know how to tell it right, but I saw her soul
brighten and leap up, and get free and fly away in the
grateful look.

So this is the why and wherefore of its coming to pass
my dear that we called him Jemmy, being after the Major
his own godfather with Lirriper for a surname being after
myself, and never was a dear child such a brightening thing
in a Lodgings or such a playmate to his grandmother as
Jemmy to this house and me, and always good and minding
what he was told (upon the whole) and soothing for the
temper and making everything pleasanter except when he
grew old enough to drop his cap down Wozenham's Airy
and they wouldn't hand it up to him, and being worked
into a state I put on my best bonnet and gloves and parasol
with the child in my hand and I says "Miss Wozenham I
little thought ever to have entered your house but unless my
grandson's cap is instantly restored, the laws of this country
regulating the property of the Subject shall at length decide
betwixt yourself and me, cost what it may." With a sneer
upon her face which did strike me I must say as being
expressive of two keys but it may have been a mistake and
if there is any doubt let Miss Wozenham have the full benefit
of it as is but right, she rang the bell and she says "Jane,
is there a street-child's old cap down our Airy?" I says
" Miss Wozenham before your housemaid answers that question
you must allow me to inform you to your face that my grand
son is not a street-child and is not in the habit of wearing old
caps. In fact " I says " Miss Wozenham I am far from sure
that my grandson's cap may not be newer than your own"
which was perfectly savage in me, her lace being the commonest
machine-make washed and torn besides, but I had been put
into a state to begin with fomented by impertinence. Miss

26 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS.

Wozenham says red in the face " Jane you heard my question,
is there any child's cap down our Airy?" "Yes Ma'am"
says Jane " I think I did see some such rubbish a-lying there."
"Then" says Miss Wozenham "let these visitors out, and
then throw up that worthless article out of my premises."
But here the child who had been staring at Miss Wozenham
with all his eyes and more, frowns down his little eyebrows
purses up his little mouth puts his chubby legs far apart
turns his little dimpled fists round and round slowly over one
another like a little coffee-mill, and says to her " Oo impdent
to mi Gran, me tut oor hi ! " " O ! " says Miss Wozenham
looking down scornfully at the Mite "this is not a street-
child is it not ! Really ! " I bursts out laughing and I says
"Miss Wozenham if this ain't a pretty sight to you I don't
envy your feelings and I wish you good-day. Jemmy come
along with Gran." And I was still in the best of humours
though his cap came flying up into the street as if it had
been just turned on out of the water-plug, and I went home
laughing all the way, all owing to that dear boy.

The miles and miles that me and the Major have travelled
with Jemmy in the dusk between the lights are not to be
calculated, Jemmy driving on the coach-box which is the
Major's brass-bound writing desk on the table, me inside in
the easy-chair and the Major Guard up behind with a brown-
paper horn doing it really wonderful. I do assure you my
dear that sometimes when I have taken a few winks in my
place inside the coach and have come half awake by the
flashing light of the fire and have heard that precious pet
driving and the Major blowing up behind to have the change
of horses ready when we got to the Inn, I have half believed
we were on the old North Road that my poor Lirriper knew
so well. Then to see that child and the Major both wrapped
up getting down to warm their feet and going stamping
about and having glasses of ale out of the paper match
boxes on the chimney-piece is to see the Major enjoying it
fully as much as the child I am very sure, and it's equal to

MASTER JEMMY IS LOST. 27

any play when Coachee opens the coach-door to look in at
me inside and say " Wery 'past that 'tage. — 'Frightened old
lady?"

But what my inexpressible feelings were when we lost
that child can only be compared to the Major's which were
not a shade better, through his straying out at five years
old and eleven o'clock in the forenoon and never heard of
by word or sign or deed till half-past nine at night, when
the Major had gone to the Editor of the Times newspaper to
put in an advertisement, which came out next day four-and-
twenty hours after he was found, and which I mean always
carefully to keep in my lavender drawer as the first printed
account of him. The more the day got on, the more I got
distracted and the Major too and both of us made worse by
the composed ways of the police though very civil and obliging
and what I must call their obstinacy in not entertaining the
idea that he was stolen. "We mostly find Mum" says the
sergeant who came round to comfort me, which he didn't at
all and he had been one of the private constables in Caroline's
time to which he referred in his opening words when he said
"Don't give way to uneasiness in your mind Mum, it'll all
come as right as my nose did when I got the same barked
by that young woman in your second floor" — says this
sergeant "we mostly find Mum as people ain't over-anxious
to have what I may call second-hand children. Fow'll get
him back Mum." " O but my dear good sir " I says clasping
my hands and wringing them and clasping them again "he
is such an uncommon child ! " " Yes Mum " says the sergeant,
"we mostly find that too Mum. The question is what his
clothes were worth." " His clothes " I says " were not worth
much sir for he had only got his playing-dress on, but
the dear child ! — " " All right Mum " says the sergeant.
" You'll get him back Mum. And even if he'd had his best
clothes on, it wouldn't come to worse than his being found
wrapped up in a cabbage-leaf, a shivering in a lane." His
words pierced my heart like daggers and daggers, and me

28 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS.

and the Major ran in and out like wild things all day long
till the Major returning from his interview with the Editor
of the Times at night rushes into my little room hysterical
and squeezes my hand and wipes his eyes and says "Joy
joy — officer in plain clothes came up on the steps as I was
letting myself in — compose your feelings — Jemmy's found."
Consequently I fainted away and when I came to, embraced
the legs of the officer in plain clothes who seemed to be
taking a kind of a quiet inventory in his mind of the
property in my little room with brown whiskers, and I says
"Blessings on you sir where is the Darling!" and he says
" In Kennington Station House." I was dropping at his feet
Stone at the image of that Innocence in cells with murderers
when he adds "He followed the Monkey." I says deeming
it slang language "O sir explain for a loving grandmother
what Monkey ! " He says " Him in the spangled cap with
the strap under the chin, as won't keep on — him as sweeps
the crossings on a round table and don't want to draw his
sabre more than he can help." Then I understood it all
and most thankfully thanked him, and me and the Major
and him drove over to Kennington and there we found our
boy lying quite comfortable before a blazing fire having
sweetly played himself to sleep upon a small accordion nothing
like so big as a flat-iron which they had been so kind as to
lend him for the purpose and which it appeared had been
stopped upon a very young person.

My dear the system upon which the Major commenced
and as I may say perfected Jemmy's learning when he was
so small that if the dear was on the other side of the table
you had to look under it instead of over it to see him with
his mother's own bright hair in beautiful curls, is a thing
that ought to be known to the Throne and Lords and
Commons and then might obtain some promotion for the
Major which he well deserves and would be none the worse
for (speaking between friends) L. S. D.-ically. When the
Major first undertook his learning he says to me :

JEMMY'S MIND MUST BE CULTIVATED. 29

"I'm going Madam," he says "to make our child a
Calculating Boy."

"Major," I says, "you terrify me and may do the pet a
permanent injury you would never forgive yourself."

"Madam," says the Major, "next to my regret that when
I had my boot-sponge in my hand, I didn't choke that
scoundrel with it — on the spot "

"There! For Gracious' sake," I interrupts, "let his
conscience find him without sponges."

" — I say next to that regret, Madam," says the Major
" would be the regret with which my breast," which he tapped,
"would be surcharged if this fine mind was not early culti
vated. But mark me Madam," says the Major holding up
his forefinger "cultivated on a principle that will make it
a delight."

"Major" I says "I will be candid with you and tell you
openly that if ever I find the dear child fall off in his appetite
I shall know it is his calculations and shall put a stop to
them at two minutes'* notice. Or if I find them mounting
to his head " I says, " or striking anyways cold to his stomach
or leading to anything approaching flabbiness in his legs, the
result will be the same, but Major you are a clever man
and have seen much and you love the child and are his own
godfather, and if you feel a confidence in trying try."

"Spoken Madam" says the Major "like Emma Lirriper.
All I have to ask, Madam, is that you will leave my godson
and myself to make a week or two's preparations for surprising
you, and that you will give me leave to have up and down
any small articles not actually in use that I may require
from the kitchen."

"From the kitchen Major?" I says half feeling as if he
had a mind to cook the child.

" From the kitchen " says the Major, and smiles and swells,
and at the same time looks taller.

So I passed my word and the Major and the dear boy
were shut up together for half an hour at a time through

30 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS.

a certain while, and never could I hear anything going on
betwixt them but talking and laughing and Jemmy clapping
his hands and screaming out numbers, so I says to myself
"it has not harmed him yet" nor could I on examining the
dear find any signs of it anywhere about him which was
likewise a great relief. At last one day Jemmy brings me a
card in joke in the Major's neat writing "The Messrs. Jemmy
Jackman" for we had given him the Major's other name too
"request the honour of Mrs. Lirriper's company at the
Jackman Institution in the front parlour this evening at five,
military time, to witness a few slight feats of elementary
arithmetic." And if you'll believe me there in the front
parlour at five punctual to the moment was the Major
behind the Pembroke table with both leaves up and a lot of
things from the kitchen tidily set out on old newspapers
spread atop of it, and there was the Mite stood up on a
chair with his rosy cheeks flushing and his eyes sparkling
clusters of diamonds.

" Now Gran " says he, " oo tit down and don't oo touch ler
poople" — for he saw with every one of those diamonds of
his that I was going to give him a squeeze.

"Very well sir" I says "I am obedient in this good
company I am sure." And I sits down in the easy-chair that
was put for me, shaking my sides.

But picture my admiration when the Major going on
almost as quick as if he was conjuring sets out all the articles
he names, and says "Three saucepans, an Italian iron, a
hand-bell, a toasting-fork, a nutmeg-grater, four potlids, a
spice-box, two egg-cups, and a chopping-board — how many ? M
and when that Mite instantly cries "Tifteen, tut down tive
and carry ler 'toppin-board " and then claps his hands draws
up his legs and dances on his chair.

My dear with the same astonishing ease and correctness
him and the Major added up the tables chairs and sofy, the
picters fenders and fire-irons their own selves me and the cat
and the eyes in Miss Wozenhajrfs Ijead, and whenever the

THE MAJOR AND HIS PUPIL. 31

sum was done Young Roses and Diamonds claps his hands
and draws up his legs and dances on his chair.

The pride of the Major! ("Here's a mind Ma'am!" he
says to me behind his hand.)

Then he says aloud, " We now come to the next elementary
rule, — which is called "

" Umtraction ! " cries Jemmy.

"Right," says the Major. "We have here a toasting-
fork, a potato in its natural state, two potlids, one egg-cup,
a wooden spoon, and two skewers, from which it is necessary
for commercial purposes to subtract a sprat-gridiron, a small
pickle-jar, two lemons, one pepper-castor, a blackbeetle-trap,
and a knob of the dresser-drawer — what remains ? "

" Toatin-fork ! " cries Jemmy.

"In numbers how many?" says the Major.

" One ! " cries Jemmy.

("Here's a boy, Ma'am !" says the Major to me behind his
hand.)

Then the Major goes on :

"We now approach the next elementary rule, — which is
entitled "

" Tickleication " cries Jemmy.

"Correct" says the Major.

But my dear to relate to you in detail the way in which
they multiplied fourteen sticks of firewood by two bits of
ginger and a larding-needle, or divided pretty well everything
else there was on the table by the heater of the Italian iron
and a chamber candlestick, and got a lemon over, would
make my head spin round and round and round as it did at
the time. So I says "if you'll excuse my addressing the
chair Professor Jackman I think the period of the lecture has
now arrived when it becomes necessary that I should take a
good hug of this young scholar." Upon which Jemmy calls
out from his station on the chair, " Gran oo open oor arms
and me'll make a 'pring into 'em." So I opened my arms
to him as I had opened my sorrowful heart when his poor

32 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS.

young mother lay a dying, and he had his jump and we had
a good long hug together and the Major prouder than any
peacock says to me behind his hand, "You need not let him
know it Madam"" (which I certainly need not for the Major
was quite audible) " but he is a boy ! "

In this way Jemmy grew and grew and went to day-school
and continued under the Major too, and in summer we were
as happy as the days were long, and in winter we were as
happy as the days were short and there seemed to rest a
Blessing on the Lodgings for they as good as Let themselves
and would have done it if there had been twice the accom
modation, when sore and hard against my will I one day
says to the Major :

"Major you know what I am going to break to you. Our
boy must go to boarding-school."

It was a sad sight to see the Major's countenance drop,
and I pitied the good soul with all my heart.

"Yes Major1' I says, "though he is as popular with the
Lodgers as you are yourself and though he is to you and me
what only you and me know, still it is in the course of things
and Life is made of partings and we must part with our Pet."

Bold as I spoke, I saw two Majors and half-a-dozen fire
places, and when the poor Major put one of his neat bright-
varnished boots upon the fender and his elbow on his knee
and his head upon his hand and rocked himself a little to
and fro, I was dreadfully cut up.

"But" says I clearing my throat "you have so well
prepared him Major — he has had such a Tutor in you —
that he will have none of the first drudgery to go through.
And he is so clever besides that he'll soon make his way to
the front rank."

"He is a boy" says the Major — having sniffed — "that
has not his like on the face of the earth."

"True as you say Major, and it is not for us merely for
our own sakes to do anything to keep him back from being
a credit and an ornament wherever he goes and perhaps even

JEMMY GOING TO BOARDING-SCHOOL. 33

rising to be a great man, is it Major? He will have all my
little savings when my work is done (being all the world to
me) and we must try to make him a wise man and a good
man, mustn't we Major?"

"Madam" says the Major rising "Jemmy Jackman is
becoming an older file than I was aware of, and you put him
to shame. You are thoroughly right Madam. You are
simply and undeniably right. — And if you'll excuse me, I'll
take a walk."

So the Major being gone out and Jemmy being at home,
I got the child into my little room here and I stood him by
my chair and I took his mother's own curls in my hand and I
spoke to him loving and serious. And when I had reminded
the darling how that he was now in his tenth year and when
I had said to him about his getting on in life pretty much
what I had said to the Major I broke to him how that we
must have this same parting, and there I was forced to stop
for there I saw of a sudden the well-remembered lip with its
tremble, and it so brought back that time ! But with the
spirit that was in him he controlled it soon and he says
gravely nodding through his tears, "I understand Gran — I
know it must be, Gran, — go on Gran, don't be afraid of ??#."
And when I had said all that ever I could think of, he
turned his bright steady face to mine and he says just a
little broken here and there "You shall see Gran that I can
be a man and that I can do anything that is grateful and
loving to you — and if I don't grow up to be what you would
like to have me — I hope it will be — because I shall die."
And with that he sat down by me and I went on to tell
him of the school of which I had excellent recommendations
and where it was and how many scholars and what games
they played as I had heard and what length of holidays, to
all of which he listened bright and clear. And so it came
that at last he says " And now dear Gran let me kneel down
here where I have been used to say my prayers and let me
fold my face for just a minute in your gown and let me cry,

VOL. II. D

34 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS.

for you have been more than father — more than mother —
more than brothers sisters friends — to me ! " And so he did
cry and I too and we were both much the better for it.

From that time forth he was true to his word and ever
blithe and ready, and even when me and the Major took him
down into Lincolnshire he was far the gayest of the party
though for sure and certain he might easily have been that,
but he really was and put life into us only when it came to
the last Good-bye, he says with a wistful look, " You wouldn't
have me not really sorry would you Gran ? " and when I says
" No dear, Lord forbid !" he says « I am glad of that ! " and
ran in out of sight.

But now that the child was gone out of the Lodgings the
Major fell into a regularly moping state. It was taken notice
of by all the Lodgers that the Major moped. He hadn't
even the same air of being rather tall that he used to have,
and if he varnished his boots with a single gleam of interest
it was as much as he did.

One evening the Major came into my little room to take
a cup of tea and a morsel of buttered toast and to read
Jemmy's newest letter which had arrived that afternoon (by
the very same postman more than middle-aged upon the
Beat now), and the letter raising him up a little I says to
the Major :

" Major you mustn't get into a moping way."

The Major shook his head. "Jemmy Jackman Madam,"
he says with a deep sigh, " is an older file than I thought
him."

" Moping is not the way to grow younger Major,"

" My dear Madam," says the Major, " is there any way of
growing younger?"

Feeling that the Major was getting rather the best of that
point I made a diversion to another.

" Thirteen years ! Thir-teen years ! Many Lodgers have
come and gone, in the thirteen years that you have lived in
the parlours Major."

THE MAJOR'S SPIRITS DROOP. 35

" Hah ! " says the Major warming. " Many Madam, many."

u And I should say you have been familiar with them all ? "

" As a rule (with its exceptions like all rules) my dear
Madam1' says the Major, "they have honoured me with their
acquaintance, and not unfrequently with their confidence."

Watching the Major as he drooped his white head and
stroked his black mustachios and moped again, a thought
which I think must have been going about looking for an
owner somewhere dropped into my old noddle if you will
excuse the expression.

" The walls of my Lodgings " I says in a casual way — for
my dear it is of no use going straight at a man who mopes —
" might have something to tell if they could tell it."

The Major neither moved nor said anything but I saw he
was attending with his shoulders my dear — attending with his
shoulders to what I said. In fact I saw that his shoulders
were struck by it.

" The dear boy was always fond of story-books " I went on,
like as if I was talking to myself. " I am sure this house —
his own home — might write a story or two for his reading
one day or another."

The Major's shoulders gave a dip and a curve and his
head came up in his shirt-collar. The Major's head came up
in his shirt-collar as I hadn't seen it come up since Jemmy
went to school.

"It is unquestionable that in intervals of cribbage and a
friendly rubber, my dear Madam," says the Major, "and also
over what used to be called in my young times — in the salad
days of Jemmy Jackman — the social glass, I have exchanged
many a reminiscence with your Lodgers."

My remark was — I confess I made it with the deepest and
artfullest of intentions — "I wish our dear boy had heard
them!"

"Are you serious Madam?" asks the Major starting and
turning full round.

"Why not Major?"

36 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS.

"Madam" says the Major, turning up one of his cuffs,
" they shall be written for him."

" Ah ! Now you speak " I says giving my hands a pleased
clap. " Now you are in a way out of moping Major ! "

"Between this and my holidays — I mean the dear boy's"
says the Major turning up his other cuff, "a good deal may
be done towards it."

"Major you are a clever man and you have seen much
and not a doubt of it."

"I'll begin," says the Major looking as tall as ever he did,
" to-morrow."

My dear the Major was another man in three days and he
was himself again in a week and he wrote and wrote and
wrote with his pen scratching like rats behind the wainscot,
and whether he had many grounds to go upon or whether he
did at all romance I cannot tell you, but what he has written
is in the left-hand glass closet of the little bookcase close
behind you.

CHAPTER II.

HOW THE PARLOURS ADDED A FEW WORDS.

I HAVE the honour of presenting myself by the name of Jack-
man. I esteem it a proud privilege to go down to posterity
through the instrumentality of the most remarkable boy that
ever lived, — by the name of JEMMY JACKMAN LIRRIPER, — and
of my most worthy and most highly respected friend, Mrs.
Emma Lirriper, of Eighty-one, Norfolk Street, Strand, in the
County of Middlesex, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland.

It is not for me to express the rapture with which we
received that dear and eminently remarkable boy, on the
occurrence of his first Christmas holidays. Suffice it to observe
that when he came flying into the house with two splendid
prizes (Arithmetic, and Exemplary Conduct), Mrs. Lirriper
and myself embraced with emotion, and instantly took him
to the Play, where we were all three admirably entertained.

Nor is it to render homage to the virtues of the best of
her good and honoured sex — whom, in deference to her un
assuming worth, I will only here designate by the initials
E. L. — that I add this record to the bundle of papers with
which our, in a most distinguished degree, remarkable boy
has expressed himself delighted, before reconsigning the same
to the left-hand glass closet of Mrs. Lirriper's little bookcase.

Neither is it to obtrude the name of the old original super
annuated obscure Jemmy Jackman, once (to his degradation)

38 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS.

of Wozenham's, long (to his elevation) of Lirriper's. If I
could be consciously guilty of that piece of bad taste, it
would indeed be a work of supererogation, now that the name
is borne by JEMMY JACKMAN LIRRIPER.

No, I take up my humble pen to register a little record of
our strikingly remarkable boy, which my poor capacity regards
as presenting a pleasant little picture of the dear boy's mind.
The picture may be interesting to himself when he is a man.

Our first reunited Christmas-day was the most delightful
one we have ever passed together. Jemmy was never silent
for five minutes, except in church-time. He talked as we
sat by the fire, he talked when we were out walking, he talked
as we sat by the fire again, he talked incessantly at dinner,
though he made a dinner almost as remarkable as himself.
It was the spring of happiness in his fresh young heart
flowing and flowing, and it fertilised (if I may be allowed so
bold a figure) my much-esteemed friend, and J. J. the present
writer.

There were only we three. We dined in my esteemed
friend's little room, and our entertainment was perfect. But
everything in the establishment is, in neatness, order, and
comfort, always perfect. After dinner our boy slipped away
to his old stool at my esteemed friend's knee, and there, with
his hot chestnuts and his glass of brown sherry (really, a
most excellent wine !) on a chair for a table, his face outshone
the apples in the dish.

We talked of these jottings of mine, which Jemmy had
read through and through by that time; and so it came
about that my esteemed friend remarked, as she sat smoothing
Jemmy's curls :

" And as you belong to the house too, Jemmy, — and so
much more than the Lodgers, having been born in it, — why,
your story ought to be added to the rest, I think, one of
these days."

Jemmy's eyes sparkled at this, and he said, "So / think,
Gran."

THE REMARKABLE BOY TELLS A STORY. 39

Then he sat looking at the fire, and then he began to
laugh in a sort of confidence with the fire, and then he said,
folding his arms across my esteemed friend's lap, and raising
his bright face to hers : " Would you like to hear a boy's
story, Gran?"

" Of all things," replied my esteemed friend.

"Would you, godfather?"

" Of all things," I too replied.

" Well, then," said Jemmy, " 111 tell you one."

Here our indisputably remarkable boy gave himself a hug,
and laughed again, musically, at the idea of his coming out
in that new line. Then he once more took the fire into the
same sort of confidence as before, and began :

" Once upon a time, When pigs drank wine, And monkeys
chewed tobaccer, 'Twas neither in your time nor mine, But
that's no macker "

" Bless the child ! " cried my esteemed friend, " what's amiss
with his brain?"

" It's poetry, Gran," returned Jemmy, shouting with laughter.
"We always begin stories that way at school."

"Gave me quite a turn, Major," said my esteemed friend,
fanning herself with a plate. " Thought he was light
headed!"

" In those remarkable times, Gran and godfather, there was
once a boy,— not me, you know."

"No, no," says my respected friend, "not you. Not him,
Major, you understand?"

"No, no," says I.

"And he went to school in Rutlandshire "

" Why not Lincolnshire ? " says my respected friend.

" Why not, you dear old Gran ? Because / go to school
in Lincolnshire, don't I?"

" Ah, to be sure ! " says my respected friend. " And it's
not Jemmy, you understand, Major?"

" No, no," says I.

" Well ! " our boy proceeded, hugging himself comfortably,

40 MRS. LIRRIPEirS LODGINGS.

and laughing- merrily (again in confidence with the fire),
before he again looked up in Mrs. Lirriper's face, " and so
he was tremendously in love with his schoolmaster's daughter,
and she was the most beautiful creature that ever was seen,
and she had brown eyes, and she had brown hair all curling
beautifully, and she had a delicious voice, and she was
delicious altogether, and her name was Seraphina."

" What's the name of your schoolmaster's daughter, Jemmy ? "
asks my respected friend.

" Polly ! " replied Jemmy, pointing his forefinger at her.
" There now ! Caught you ! Ha, ha, ha ! "

When he and my respected friend had had a laugh and a
hug together, our admittedly remarkable boy resumed with
a great relish :

" Well ! And so he loved her. And so he thought about
her, and dreamed about her, and made her presents of oranges
and nuts, and would have made her presents of pearls and
diamonds if he could have afforded it out of his pocket-money,
but he couldn't. And so her father — O, he WAS a Tartar!
Keeping the boys up to the mark, holding examinations once
a month, lecturing upon all sorts of subjects at all sorts of
times, and knowing everything in the world out of book.

And so this boy "

" Had he any name ? " asks my respected friend.
" No, he hadn't, Gran. Ha, ha ! There now ! Caught you
again ! "

After this, they had another laugh and another hug, and
then our boy went on.

" Well ! And so this boy, he had a friend about as old as
himself at the same school, and his name (for He had a name,
as it happened) was — let me remember — was Bobbo."
" Not Bob," says my respected friend.
" Of course not," says Jemmy. " What made you think
it was, Gran ? Well ! And so this friend was the cleverest
and bravest and best-looking and most generous of all the
friends that ever were, and so he was in love with Seraphina's

TWO WEDDINGS. 41

sister, and so Seraphina's sister was in love with him, and so
they all grew up.1'

"Bless us!" says my respected friend. "They were very
sudden about it."

" So they all grew up," our boy repeated, laughing heartily,
"and Bobbo and this boy went away together on horseback
to seek their fortunes, and they partly got their horses by
favour, and partly in a bargain ; that is to say, they had
saved up between them seven and fourpence, and the two
horses, being Arabs, were worth more, only the man said he
would take that, to favour them. Well ! And so they made
their fortunes and came prancing back to the school, with their
pockets full of gold, enough to last for ever. And so they
rang at the parents' and visitors' bell (not the back gate),
and when the bell was answered they proclaimed 'The same
as if it was scarlet fever! Every boy goes home for an
indefinite period ! ' And then there was great hurrahing, and
then they kissed Seraphina and her sister, — each his own
love, and not the other's on any account, — and then they
ordered the Tartar into instant confinement."

" Poor man ! " said my respected friend.

"Into instant confinement, Gran," repeated Jemmy, trying
to look severe and roaring with laughter; "and he was to
have nothing to eat but the boys' dinners, and was to drink
half a cask of their beer every day. And so then the pre
parations were made for the two weddings, and there were
hampers, and potted things, and sweet things, and nuts, and
postage-stamps, and all manner of things. And so they were
so jolly, that they let the Tartar out, and he was jolly too."

"I am glad they let him out," says my respected friend,
"because he had only done his duty."

"O, but hadn't he overdone it, though!" cried Jemmy.
" Well ! And so then this boy mounted his horse, with his
bride in his arms, and cantered away, and cantered on and
on till he came to a certain place where he had a certain
Gran and a certain godfather, — not you two, you know."

42 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS.

"No, no," we both said.

"And there he was received with great rejoicings, and he
filled the cupboard and the bookcase with gold, and he
showered it out on his Gran and his godfather because they
were the two kindest and dearest people that ever lived in
this world. And so while they were sitting up to their knees
in gold, a knocking was heard at the street door, and who
should it be but Bobbo, also on horseback with his bride in
his arms, and what had he come to say but that he would
take (at double rent) all the Lodgings for ever, that were
not wanted by this boy and this Gran and this godfather, and
that they would all live together, and all be happy! And
so they were, and so it never ended ! "

"And was there no quarrelling?" asked my respected
friend, as Jemmy sat upon her lap and hugged her.

" No ! Nobody ever quarrelled."

"And did the money never melt away?"

" No ! Nobody could ever spend it all."

" And did none of them ever grow older ? "

" No ! Nobody ever grew older after that."

"And did none of them ever die?"

" O, no, no, no, Gran ! " exclaimed our dear boy, laying his
cheek upon her breast, and drawing her closer to him.
"Nobody ever died."

"Ah, Major, Major!" says my respected friend, smiling
benignly upon me, "this beats our stories. Let us end with
the Boy's story, Major, for the Boy's story is the best that
is ever told ! "

In submission to which request on the part of the best of
women, I have here noted it down as faithfully as my best
abilities, coupled with my best intentions, would admit,
subscribing it with my name,

J. JACKMAN.
THE PARLOURS.

MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS.

MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY

[1864]

MKS. LIBBIPER'S LEGACY.

In ®foo Chapters.

CHAPTER I.

MRS. LIRRIPER RELATES HOW SHE WENT ON, AND WENT OVER.

AH ! It's pleasant to drop into my own easy-chair my dear
though a little palpitating what with trotting up-stairs and
what with trotting down, and why kitchen stairs should all
be corner stairs is for the builders to justify though I do
not think they fully understand their trade and never did,
else why the sameness and why not more conveniences and
fewer draughts and likewise making a practice of laying the
plaster on too thick I am well convinced which holds the
damp, and as to chimney-pots putting them on by guess-work
like hats at a party and no more knowing what their effect
will be upon the smoke bless you than I do if so much,
except that it will mostly be either to send it down your
throat in a straight form or give it a twist before it goes
there. And what I says speaking as I find of those new-
metal chimneys all manner of shapes (there's a row of 'em
at Miss Wozenham's lodging-house lower down on the other
side of the way) is that they only work your smoke into
artificial patterns for you before you swallow it and that
I'd quite as soon swallow mine plain, the flavour being the
same, not to mention the conceit of putting up signs on the

46 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY.

top of your house to show the forms in which you take your
smoke into your inside.

Being here before your eyes my dear in my own easy-chair
in my own quiet room in my own Lodging-House Number
Eighty-one Norfolk Street Strand London situated midway
between the city and St. James's — if anything is where it
used to be with these hotels calling themselves Limited but
called unlimited by Major Jackman rising up everywhere
and rising up into flagstaffs where they can't go any higher,
but my mind of those monsters is give me a landlord's or
landlady's wholesome face when I come off a journey and not
a brass plate with an electrified number clicking out of it
which it's not in nature can be glad to see me and to which
I don't want to be hoisted like molasses at the Docks and
left there telegraphing for help with the most ingenious
instruments but quite in vain — being here my dear I have
no call to mention that I am still in the Lodgings as a
business hoping to die in the same and if agreeable to the
clergy partly read over at Saint Clement's Danes and con
cluded in Hatfield churchyard when lying once again by my
poor Lirriper ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

Neither should I tell you any news my dear in telling you
that the Major is still a fixture in the Parlours quite as
much so as the roof of the house, and that Jemmy is of
boys the best and brightest and has ever had kept from him
the cruel story of his poor pretty young mother Mrs. Edson
being deserted in the second floor and dying in my arms,
fully believing that I am his born Gran and him an orphan,
though what with engineering since he took a taste for it
and him and the Major making Locomotives out of parasols
broken iron pots and cotton-reels and them absolutely a
getting off* the line and falling over the table and injuring
the passengers almost equal to the originals it really is
quite wonderful. And when I says to the Major, "Major
can't you by any means give us a communication with the
guard?" the Major says quite huffy, "No madam it's not

UNITED GRAND JUNCTION PARLOUR LINE. 47

to be done," and when I says "Why not ?" the Major says,
"That is between us who are in the Railway Interest madam
and our friend the Right Honourable Vice-President of the
Board of Trade" and if you'll believe me my dear the Major
wrote to Jemmy at school to consult him on the answer
I should have before I could get even that amount of
unsatisfactoriness out of the man, the reason being that
when we first began with the little model and the working
signals beautiful and perfect (being in general as wrong as
the real) and when I says laughing "What appointment am
I to hold in this undertaking gentlemen?" Jemmy hugs me
round the neck and tells me dancing, "You shall be the
Public Gran" and consequently they put upon me just as
much as ever they like and I sit a growling in my easy-chair.
My dear whether it is that a grown man as clever as the
Major cannot give half his heart and mind to anything — even
a plaything — but must get into right down earnest with it,
whether it is so or whether it is not so I do not undertake to
say, but Jemmy is far outdone by the serious and believing
ways of the Major in the management of the United Grand
Junction Lirriper and Jackman Great Norfolk Parlour Line,
"For" says my Jemmy with the sparkling eyes when it was
christened, "we must have a whole mouthful of name Gran
or our dear old Public" and there the young rogue kissed
me, "won't stump up." So, the Public took the shares —
ten at ninepence, and immediately when that was spent
twelve Preference at one and sixpence — and they were all
signed by Jemmy and countersigned by the Major, and
between ourselves much better worth the money than some
shares I have paid for in my time. In the same holidays
the line was made and worked and opened and ran excursions
and had collisions and burst its boilers and all sorts of
accidents and offences all most regular correct and pretty.
The sense of responsibility entertained by the Major as a
military style of station-master my dear starting the down
train behind time and ringing one of those little belfs that

48 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY.

you buy with the little coal-scuttles off the tray round the
man's neck in the street did him honour, but noticing the
Major of a night when he is writing out his monthly report
to Jemmy at school of the state of the Rolling Stock and
the Permament Way and all the rest of it (the whole kept
upon the Major's sideboard and dusted with his own hands
every morning before varnishing his boots) I notice him as
full of thought and care as full can be and frowning in a
fearful manner, but indeed the Major does nothing by halves
as witness his great delight in going out surveying with
Jemmy when he has Jemmy to go with, carrying a chain and
a measuring-tape and driving I doirt know what improve
ments right through Westminster Abbey and fully believed
in the streets to be knocking everything upside down by Act
of Parliament. As please Heaven will come to pass when
Jemmy takes to that as a profession !

Mentioning my poor Lirriper brings into my head his own
youngest brother the Doctor though Doctor of what I am
sure it would be hard to say unless Liquor, for neither Physic
nor Music nor yet Law does Joshua Lirriper know a morsel
of except continually being summoned to the County Court
and having orders made upon him which he runs away from,
and once was taken in the passage of this very house with an
umbrella up and the Major's hat on, giving his name with the
door-mat round him as Sir Johnson Jones, K.C.B. in spectacles
residing at the Horse Guards. On which occasion he had got
into the house not a minute before, through the girl letting
him on the mat when he sent in a piece of paper twisted
more like one of those spills for lighting candles than a note,
offering me the choice between thirty shillings in hand and
his brains on the premises marked immediate and waiting
for an answer. My dear it gave me such a dreadful turn to
think of the brains of my poor dear Lirriper's own flesh and
blood flying about the new oilcloth however unworthy to be
so assisted, that I went out of my room here to ask him
what he would take once for all not to do it for life when I

MR. LIRRIPEITS YOUNGEST BROTHER. 49

found him in the custody of two gentlemen that I should
have judged to be in the feather-bed trade if they had not
announced the law, so fluffy were their personal appearance.
"Bring your chains, sir," says Joshua to the littlest of the
two in the biggest hat, "rivet on my fetters!" Imagine
my feelings when I pictered him clanking up Norfolk-street
in irons and Miss Wozenham looking out of window !
"Gentlemen," I says all of a tremble and ready to drop
"please to bring him into Major Jackman's apartments."
So they brought him into the Parlours, and when the Major
spies his own curly-brimmed hat on him which Joshua Lirriper
had whipped off its peg in the passage for a military disguise
he goes into such a tearing passion that he tips it off his
head with his hand and kicks it up to the ceiling with his
foot where it grazed long afterwards. "Major" I says "be
cool and advise me what to do with Joshua my dead and gone
Lumper's own youngest brother." "Madam" says the Major
"my advice is that you board and lodge him in a Powder
Mill, with a handsome gratuity to the proprietor when
exploded." " Major " 1 says "as a Christian you cannot mean
your words." "Madam" says the Major "by the Lord I
do!" and indeed the Major besides being with all his merits
a very passionate man for his size had a bad opinion of
Joshua on account of former troubles even unattended by
liberties taken with his apparel. When Joshua Lirriper hears
this conversation betwixt us he turns upon the littlest one
with the biggest hat and says "Come sir! Remove me to
my vile dungeon. Where is my mouldy straw?" My dear
at the picter of him rising in my mind dressed almost entirely
in padlocks like Baron Trenck in Jemmy's book I was so
overcome that I burst into tears and I says to the Major,
"Major take my keys and settle with these gentlemen or I
shall never know a happy minute more," which was done
several times both before and since, but still I must remember
that Joshua Lirriper has his good feelings and shows them
in being always so troubled in his mind when he cannot wear
VOL. n. E

50 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY.

mourning for his brother. Many a long year have I left off
my widow's mourning not being wishful to intrude, but the
tender point in Joshua that I cannot help a little yielding
to is when he writes "One single sovereign would enable
me to wear a decent suit of mourning for my much-loved
brother. I vowed at the time of his lamented death that I
would ever wear sables in memory of him but Alas how
short-sighted is man, How keep that vow when penniless ! "
It says a good deal for the strength of his feelings that he
couldn't have been seven year old when my poor Lirriper
died and to have kept to it ever since is highly creditable.
But we know there's good in all of us, — if we only knew
where it was in some of us, — and though it was far from
delicate in Joshua to work upon the dear child's feelings
when first sent to school and write down into Lincolnshire
for his pocket-money by return of post and got it, still he
is my poor Lirriper's own youngest brother and mightn't
have meant not paying his bill at the Salisbury Arms when
his affection took him down to stay a fortnight at Hatfield
churchyard and might have meant to keep sober but for bad
company. Consequently if the Major had played on him
with the garden-engine which he got privately into his room
without my knowing of it, I think that much as I should
have regretted it there would have been words betwixt the
Major and me. Therefore my dear though he played on Mr.
Buffle by mistake being hot in his head, and though it might
have been misrepresented down at Wozenham's into not being
ready for Mr. Buffle in other respects he being the Assessed
Taxes, still I do not so much regret it as perhaps I ought.
And whether Joshua Lirriper will yet do well in life I cannot
say, but I did hear of his coming out at a Private Theatre
in the character of a Bandit without receiving any offers
afterwards from the regular managers.

Mentioning Mr. Buffle gives an instance of there being
good in persons where good is not expected, for it cannot
be denied that Mr. Buffle's manners when engaged in his

THE MAJOR AND MR. BUFFLE. 51

business were not agreeable. To collect is one thing, and
to look about as if suspicious of the goods being gradually
removing in the dead of the night by a back door is another,
over taxing you have no control but suspecting is voluntary.
Allowances too must ever be made for a gentleman of the
Major's warmth not relishing being spoke to with a pen in
the mouth, and while I do not know that it is more irritable
to my own feelings to have a low-crowned hat with a broad
brim kept on in doors than any other hat still I can appreciate
the Major's, besides which without bearing malice or vengeance
the Major is a man that scores up arrears as his habit always
was with Joshua Lirriper. So at last my dear the Major
lay in wait for Mr. Buffle and it worrited me a good deal.
Mr. Buffle gives his rap of two sharp knocks one day and
the Major bounces to the door. "Collector has called for
two quarters' Assessed Taxes" says Mr. Buffle. "They are
ready for him" says the Major and brings him in here. But
on the way Mr. Buffle looks about him in his usual suspicious
manner and the Major fires and asks him "Do you see a
Ghost sir?" "No sir" says Mr. Buffle. "Because I have
before noticed you" says the Major "apparently looking for
a spectre very hard beneath the roof of my respected friend.
When you find that supernatural agent, be so good as point
him out sir." Mr. Buffle stares at the Major and then nods
at me. "Mrs. Lirriper sir" says the Major going off into a
perfect steam and introducing me with his hand. " Pleasure
of knowing her " says Mr. Buffle. " A — hum ! — Jemmy
Jackman sir ! " says the Major introducing himself. " Honour
of knowing you by sight " says Mr. Buffle. " Jemmy Jackman
sir" says the Major wagging his head sideways in a sort of
obstinate fury " presents to you his esteemed friend that lady
Mrs. Emma Lirriper of Eighty-one Norfolk Street Strand
London in the County of Middlesex in the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland. Upon which occasion sir,"
says the Major, "Jemmy Jackman takes your hat off." Mr.
Buffle looks at his hat where the Major drops it on the

52 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY.

\

floor, and he picks it up and puts it on again. "Sir" says
the Major very red and looking him full in the face "there
are two quarters of the Gallantry Taxes due and the
Collector has called." Upon which if you can believe my
words my dear the Major drops Mr. Buffle's hat off again.

"This " Mr. Buffle begins very angry with his pen in

his mouth, when the Major steaming more and more says
"Take your bit out sir! Or by the whole infernal system
of Taxation of this country and every individual figure in
the National Debt, I'll get upon your back and ride you like
a horse ! " which it's my belief he would have done and even
actually jerking his neat little legs ready for a spring as it
was. "This," says Mr. Buffle without his pen "is an assault
and HI have the law of you." "Sir" replies the Major "if
you are a man of honour, your Collector of whatever may be
due on the Honourable Assessment by applying to Major
Jackman at the Parlours Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings, may obtain
what he wants in full at any moment."

When the Major glared at Mr. Buffle with those meaning
words my dear I literally gasped for a teaspoonful of salvolatile
in a wineglass of water, and I says " Pray let it go no farther
gentlemen I beg and beseech of you ! " But the Major could
be got to do nothing else but snort long after Mr. Buffle was
gone, and the effect it had upon my whole mass of blood
when on the next day of Mr. Buffle's rounds the Major spruced
himself up and went humming a tune up and down the street
with one eye almost obliterated by his hat there are not
expressions in Johnson's dictionary to state. But I safely
put the street door on the jar and got behind the Major's
blinds with my shawl on and my mind made up the moment
I saw danger to rush out screeching till my voice failed me
and catch the Major round the neck till my strength went
and have all parties bound. I had not been behind the
blinds a quarter of an hour when I saw Mr. Buffle approaching
with his Collecting-books in his hand. The Major likewise
saw him approaching and hummed louder and himself

FIRE ! 53

approached. They met before the Airy railings. The Major
takes off his hat at arm's length and says "Mr. Buffle I
believe?" Mr. Buffle takes off his hat at arm's length and
says "That is my name sir." Says the Major "Have you
any commands for me, Mr. Buffle?" Says Mr. Buffle "Not
any sir." Then my dear both of 'em bowed very low and
haughty and parted, and whenever Mr. Buffle made his
rounds in future him and the Major always met and bowed
before the Airy railings, putting me much in mind of Hamlet
and the other gentleman in mourning before killing one
another, though I could have wished the other gentleman
had done it fairer and even if less polite no poison.

Mr. Buffle's family were not liked in this neighbourhood,
for when you are a householder my dear youll find it does
not come by nature to like the Assessed, and it was considered
besides that a one-horse pheayton ought not to have elevated
Mrs. Buffle to that height especially when purloined from
the Taxes which I myself did consider uncharitable. But
they were not liked and there was that domestic unhappiness
in the family in consequence of their both being very hard
with Miss Buffle and one another on account of Miss Buffle's
favouring Mr. Buffle's articled young gentleman, that it was
whispered that Miss Buffle would go either into a consumption
or a convent she being so very thin and off her appetite
and two close-shaved gentlemen with white bands round
their necks peeping round the corner whenever she went out
in waistcoats resembling black pinafores. So things stood
towards Mr. Buffle when one night I was woke by a frightful
noise and a smell of burning, and going to my bedroom
window saw the whole street in a glow. Fortunately we had
two sets empty just then and before I could hurry on some
clothes I heard the Major hammering at the attics' doors and
calling out " Dress yourselves ! — Fire ! Don't be frightened !
— Fire! Collect your presence of mind! — Fire! All right
— Fire ! " most tremenjously. As I opened my bedroom door
the Major came tumbling in over himself and me, and caught

54 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY.

me in his arms. "Major" I says breathless "where is it?"
"I don't know dearest madam" says the Major — "Fire!
Jemmy Jackman will defend you to the last drop of his blood
— Fire! If the dear boy was at home what a treat this
would be for him — Fire ! " and altogether very collected and
bold except that he couldn't say a single sentence without
shaking me to the very centre with roaring Fire. We ran
down to the drawing-room and put our heads out of window,
and the Major calls to an unfeeling young monkey, scampering
by be joyful and ready to split "Where is it? — Fire !" The
monkey answers without stopping "O here's a lark! Old
Buffle's been setting his house alight to prevent its being found
out that he boned the Taxes. Hurrah ! Fire ! " And then
the sparks came flying up and the smoke came pouring down
and the crackling of flames and spatting of water and
banging of engines and hacking of axes and breaking of glass
and knocking at doors and the shouting and crying and
hurrying and the heat and altogether gave me a dreadful
palpitation. "Don't be frightened dearest madam," says the
Major, " — Fire! There's nothing to be alarmed at — Fire!
Don't open the street door till I come back — Fire! I'll go
and see if I can be of any service — Fire ! You're quite
composed and comfortable ain't you ? — Fire, Fire, Fire ! " It
was in vain for me to hold the man and tell him he'd be
galloped to death by the engines — pumped to death by his
over-exertions — wet-feeted to death by the slop and mess —
flattened to death when the roofs fell in — his spirit was up
and he went scampering off after the young monkey with all
the breath he had and none to spare, and me and the girls
huddled together at the parlour windows looking at the
dreadful flames above the houses over the way, Mr. Buffle's
being round the corner. Presently what should we see but
some people running down the street straight to our door,
and then the Major directing operations in the busiest way,
and then some more people and then — carried in a chair
similar to Guy Fawkes — Mr. Buffle in a blanket !

GALLANT CONDUCT OF THE MAJOR. 55

My dear the Major has Mr. Buffle brought up our steps
and whisked into the parlour and carted out on the sofy,
and then he and all the rest of them without so much as a
word burst away again full speed, leaving the impression of
a vision except for Mr. Buffle awful in his blanket with his
eyes a rolling. In a twinkling they all burst back again
with Mrs. Buffle in another blanket, which whisked
carted out on the sofy they all burst off again and-^/dl burst
back again with Miss Buffle in another blanket, ^jSicl^ again
whisked in and carted out they all burst off
burst back again with Mr. BuffiVs articled yoi
in another blanket — him a holding round tl
men carrying him by the legs, similar to
disgraceful creetur who has lost the fight (Bin
chair I do not know) and his hair having the
newly played upon. When all four of a row,
his hands and whispers me with what little hoarse^
get together, " If our dear remarkable boy was onlj
what a delightful treat this would be for him ! "

My dear we made them some hot tea and toast anc
hot brandy-and-water with a little comfortable nutmeg
and at first they were scared and low in their spirits but"
being fully insured got sociable. And the first use Mr. Buffle
made of his tongue was to call the Major his Preserver and
his best of friends and to say "My for ever dearest sir let
me make you known to Mrs. Buffle" which also addressed
him as her Preserver and her best of friends and was fully
as cordial as the blanket would admit of. Also Miss Buffle.
The articled young gentleman's head was a little light and
he sat a moaning "Robina is reduced to cinders, Robina is
reduced to cinders ! " Which went more to the heart on
account of his having got wrapped in his blanket as if he
was looking out of a violinceller case, until Mr. Buffle says
" Robina speak to him ! " Miss Buffle says " Dear George ! "
and but for the Major's pouring down brandy-and-water on
the instant which caused a catching in his throat owing to

56 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY.

the nutmeg and a violent fit of coughing it might have
proved too much for his strength. When the articled young
gentleman got the better of it Mr. Buffle leaned up against
Mrs. Buffle being two bundles, a little while in confidence,
and then says with tears in his eyes which the Major noticing
wiped, " We have not been an united family, let us after this
danger become so, take her George." The young gentleman
could not put his arm out far to do it, but his spoken
expressions were very beautiful though of a wandering class.
And I do not know that I ever had a much pleasanter meal
than the breakfast we took together after we had all dozed,
when Miss Buffle made tea very sweetly in quite the Roman
style as depicted formerly at Covent Garden Theatre and
when the whole family was most agreeable, as they have ever
proved since that night when the Major stood at the foot of
the Fire-Escape and claimed them as they came down — the
young gentleman head-foremost, which accounts. And though
I do not say that we should be less liable to think ill of one
another if strictly limited to blankets, still I do say that we
might most of us come to a better understanding if we kept
one another less at a distance.

Why there's Wozenham's lower down on the other side of
the street. I had a feeling of much soreness several years
respecting what I must still ever call Miss WozenhanVs
systematic underbidding and the likeness of the house in
Bradshaw having far too many windows and a most um
brageous and outrageous Oak which never yet was seen in
Norfolk-street nor yet a carriage and four at Wozenham's
door, which it would have been far more to Bradshaw's credit
to have drawn a cab. This frame of mind continued bitter
down to the very afternoon in January last when one of my
girls, Sally Rairyganoo which I still suspect of Irish
extraction though family represented Cambridge, else why
abscond with a bricklayer of the Limerick persuasion and
be married in pattens not waiting till his black eye was
decently got round with all the company fourteen in number

A WORD OF COMFORT TO AN OLD ENEMY. 57

and one horse fighting outside on the roof of the vehicle, —
I repeat my dear my ill-regulated state of mind towards
Miss Wozenham continued down to the very afternoon of
January last past when Sally Rairyganoo came banging (I
can use no milder expression) into my room with a jump
which may be Cambridge and may not, and said "Hurroo
Missis ! Miss Wozenham's sold up ! " My dear when I had
it thrown in my face and conscience that the girl Sally had
reason to think I could be glad of the ruin of a fellow-creeter,
I burst into tears and dropped back in my chair and I says
"I am ashamed of myself!"

Well ! I tried to settle to my tea but I could not do it
what with thinking of Miss Wozenham and her distresses.
It was a wretched night and I went up to a front window
and looked over at Wozenham's and as well as I could make
it out down the street in the fog it was the dismallest of
the dismal and not a light to be seen. So at last I says to
myself " This will not do,1' and I puts on my oldest bonnet
and shawl not wishing Miss Wozenham to be reminded of
my best at such a time, and lo and behold you I goes over
to Wozenham's and knocks. "Miss Wozenham at home?"
I says turning my head when I heard the door go. And
then I saw it was Miss Wozenham herself who had opened
it and sadly worn she was poor thing and her eyes all swelled
and swelled with crying. "Miss Wozenham " I says "it is
several years since there was a little unpleasantness betwixt
us on the subject of my grandson's cap being down your
Airy. I have overlooked it and I hope you have done the
same." " Yes Mrs. Lirriper " she says in a surprise " I have."
"Then my dear" I says "I should be glad to come in and
speak a word to you." Upon my calling her my dear Miss
Wozenham breaks out a crying most pitiful, and a not
unfeeling elderly person that might have been better shaved
in a nightcap with a hat over it offering a polite apology
for the mumps having worked themselves into his constitution,
and also for sending home to his wife on the bellows which

58 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY.

was in his hand as a writing-desk, looks out of the back
parlour and says "The lady wants a word of comfort" and
goes in again. So I was able to say quite natural "Wants
a word of comfort does she sir? Then please the pigs she
shall have it ! " And Miss Wozenham and me we go into
the front room with a wretched light that seemed to have
been crying too and was sputtering out, and I says "Now
my dear, tell me all," and she wrings her hands and says
"O Mrs. Lirriper that man is in possession here, and I have
not a friend in the world who is able to help me with a
shilling."

It doesn't signify a bit what a talkative old body like me
said to Miss Wozenham when she said that, and so Til tell
you instead my dear that I'd have given thirty shillings to
have taken her over to tea, only I durstn't on account of
the Major. Not you see but what I knew I could draw
the Major out like thread and wind him round my finger
on most subjects and perhaps even on that if I was to set
myself to it, but him and me had so often belied Miss
Wozenham to one another that I was shamefaced, and I
knew she had offended his pride and never mine, and likewise
I felt timid that that Rairyganoo girl might make things
awkward. So I says "My dear if you could give me a cup of
tea to clear my muddle of a head I should better understand
your affairs." And we had the tea and the affairs too and

after all it was but forty pound, and There f she's as

industrious and straight a creeter as ever lived and has paid
back half of it already, and where's the use of saying more,
particularly when it ain't the point? For the point is that
when she was a kissing my hands and holding them in hers
and kissing them again and blessing blessing blessing, I
cheered up at last and I says "Why what a waddling old
goose I have been my dear to take you for something so
very different!" "Ah but I too" says she "how have /
mistaken you ! " " Come for goodness' sake tell me " I says
"what you thought of me?" "O" says she "I thought

MERRY AS GRIGS. 59

you had no feeling for such a hard hand-to-mouth life as
mine, and were rolling in affluence." I says shaking my sides
(and very glad to do it for I had been a choking quite long
enough) "Only look at my figure my dear and give me your
opinion whether if I was in affluence I should be likely to
roll in it ? " That did it ! We got as merry as grigs (what
ever they are, if you happen to know my dear — / don't) and I
went home to my blessed home as happy and as thankful as
could be. But before I make an end of it, think even of
my having misunderstood the Major! Yes! For next fore
noon the Major came into my little room with his brushed

hat in his hand and he begins "My dearest madam "

and then put his face in his hat as if he had just come into
church. As I sat all in a maze he came out of his hat and

began again. "My esteemed and beloved friend " and

then went into his hat again. "Major," I cries out frightened
"has anything happened to our darling boy?" "No, no,
no" says the Major "but Miss Wozenham has been here this
morning to make her excuses to me, and by the Lord I can't
get over what she told me." "Hoity toity, Major," I says
"you don't know yet that I was afraid of you last night
and didn't think half as well of you as I ought ! So come
out of church Major and forgive me like a dear old friend
and I'll never do so any more." And I leave you to judge
my dear whether I ever did or will. And how affecting to
think of Miss Wozenham out of her small income and her
losses doing so much for her poor old father, and keeping a
brother that had had the misfortune to soften his brain
against the hard mathematics as neat as a new pin in the
three back represented to lodgers as a lumber-room and
consuming a whole shoulder of mutton whenever provided !

And now my dear I really am a going to tell you about
my Legacy if youVe inclined to favour me with your attention,
and I did fully intend to have come straight to it only one
thing does so bring up another. It was the month of June
and the day before Midsummer Day when my girl Winifred

60 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY.

Madgers — she was what is termed a Plymouth Sister, and the
Plymouth Brother that made away with her was quite right,
for a tidier young woman for a wife never came into a house
and afterwards called with the beautifullest Plymouth Twins
— it was the day before Midsummer Day when Winifred
Madgers comes and says to me "A gentleman from the
Consul's wishes particular to speak to Mrs. Lirriper." If
you'll believe me my dear the Consols at the bank where I
have a little matter for Jemmy got into my head, and I says
"Good gracious I hope he ain't had any dreadful fall!"
Says Winifred "He don't look as if he had ma'am." And
I says "Show him in."

The gentleman came in dark and with his hair cropped
what I should consider too close, and he says very polite
"Madame Lirrwiper!" "I says "Yes sir. Take a chair."
"I come," says he "frrwom the Frrwench Consul's." So I
saw at once that it wasn't the Bank of England. " We have
rrweceived," says the gentleman turning his r's very curious
and skilful, "frrwom the Mairrwie at Sens, a communication
which I will have the honour to rrwead. Madame Lirr-
wiper understands Frrwench?" "O dear no sir!" says I.
"Madame Lirriper don't understand anything of the sort."
"It matters not," says the gentleman, "I will trrwanslate."

With that my dear the gentleman after reading something
about a Department and a Marie (which Lord forgive me I
supposed till the Major came home was Mary, and never
was I more puzzled than to think how that young woman
came to have so much to do with it) translated a lot with
the most obliging pains, and it came to this : — That in the
town of Sens in France an unknown Englishman lay a dying.
That he was speechless and without motion. That in his
lodging there was a gold watch and a purse containing such
and such money and a trunk containing such and such
clothes, but no passport and no papers, except that on his
table was a pack of cards and that he had written in pencil
on the back of the ace of hearts : " To the authorities.

A VISITOR FROM THE FRENCH CONSULATE. 61

When I am dead, pray send what is left, as a last Legacy,
to Mrs. Lirriper Eighty-one Norfolk Street Strand London."
When the gentleman had explained all this, which seemed
to be drawn up much more methodical than I should have
given the French credit for, not at that time knowing the
nation, he put the document into my hand. And much the
wiser I was for that you may be sure, except that it had
the look of being made out upon grocery paper and was
stamped all over with eagles.

"Does Madame Lirrwiper" says the gentleman, "believe
she rrwecognises her unfortunate compatrrwiot ? "

You may imagine the flurry it put me into my dear to be
talked to about my compatriots.

I says "Excuse me. Would you have the kindness sir
to make your language as simple as you can ? "

"This Englishman unhappy, at the point of death. This
compatrrwiot afflicted," says the gentleman.

" Thank you sir," I says " I understand you now. No sir
I have not the least idea who this can be."

" Has Madame Lirrwiper no son, no nephew, no godson,
no frrwiend, no acquaintance of any kind in Frrwance?"

" To my certain knowledge " says I " no relation or friend,
and to the best of my belief no acquaintance."

" Pardon me. You take Locataires ? " says the gentleman.

My dear fully believing he was offering me something
with his obliging foreign manners, — snuff for anything I
knew, — I gave a little bend of my head and I says if you'll
credit it, "No I thank you. I have not contracted the
habit."

The gentleman looks perplexed and says " Lodgers ! "

"Oh!" says I laughing. "Bless the man! Why yes to
be sure!"

"May it not be a former lodger?" says the gentleman.
" Some lodger that you pardoned some rrwent ? You have
pardoned lodgers some rrwent ? "

" Hem ! It has happened sir " says I, " but I assure you

62 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY.

I can call to mind no gentleman of that description that
this is at all likely to be.""

In short my dear, we could make nothing of it, and the
gentleman noted down what I said and went away. But he
left me the paper of which he had two with him, and
when the Major came in I says to the Major as I put
it in his hand "Major here's Old Moore's Almanac with the
hieroglyphic complete, for your opinion."

It took the Major a little longer to read than I should
have thought, judging from the copious flow with which he
seemed to be gifted when attacking the organ-men, but at
last he got through it, and stood a gazing at me in
amazement.

"Major"" I says "you're paralysed."

" Madam " says the Major, "Jemmy Jackman is doubled up."

Now it did so happen that the Major had been out to get
a little information about railroads and steamboats, as our
boy was coming home for his Midsummer holidays next day
and we were going to take him somewhere for a treat and a
change. So while the Major stood a gazing it came into my
head to say to him "Major I wish you'd go and look at
some of your books and maps, and see whereabouts this^same
town of Sens is in France."

The Major he roused himself and he went into the
Parlours and he poked about a little, and he came back to
me and he says, " Sens my dearest madam is seventy-odd
miles south of Paris."

With what I may truly call a desperate effort " Major," I
says "we'll go there with our blessed boy."

If ever the Major was beside himself it was at the thoughts
of that journey. All day long he was like the wild man of
the woods after meeting with an advertisement in the papers
telling him something to his advantage, and early next
morning hours before Jemmy could possibly come home he
was outside in the street ready to call out to him that we
was all a going to France. Young Rosycheeks you may

OFF BY THE MORNING MAIL. 63

believe was as wild as the Major, and they did carry on to
that degree that I says "If you two children ain't more
orderly I'll pack you both off to bed." And then they fell
to cleaning up the Major's telescope to see France with, and
went out and bought a leather bag with a snap to hang
round Jemmy, and him to carry the money like a little
Fortunatus with his purse,

If I hadn't passed my word and raised their hopes, I
doubt if I could have gone through with the undertaking
but it was too late to go back now. So on the second day
after Midsummer Day we went off by the morning mail.
And when we came to the sea which I had never seen but
once in my life and that when my poor Lirriper was courting
me, the freshness of it and the deepness and the airiness and
to think that it had been rolling ever since and that it was
always a rolling and so few of us minding, made me feel
quite serious. But I felt happy too and so did Jemmy and
the Major and not much motion on the whole, though me
with a swimming in the head and a sinking but able to take
notice that the foreign insides appear to be constructed
hollower than the English, leading to much more tremenjous
noises when bad sailors.

But my dear the blueness and the lightness and the
coloured look of everything and the very sentry-boxes
striped and the shining rattling drums and the little soldiers
with their waists and tidy gaiters, when we got across to the
Continent — it made me feel as if I don't know what — as if
the atmosphere had been lifted off me. And as to lunch
why bless you if I kept a man-cook and two kitchen-maids
I couldn't get it done for twice the money, and no injured
young woman a glaring at you and grudging you and
acknowledging your patronage by wishing that your food
might choke you, but so civil and so hot and attentive and
every way comfortable except Jemmy pouring wine down his
throat by tumblers-full and me expecting to see him drop
under the table.

64 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY.

And the way in which Jemmy spoke his French was a
real charm. It was often wanted of him, for whenever
anybody spoke v a syllable to me I says " Non-comprenny,
you're very kind, but it's no use — Now Jemmy!" and then
Jemmy he fires away at 'em lovely, the only thing wanting
in Jemmy's French being as it appeared to me that he
hardly ever understood a word of what they said to him
which made it scarcely of the use it might have been though
in other respects a perfect Native, and regarding the Major's
fluency I should have been of the opinion judging French
by English that there might have been a greater choice of
words in the language though still I must admit that if I
hadn't known him when he asked a military gentleman in a
gray cloak what o'clock it was I should have took him for
a Frenchman born.

Before going on to look after my Legacy we were to make
one regular day in Paris, and I leave you to judge my dear
what a day that was with Jemmy and the Major and the
telescope and me and the prowling young man at the inn
door (but very civil too) that went along with us to show
the sights. All along the railway to Paris Jemmy and the
Major had been frightening me to death by stooping down
on the platforms at stations to inspect the engines under
neath their mechanical stomachs, and by creeping in and out
I don't know where all, to find improvements for the United
Grand Junction Parlour, but when we got out into the
brilliant streets on a bright morning they gave up all their
London improvements as a bad job and gave their minds to
Paris. Says the prowling young man to me "Will I speak
Inglis No ? " So I says " If you can young man I shall take
it as a favour," but after half-an-hour of it when I fully
believed the man had gone mad and me too I says "Be so
good as fall back on your French sir," knowing that then I
shouldn't have the agonies of trying to understand him,
which was a happy release. Not that I lost much more than
the rest either, for I generally noticed that when he had

MRS. LIRRIPER IN PARIS. 65

described something very long indeed and I says to Jemmy
"What does he say Jemmy?" Jemmy says looking with
vengeance in his eye " He is so jolly indistinct ! " and that
when he had described it longer all over again and I says to
Jemmy "Well Jemmy what's it all about?" Jemmy says
"He says the building was repaired in seventeen hundred
and four, Gran."

Wherever that prowling young man formed his prowling
habits I cannot be expected to know, but the way in which
he went round the corner while we had our breakfasts and
was there again when we swallowed the last crumb was most
marvellous, and just the same at dinner and at night, prowling
equally at the theatre and the inn gateway and the shop
doors when we bought a trifle or two and everywhere else
but troubled with a tendency to spit. And of Paris I can
tell you no more my dear than that it's town and country
both in one, and carved stone and long streets of high houses
and gardens and fountains and statues and trees and gold,
and immensely big soldiers and immensely little soldiers and
the pleasantest nurses with the whitest caps a playing at
skipping-rope with the bunchiest babies in the flattest caps,
and clean table-cloths spread everywhere for dinner and
people sitting out of doors smoking and sipping all day
long and little plays being acted in the open air for little
people and every shop a complete and elegant room, and
everybody seeming to play at everything in this world. And
as to the sparkling lights my dear after dark, glittering high
up and low down and on before and on behind and all round,
and the crowd of theatres and the crowd of people and the
crowd of all sorts, it's pure enchantment. And pretty well
the only thing that grated on me was that whether you
pay your fare at the railway or whether you change your
money at a money-dealer's or whether you take your ticket
at the theatre, the lady or gentleman is caged up (I suppose
by government) behind the strongest iron bars having more
of a Zoological appearance than a free country.

VOL. II. F

66 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY.

Well to be sure when I did after all get my precious
bones to bed that night, and my Young Rogue came in to
kiss me and asks "What do you think of this lovely lovely
Paris, Gran?" I says "Jemmy I feel as if it was beautiful
fireworks being let off in my head." And very cool and
refreshing the pleasant country was next day when we went
on to look after my Legacy, and rested me much and did me
a deal of good.

So at length and at last my dear we come to Sens, a
pretty little town with a great two-towered cathedral and
the rooks flying in and out of the loopholes and another
tower atop of one of the towers like a sort of a stone pulpit.
In which pulpit with the birds skimming below him if youll
believe me, I saw a speck while I was resting at the inn
before dinner which they made signs to me was Jemmy and
which really was. I had been a fancying as I sat in the
balcony of the hotel that an Angel might light there and
call down to the people to be good, but I little thought
what Jemmy all unknown to himself was a calling down from
that high place to some one in the town.

The pleasantest-situated inn my dear ! Right under the
two towers, with their shadows a changing upon it all day
like a kind of a sundial, and country people driving in and
out of the courtyard in carts and hooded cabriolets and such
like, and a market outside in front of the cathedral, and all
so quaint and like a picter. The Major and me agreed that
whatever came of my Legacy this was the place to stay in
for our holiday, and we also agreed that our dear boy had
best not be checked in his joy that night by the sight of
the Englishman if he was still alive, but that we would go
together and alone. For you are to understand that the
Major not feeling himself quite equal in his wind to the
height to which Jemmy had climbed, had come back to me
and left him with the Guide.

So after dinner when Jemmy had set off to see the river,
the Major went down to the Mairie, and presently came

THE DYING ENGLISHMAN. 67

back with a military character in a sword and spurs and a
cocked hat and a yellow shoulder-belt and long tags about
him that he must have found inconvenient. And the Major
says "The Englishman still lies in the same state dearest
madam. This gentleman will conduct us to his lodging.""
Upon which the military character pulled off his cocked hat
to me, and I took notice that he had shaved his forehead in
imitation of Napoleon Bonaparte but not like.

We went out at the courtyard gate and past the great
doors of the cathedral and down a narrow High-street where
the people were sitting chatting at their shop doors and the
children were at play. The military character went in front
and he stopped at a pork -shop with a little statue of a pig
sitting up, in the window, and a private door that a donkey
was looking out of.

When the donkey saw the military character he came
slipping out on the pavement to turn round and then clat
tered along the passage into a back yard. So the coast being
clear, the Major and me were conducted up the common
stair and into the front room on the second, a bare room
with a red tiled floor and the outside lattice blinds pulled
close to darken it. As the military character opened the
blinds I saw the tower where I had seen Jemmy, darkening
as the sun got low, and I turned to the bed by the wall
and saw the Englishman.

It was some kind of brain fever he had had, and his hair
was all gone, and some wetted folded linen lay upon his
head. I looked at him very attentive as he lay there all
wasted away with his eyes closed, and I says to the Major :

" I never saw this face before.""

The Major looked at him very attentive too, and he says :

" / never saw this face before."

When the Major explained our words to the military
character, that gentleman shrugged his shoulders and showed
the Major the card on which it was written about the Legacy
for me. It had been written with a weak and trembling

it

68 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY.

hand in bed, and I knew no more of the writing than of the
face. Neither did the Major.

Though lying there alone, the poor creetur was as well
taken care of as could be hoped, and would have been quite
unconscious of any one's sitting by him then. I got the
Major to say that we were not going away at present and
that I would come back to-morrow and watch a bit by the
bedside. But I got him to add — and I shook my head hard
to make it stronger — "We agree that we never saw this
face before.1'

Our boy was greatly surprised when we told him sitting
out in the balcony in the starlight, and he ran over some of
those stories of former Lodgers, of the Major's putting down,
and asked wasn't it possible that it might be this lodger or
that lodger. It was not possible, and we went to bed.

In the morning just at breakfast-time the military cha
racter came jingling round, and said that the doctor thought
from the signs he saw there might be some rally before the
end. So I says to the Major and Jemmy, " You two boys
go and enjoy yourselves, and I'll take my Prayer Book and
go sit by the bed." So I went, and I sat there some hours,
reading a prayer for him poor soul now and then, and it was
quite on in the day when he moved his hand.

He had been so still, that the moment he moved I knew of
it, and I pulled off my spectacles and laid down my book and
rose and looked at him. From moving one hand he began
to move both, and then his action was the action of a person
groping in the dark. Long after his eyes had opened, there
was a film over them and he still felt for his way out into
light. But by slow degrees his sight cleared and his hands
stopped. He saw the ceiling, he saw the wall, he saw me.
As his sight cleared, mine cleared too, and when at last we
looked in one another's faces, I started back and I cries
passionately :

" O you wicked wicked man ! Your sin has found you out ! "

For I knew him, the moment life looked out of his eyes,

JEMMY'S FATHER. 69

to be Mr. Edson, Jemmy's father who had so cruelly deserted
Jemmy's young unmarried mother who had died in my arms,
poor tender creetur, and left Jemmy to me.

" You cruel wicked man ! You bad black traitor ! "

With the little strength he had, he made an attempt to
turn over on his wretched face to hide it. His arm dropped
out of the bed and his head with it, and there he lay before
me crushed in body and in mind. Surely the miserablest
sight under the summer sun .'

"O blessed Heaven," I says a crying, "teach me what to
say to this broken mortal ! I am a poor sinful creetur, and
the Judgment is not mine."

As I lifted my eyes up to the clear bright sky, I saw the
high tower where Jemmy had stood above the birds, seeing
that very window ; and the last look of that poor pretty
young mother when her soul brightened and got free, seemed
to shine down from it.

" O man, man, man ! " I says, and I went on my knees
beside the bed ; " if your heart is rent asunder and you are
truly penitent for what you did, Our Saviour will have mercy
on you yet ! "

As I leaned my face against the bed, his feeble hand
could just move itself enough to touch me. I hope the
touch was penitent. It tried to hold my dress and keep
hold, but the fingers were too weak to close.

I lifted him back upon the pillows and I says to him :

"Can you hear me?"

He looked yes.

"Do you know me?"

He looked yes, even yet more plainly.

"I am not here alone. The Major is with me. You
recollect the Major?"

Yes. That is to say he made out yes, in the same way as
before.

"And even the Major and I are not alone. My grandson
— his godson — is with us. Do you hear? My grandson."

70 MRS. LIRRIPEITS LEGACY.

The fingers made another trial to catch at my sleeve, but
could only creep near it and fall.

"Do you know who my grandson is?"

Yes.

" I pitied and loved his lonely mother. When his mother
lay a dying I said to her, 'My dear, this baby is sent to a
childless old woman.' He has been my pride and joy ever
since. I love him as dearly as if he had drunk from my
breast. Do you ask to see my grandson before you die ? "

Yes.

"Show me, when I leave off speaking, if you correctly
understand what I say. He has been kept unacquainted
with the story of his birth. He has no knowledge of it. No
suspicion of it. If I bring him here to the side of this bed,
he will suppose you to be a perfect stranger. It is more
than I can do to keep from him the knowledge that there is
such wrong and misery in the world ; but that it was ever so
near him in his innocent cradle I have kept from him, and I
do keep from him, and I ever will keep from him, for his
mother's sake, and for his own."

He showed me that he distinctly understood, and the tears
fell from his eyes.

"Now rest, and you shall see him.*"

So I got him a little wine and some brandy, and I put
things straight about his bed. But I began to be troubled
in my mind lest Jemmy and the Major might be too long of
coming back. What with this occupation for my thoughts
and hands, I didn't hear a foot upon the stairs, and was
startled when I saw the Major stopped short in the middle
of the room by the eyes of the man upon the bed, and
knowing him then, as I had known him a little while ago.

There was anger in the Major's face, and there was horror
and repugnance and I don't know what. So I went up to
him and I led him to the bedside, and when I clasped my
hands and lifted of them up, the Major did the like.

" O Lord " I says " Thou knowest what we two saw together

FATHER AND SON. 71

of the sufferings and sorrows of that young creetur now with
Thee. If this dying man is truly penitent, we two together
humbly pray Thee to have mercy on him ! "

The Major says " Amen ! " and then after a little stop I
whispers him, "Dear old friend fetch our beloved boy."
And the Major, so clever as to have got to understand it all
without being told a word, went away and brought him.

Never never never shall I forget the fair bright face of our
boy when he stood at the foot of the bed, looking at his un
known father. And O so like his dear young mother then !

"Jemmy" I says, "I have found out all about this poor
gentlemen who is so ill, and he did lodge in the old house
once. And as he wants to see all belonging to it, now that
he is passing away, I sent for you."

" Ah poor man ! " says Jemmy stepping forward and touch
ing one of his hands with great gentleness. "My heart
melts for him. Poor, poor man ! "

The eyes that were so soon to close for ever turned to me,
and I was not that strong in the pride of my strength that
I could resist them.

" My darling boy, there is a reason in the secret history of
this fellow-creetur lying as the best and worst of us must all
lie one day, which I think would ease his spirit in his last
hour if you would lay your cheek against his forehead and
say, * May God forgive you ! ' "

"O Gran," says Jemmy with a full heart "I am not
worthy ! " But he leaned down and did it. Then the falter
ing fingers made out to catch hold of my sleeve at last, and
I believe he was a-trying to kiss me when he died.

******

There my dear ! There you have the story of my Legacy
in full, and it's worth ten times the trouble I have spent
upon it if you are pleased to like it.

You might suppose that it set us against the little French
town of Sens, but no we didn't find that. I found myself
that I never looked up at the high tower atop of the other

72 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY.

tower, but the days came back again when that fair young
creetur with her pretty bright hair trusted in me like a
mother, and the recollection made the place so peaceful to
me as I can't express. And every soul about the hotel down
to the pigeons in the courtyard made friends with Jemmy
and the Major, and went lumbering away with them on all
sorts of expeditions in all sorts of vehicles drawn by ram-
pagious cart-horses — with heads and without, — mud for paint
and ropes for harness, — and every new friend dressed in blue
like a butcher, and every new horse standing on his hind legs
wanting to devour and consume every other horse, and every
man that had a whip to crack crack-crack-crack-crack-crack
ing it as if it was a schoolboy with his first. As to the
Major my dear that man lived the greater part of his time
with a little tumbler in one hand and a bottle of small wine
in the other, and whenever he saw anybody else with a little
tumbler, no matter who it was, — the military character with
the tags, or the inn-servants at their supper in the court
yard, or townspeople a chatting on a bench, or country
people a starting home after Market, — down rushes the
Major to clink his glass against their glasses and cry, — Hola !
Vive Somebody ! or Vive Something ! as if he was beside
himself. And though I could not quite approve of the
Major's doing it, still the ways of the world are the ways of
the world varying according to the different parts of it, and
dancing at all in the open Square with a lady that kept a
barber's shop my opinion is that the Major was right to
dance his best and to lead off with a power that I did not
think was in him, though I was a little uneasy at the Barri
cading sound of the cries that were set up by the other
dancers and the rest of the company, until when I says
" What are they ever calling out Jemmy ? " Jemmy says,
" They're calling out Gran, Bravo the Military English !
Bravo the Military English ! " which was very gratifying to
my feelings as a Briton and became the name the Major
was known by.

MORE STORIES. 73

But every evening at a regular time we all three sat out
in the balcony of the hotel at the end of the courtyard, look
ing up at the golden and rosy light as it changed on the
great towers, and looking at the shadows of the towers as
they changed on all about us ourselves included, and what
do you think we did there? My dear, if Jemmy hadn't
brought some other of those stories of the Major's taking
down from the telling of former lodgers at Eighty-one
Norfolk-street, and if he didn't bring 'em out with this
speech :

" Here you are Gran ! Here you are godfather ! More of
'em ! jfll read. And though you wrote 'em for me, god
father, I know you won't disapprove of my making 'em over
to Gran ; will you ? "

" No, my dear boy," says the Major. " Everything we
have is hers, and we are hers."

"Hers ever affectionately and devotedly J. Jackman, and
J. Jackman Lirriper," cries the Young Rogue giving me a
close hug. "Very well then godfather. Look here. As
Gran is in the Legacy way just now, I shall make these
stories a part of Gran's Legacy. I'll leave 'em to her. What
do you say godfather?"

"Hip hip Hurrah !" says the Major.

" Very well then," cries Jemmy all in a bustle. " Vive the
Military English ! Vive the Lady Lirriper ! Vive the Jemmy
Jackman Ditto ! Vive the Legacy ! Now, you look out, Gran.
And you look out, godfather. 711 read ! And I'll tell you
what I'll do besides. On the last night of our holiday here
when we are all packed and going away, I'll top up with
something of my own."

"Mind you do sir" says I.

CHAPTER II.

MRS. LIRRIPER RELATES HOW JEMMY TOPPED UP.

WELL my dear and so the evening readings of those jottings
of the Major's brought us round at last to the evening when
we were all packed and going away next day, and I do assure
you that by that time though it was deliciously comfortable
to look forward to the dear old house in Norfolk-street again, I
had formed quite a high opinion of the French nation and had
noticed them to be much more homely and domestic in their
families and far more simple and amiable in their lives than
I had ever been led to expect, and it did strike me between
ourselves that in one particular they might be imitated to
advantage by another nation which I will not mention, and
that is in the courage with which they take their little
enjoyments on little means and with little things and don't
let solemn big-wigs stare them out of countenance or speechify
them dull, of which said solemn big-wigs I have ever had
the one opinion that I wish they were all made comfortable
separately in coppers with the lids on and never let out
any more.

"Now young man," I says to Jemmy when we brought
our chairs into the balcony that last evening, " you please to
remember who was to ' top up.' "

"All right Gran" says Jemmy. "I am the illustrious
personage."

But he looked so serious after he had made me that light

JEMMY TELLS MR. EDSON'S STORY. 75

answer, that the Major raised his eyebrows at me and I raised
mine at the Major.

" Gran and godfather," says Jemmy, " you can hardly think
how much my mind has run on Mr. Edson's death."

It gave me a little check. " Ah ! it was a sad scene my
love" I says, "and sad remembrances come back stronger
than merry. But this" I says after a little silence, to rouse
myself and the Major and Jemmy all together, "is not
topping up. Tell us your story my dear."

"I will" says Jemmy.

" What is the date sir ? " says I. " Once upon a time when
pigs drank wine?"

"No Gran," says Jemmy, still serious; "once upon a
time when the French drank wine."

Again I glanced at the Major, and the Major glanced
at me.

"In short, Gran and godfather," says Jemmy, looking up,
" the date is this time, and I'm going to tell you Mr. Edson's
story."

The flutter that it threw me into. The change of colour
on the part of the Major !

" That is to say, you understand," our bright-eyed boy says,
"I am going to give you my version of it. I shall not ask
whether it's right or not, firstly because you said you knew
very little about it, Gran, and secondly because what little
you did know was a secret."

I folded my hands in my lap and I never took my eyes off
Jemmy as he went running on.

" The unfortunate gentleman " Jemmy commences, " who
is the subject of our present narrative was the son of Some
body, and was born Somewhere, and chose a profession
Somehow. It is not with those parts of his career that we
have to deal ; but with his early attachment to a young and
beautiful lady."

I thought I should have dropped. I durstn't look at the
Major ; but I knew what his state was, without looking at him.

76 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY.

" The father of our ill-starred hero " says Jemmy, copying
as it seemed to me the style of some of his story-books, " was
a worldly man who entertained ambitious views for his only
son and who firmly set his face against the contemplated
alliance with a virtuous but penniless orphan. Indeed he
went so far as roundly to assure our hero that unless he
wearied his thoughts from the object of his devoted affection,
he would disinherit him. At the same time, he proposed as
a suitable match the daughter of a neighbouring gentleman
of a good estate, who was neither ill-favoured nor unamiable,
and whose eligibility in a pecuniary point of view could not
be disputed. But young Mr. Edson, true to the first and
only love that had inflamed his breast, rejected all considera
tions of self-advancement, and, deprecating his father's anger
in a respectful letter, ran away with her."

My dear I had begun to take a turn for the better, but
when it come to running away I began to take another turn
for the worse.

" The lovers " says Jemmy " fled to London and were united
at the altar of Saint Clement's Danes. And it is at this
period of their simple but touching story that we find them
inmates of the dwelling of a highly-respected and beloved
lady of the name of Gran, residing within a hundred miles
of Norfolk-street."

I felt that we were almost safe now, I felt that the dear
boy had no suspicion of the bitter truth, and I looked at
the Major for the first time and drew a long breath. The
Major gave me a nod.

"Our hero's father" Jemmy goes on "proving implacable
and carrying his threat into unrelenting execution, the
struggles of the young couple in London were severe, and
would have been far more so, but for their good angel's
having conducted them to the abode of Mrs. Gran ; who,
divining their poverty (in spite of their endeavours to conceal
it from her), by a thousand delicate arts smoothed their
rough way, and alleviated the sharpness of their first distress."

A PLEASANT FICTION. 77

Here Jemmy took one of my hands in one of his, and
began a marking the turns of his story by making me give
a beat from time to time upon his other hand.

"After a while, they left the house of Mrs. Gran, and
pursued their fortunes through a variety of successes and
failures elsewhere. But in all reverses, whether for good or
evil, the words of Mr. Edson to the fair young partner of
his life were, 'Unchanging Love and Truth will carry us
through all!1"

My hand trembled in the dear boy's, those words so
wofully unlike the fact.

"Unchanging Love and Truth" says Jemmy over again,
as if he had a proud kind of a noble pleasure in it, " will
carry us through all ! Those were his words. And so they
fought their way, poor but gallant and happy, until Mrs.
Edson gave birth to a child."

"A daughter," I says.

" No," says Jemmy, " a son. And the father was so proud
of it that he could hardly bear it out of his sight. But a
dark cloud overspread the scene. Mrs. Edson sickened,
drooped, and died."

" Ah ! Sickened, drooped, and died ! " I says.

"And so Mr. Edson's only comfort, only hope on earth,
and only stimulus to action, was his darling boy. As the
child grew older, he grew so like his mother that he was her
living picture. It used to make him wonder why his father
cried when he kissed him. But unhappily he was like his
mother in constitution as well as in face, and he died too
before he had grown out of childhood. Then Mr. Edson,
who had good abilities, in his forlornness and despair, threw
them all to the winds. He became apathetic, reckless, lost.
Little by little he sank down, down, down, down, until at
last he almost lived (I think) by gaming. And so sickness
overtook him in the town of Sens in France, and he lay
down to die. But now that he laid him down when all was
done, and looked back upon the green Past beyond the time

78 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY.

when he had covered it with ashes, he thought gratefully of
the good Mrs. Gran long lost sight of, who had been so kind
to him and his young wife in the early days of their marriage,
and he left the little that he had as a last Legacy to her.
And she, being brought to see him, at first no more knew
him than she would know from seeing the ruin of a Greek
or Roman Temple, what it used to be before it fell ; but at
length she remembered him. And then he told her, with
tears, of his regret for the misspent part of his life, and
besought her to think as mildly of it as she could, because
it was the poor fallen Angel of his unchanging Love and
Constancy after all. And because she had her grandson with
her, and he fancied that his own boy, if he had lived, might
have grown to be something like him, he asked her to let
him touch his forehead with his cheek and say certain parting
words."

, Jemmy 's voice sank low when it got to that, and tears
filled my eyes, and filled the Majors.

"You little Conjurer" I says, "how did you ever make it
all out? Go in and write it every word down, for it's a
wonder."

Which Jemmy did, and I have repeated it to you my dear
from his writing.

Then the Major took my hand and kissed it, and said,
"Dearest madam all has prospered with us."

"Ah Major" I says drying my eyes, "we needn't have
been afraid. We might have known it. Treachery don't
come natural to beaming youth ; but trust and pity, love and
constancy, — they do, thank God!"

DOCTOR MARIGOLD

[1865J

DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

I

I.

TO BE TAKEN IMMEDIATELY.

I AM a Cheap Jack, and my own fathers name was Willum
Marigold. It was in his lifetime supposed by some that his
name was William, but my own father always consistently
said, No, it was Willum. On which point I content myself
with looking at the argument this way: If a man is not
allowed to know his own name in a free country, how much
is he allowed to know in a land of slavery ? As to looking
at the argument through the medium of the Register, Willum
Marigold come into the world before Registers come up
much, — and went out of it too. They wouldn't have been
greatly in his line neither, if they had chanced to come up
before him.

I was born on the Queen's highway, but it was the King's
at that time. A doctor was fetched to my own mother by
my own father, when it took place on a common; and in
consequence of his being a very kind gentleman, and accept
ing no fee but a tea-tray, I was named Doctor, out of
gratitude and compliment to him. There you have me.
Doctor Marigold.

VOL. II. G

82 DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

I am at present a middle-aged man of a broadish build, in
cords, leggings, and a sleeved waistcoat the strings of which
is always gone behind. Repair them how you will, they go
like fiddle-strings. You have been to the theatre, and you
have seen one of the wiolin-players screw up his wiolin, after
listening to it as if it had been whispering the secret to him
that it feared it was out of order, and then you have heard
it snap. That's as exactly similar to my waistcoat as a
waistcoat and a wiolin can be like one another.

I am partial to a white hat, and I like a shawl round my
neck wore loose and easy. Sitting down is my favourite
posture. If I have a taste in point of personal jewelry, it is
mother-of-pearl buttons. There you have me again, as large
as life.

The doctor having accepted a tea-tray, you'll guess that
my father was a Cheap Jack before me. You are right. He
was. It was a pretty tray. It represented a large lady going
along a serpentining up-hill gravel-walk, to attend a little
church. Two swans had likewise come astray with the same
intentions. When I call her a large lady, I don't mean in
point of breadth, for there she fell below my views, but she
more than made it up in heighth ; her heighth and slimness
was — in short THE heighth of both.

I often saw that tray, after I was the innocently smiling
cause (or more likely screeching one) of the doctor's standing
it up on a table against the wall in his consulting-room.
Whenever my own father and mother were in that part of
the country, I used to put my head (I have heard my own
mother say it was flaxen curls at that time, though you
wouldn't know an old hearth-broom from it now till you
come to the handle, and found it wasn't me) in at the doctor's
door, and the doctor was always glad to see me, and said,
" Aha, my brother practitioner ! Come in, little M.D. How
are your inclinations as to sixpence ? "

You can't go on for ever, you'll find, nor yet could my
father nor yet my mother. If you don't go off as a whole

MODEL OF THE OLD CHEAP JACK. 83

when you are about due, you're liable to go off in part, and
two to one your head's the part. Gradually my father went
off his, and my mother went off hers. It was in a harmless
way, but it put out the family where I boarded them. The
old couple, though retired, got to be wholly and solely
devoted to the Cheap Jack business, and were always selling
the family off. Whenever the cloth was laid for dinner, my
father began rattling the plates and dishes, as we do in our
line when we put up crockery for a bid, only he had lost
the trick of it, and mostly let 'em drop and broke 'em. As
the old lady had been used to sit in the cart, and hand the
articles out one by one to the old gentleman on the footboard
to sell, just in the same way she handed him every item of
the family's property, and they disposed of it in their own
imaginations from morning to night. At last the old gentle
man, lying bedridden in the same room with the old lady,
cries out in the old patter, fluent, after having been silent for
two days and nights: "Now here, my jolly companions
every one, — which the Nightingale club in a village was
held, At the sign of the Cabbage and Shears, Where the
singers no doubt would have greatly excelled, But for want
of taste, voices, and ears, — now, here, my jolly companions,
every one, is a working model of a used-up old Cheap Jack,
without a tooth in his head, and with a pain in every bone :
so like life that it would be just as good if it wasn't better,
just as bad if it wasn't worse, and just as new if it wasn't
worn out. Bid for the working model of the old Cheap Jack,
who has drunk more gunpowder-tea with the ladies in his
time than would blow the lid off a washerwoman's copper,
and carry it as many thousands of miles higher than the
moon as naught nix naught, divided by the national debt,
carry nothing to the poor-rates, three under, and two over.
Now, my hearts of oak and men of straw, what do you say
for the lot? Two shillings, a shilling, tenpence, eightpence,
sixpence, fourpence. Twopence ? Who said twopence ? The
gentleman in the scarecrow's hat ? I am ashamed of the

84 DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

gentleman in the scarecrow's hat. I really am ashamed of
him for his want of public spirit. Now Til tell you what 111
do with you. Come ! Ill throw you in a working model of
a old woman that was married to the old Cheap Jack so long
ago that upon my word and honour it took place in Noah's
Ark, before the Unicorn could get in to forbid the banns
by blowing a tune upon his horn. There now ! Come !
What do you say for both? Ill tell you what 111 do with
you. I don't bear you malice for being so backward. Here !
If you make me a bid that'll only reflect a little credit on
your town, 111 throw you in a warming-pan for nothing, and
lend you a toasting-fork for life. Now come ; what do you
say after that splendid offer? Say two pound, say thirty
shillings, say a pound, say ten shillings, say five, say two and
six. You don't say even two and six ? You say two and
three ? No. You shan't have the lot for two and three. I'd
sooner give it to you, if you was good-looking enough.
Here ! Missis ! Chuck the old man and woman into the
cart, put the horse to, and drive 'em away and bury 'em ! "
Such were the last words of Willum Marigold, my own
father, and they were carried out, by him and by his wife,
my own mother, on one and the same day, as I ought to
know, having followed as mourner.

My father had been a lovely one in his time at the Cheap
Jack work, as his dying observations went to prove. But I
top him. I don't say it because it's myself, but because it
has been universally acknowledged by all that has had the
means of comparison. I have worked at it. I have measured
myself against other public speakers, — Members of Parliament,
Platforms, Pulpits, Counsel learned in the law, — and where I
have found 'em good, I have took a bit of imagination from
'em, and where I have found 'em bad, I have let 'em alone.
Now 111 tell you what. I mean to go down into my grave
declaring that of all the callings ill used in Great Britain,
the Cheap Jack calling is the worst used. Why ain't we a
profession ? Why ain't we endowed with privileges ? Why

CHEAP JACKS AND DEAR JACKS. 85

are we forced to take out a hawkers's license, when no such
thing is expected of the political hawkers? Where's the
difference betwixt us ? Except that we are Cheap Jacks, and
they are Dear Jacks, / don't see any difference but what's in
our favour.

For look here ! Say it's election time. I am on the foot
board of my cart in the market-place, on a Saturday night.
I put up a general miscellaneous lot. I say : " Now here,
my free and independent woters, I'm a going to give you
such a chance as you never had in all your born days, nor
yet the days preceding. Now I'll show you what I am a going
to do with you. Here's a pair of razors that'll shave you
closer than the Board of Guardians ; here's a flat-iron worth
its weight in gold; here's a frying-pan artificially flavoured
with essence of beefsteaks to that degree that you've only got
for the rest of your lives to fry bread and dripping in it and
there you are replete with animal food; here's a genuine
chronometer watch in such a solid silver case that you may
knock at the door with it when you come home late from a
social meeting, and rouse your wife and family, and save up
your knocker for the postman ; and here's half-a-dozen dinner
plates that you may play the cymbals with to charm the
baby when it's fractious. Stop ! I'll throw you in another
article, and I'll give you that, and it's a rolling-pin ; and if
the baby can only get it well into its mouth when its teeth
is coming and rub the gums once with it, they'll come through
double, in a fit of laughter equal to being tickled. Stop
again ! I'll throw you in another article, because I don't like
the looks of you, for you haven't the appearance of buyers
unless I lose by you, and because I'd rather lose than not
take money to-night, and that's a looking-glass in which you
may see how ugly you look when you don't bid. What do
you say now ? Come ! Do you say a pound ? Not you, for
you haven't got it. Do you say ten shillings ? Not you, for
you owe more to the tallyman. Well then, I'll tell you what
I'll do with you. I'll heap 'em all on the footboard of the

86

DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

cart, — there they are ! razors, flat-iron, frying-pan, chrono
meter watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and looking-glass, —
take 'em all away for four shillings, and I'll give you sixpence
for your trouble ! " This is me, the Cheap Jack. But on
the Monday morning, in the same market-place, comes the
Dear Jack on the hustings — his cart — and what does he say ?
" Now my free and independent woters, I am a going to give
you such a chance" (he begins just like me) "as you never
had in all your born days, and that's the chance of sending
Myself to Parliament. Now I'll tell you what I am a going
to do for you. Here's the interests of this magnificent town
promoted above all the rest of the civilised and uncivilised
earth. Here's your railways carried, and your neighbours'
railways jockeyed. Here's all your sons in the Post-office.
Here's Britannia smiling on you. Here's the eyes of Europe
on you. Here's uniwersal prosperity for you, repletion of
animal food, golden cornfields, gladsome homesteads, and
rounds of applause from your own hearts, all in one lot, and
that's myself. Will you take me as I stand? You won't?
Well, then, I'll tell you what I'll do with you. Come now !
I'll throw you in anything you ask for. There ! Church-rates,
abolition of church-rates, more malt tax, no malt tax,
uniwersal education to the highest mark, or uniwersal ignor
ance to the lowest, total abolition of flogging in the army or
a dozen for every private once a month all round. Wrongs
of Men or Rights of Women — only say which it shall be,
take 'em or leave 'em, and I'm of your opinion altogether,
and the lot's your own on your own terms. There ! You
won't take it yet ! WeU, then, I'll tell you what I'll do with
you. Come ! You are such free and independent woters, and
I am so proud of you, — you are such a noble and enlightened
constituency, and I am so ambitious of the honour and dignity
of being your member, which is by far the highest level to
which the wings of the human mind can soar, — that I'll tell
you what I'll do with you. I'll throw you in all the public-
houses in your magnificent town for nothing. Will that

CHEAP JACK CALLING TREATED ILL. 87

content you ? It won't ? You won't take the lot yet ?
Well, then, before I put the horse in and drive away, and
make the offer to the next most magnificent town that can be
discovered, 111 tell you what I'll do. Take the lot, and I'll
drop two thousand pound in the streets of your magnificent
town for them to pick up that can. Not enough ? Now
look here. This is the very furthest that I'm a going to.
I'll make it two thousand five hundred. And still you won't ?
Here, missis ! Put the horse — no, stop half a moment, I
shouldn't like to turn my back upon you neither for a trifle,
I'll make it two thousand seven hundred and fifty pound.
There ! Take the lot on your own terms, and I'll count out
two thousand seven hundred and fifty pound on the foot
board of the cart, to be dropped in the streets of your
magnificent town for them to pick up that can. What do
you say ? Come now ! You won't do better, and you may
do worse. You take it ? Hooray ! Sold again, and got the
seat!"

These Dear Jacks soap the people shameful, but we Cheap
Jack's don't. We tell 'em the truth about themselves to
their faces, and scorn to court 'em. As to wenturesomeness
in the way of puffing up the lots, the Dear Jacks beats us
hollow. It is considered in the Cheap Jack calling, that
better patter can be made out of a gun than any article we
put up from the cart, except a pair of spectacles. I often
hold forth about a gun for a quarter of an hour, and feel as
if I need never leave off. But when I tell 'em what the gun
can do, and what the gun has brought down, I never go half
so far as the Dear Jacks do when they make speeches in
praise of tJmr guns — their great guns that set 'em on to do
it. Besides, I'm in business for myself: I ain't sent down
into the market-place to order, as they are. Besides, again,
my guns don't know what I say in their laudation, and their
guns do, and the whole concern of 'em have reason to be sick
and ashamed all round. These are some of my arguments for
declaring that the Cheap Jack calling is treated ill in Great

88

DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

Britain, and for turning warm when I think of the other
Jacks in question setting themselves up to pretend to look
down upon it.

I courted my wife from the footboard of the cart. I did
indeed. She was a Suffolk young women, and it was in
Ipswich market-place right opposite the corn-chandler's shop.
I had noticed her up at a window last Saturday that was,
appreciating highly. I had took to her, and I had said to
myself, " If not already disposed of, Til have that lot." Next
Saturday that come, I pitched the cart on the same pitch,
and I was in very high feather indeed, keeping 'em laughing
the whole of the time, and getting off the goods briskly. At
last I took out of my waistcoat-pocket a small lot wrapped
in soft paper, and I put it this way (looking up at the
window where she was). " Now here, my blooming English
maidens, is an article, the last article of the present evening's
sale, which I offer to only you, the lovely Suffolk Dumplings
biling over with beauty, and I won't take a bid of a thou
sand pounds for from any man alive. Now what is it ? Why,
111 tell you what it is. It's made of fine gold, and it's not
broke, though there's a hole in the middle of it, and it's
stronger than any fetter that ever was forged, though it's
smaller than any finger in my set of ten. Why ten ?
Because, when my parents made over my property to me, I
tell you true, there was twelve sheets, twelve towels, twelve
table-cloths, twelve knives, twelve forks, twelve tablespoons,
and twelve teaspoons, but my set of fingers was two short of
a dozen, and could never since be matched. Now what else
is it ? Come, I'll tell you. It's a hoop of solid gold, wrapped
in a silver curl-paper, that I myself took off the shining locks
of the ever beautiful old lady in Threadneedle-street, London
city ; I wouldn't tell you so if I hadn't the paper to show, or
you mightn't believe it even of me. Now what else is it ? It's
a man-trap and a handcuff, the parish stocks and a leg-lock,
all in gold and all in one. Now what else is it? It's a
wedding-ring. Now I'll tell you what I'm a going to do

BAD TEMPER IN A CART. 89

with it. I'm not a going to offer this lot for money ; but I
mean to give it to the next of you beauties that laughs, and
ril pay her a visit to-morrow morning at exactly half after
nine o'clock as the chimes go, and I'll take her out for a walk
to put up the banns." She laughed, and got the ring handed
up to her. When I called in the morning, she says, " O
dear ! It's never you, and you never mean it ? " " It's ever
me," says I, " and I am ever yours, and I ever mean it." So
we got married, after being put up three times — which, by
the bye, is quite in the Cheap Jack way again, and shows
once more how the Cheap Jack customs pervade society.

She wasn't a bad wife, but she had a temper. If she could
have parted with that one article at a sacrifice, I wouldn't
have swopped her away in exchange for any other woman in
England. Not that I ever did swop her away, for we lived
together till she died, and that was thirteen year. Now, my
lords and ladies and gentlefolks all, I'll let you into a secret,
though you won't believe it. Thirteen year of temper in a
Palace would try the worst of you, but thirteen year of
temper in a Cart would try the best of you. You are kept
so very close to it in a cart, you see. There's thousands of
couples among you getting on like sweet ile upon a whetstone
in houses five and six pairs of stairs high, that would go to
the Divorce Court in a cart. Whether the jolting makes it
worse, I don't undertake to decide ; but in a cart it does come
home to you, and stick to you. Wiolence in a cart is so
wiolent, and aggrawation in a cart is so aggrawating.

We might have had such a pleasant life ! A roomy cart,
with the large goods hung outside, and the bed slung
underneath it when on the road, an iron pot and a kettle,
a fireplace for the cold weather, a chimney for the smoke,
a hanging-shelf and a cupboard, a dog and a horse. What
more do you want ? You draw off upon a bit of turf in a
green lane or by the roadside, you hobble your old horse and
turn him grazing, you light your fire upon the ashes of the
last visitors, you cook your stew, and you wouldn't call the

90 DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

Emperor of France your father. But have a temper in the
cart, flinging language and the hardest goods in stock at you,
and where are you then ? Put a name to your feelings. ? *

My dog knew as well when she was on the turn as I did.
Before she broke out, he would give a howl, and bolt. How
he knew it, was a mystery to me ; but the sure and certain
knowledge of it would wake him up out of his soundest
sleep, and he would give a howl, and bolt. At such times I
wished I was him.

The worst of it was, we had a daughter born to us, and
I love children with all my heart. When she was in her
furies she beat the child. This got to be so shocking, as
the child got to be four or five year old, that I have many
a time gone on with my whip over my shoulder, at the old
horse's head, sobbing and crying worse than ever little Sophy
did. For how could I prevent it? Such a thing is not to
be tried with such a temper — in a cart — without coming to
a fight. It's in the natural size and formation of a cart
to bring it to a fight. And then the poor child got worse
terrified than before, as well as worse hurt generally, and
her mother made complaints to the next people we lighted
on, and the word went round, "Here's a wretch of a Cheap
Jack been a beating his wife."

Little Sophy was such a brave child! She grew to be
quite devoted to her poor father, though he could do so
little to help her. She had a wonderful quantity of shining
dark hair, all curling natural about her. It is quite astonish
ing to me now, that I didn't go tearing mad when I used
to see her run from her mother before the cart, and her
mother catch her by this hair, and pull her down by it, and
beat her.

Such a brave child I said she was ! Ah ! with reason.

" Don't you mind next time, father dear," she would
whisper to me, with her little face still flushed, and her
bright eyes still wet; "if I don't cry out, you may know I
am not much hurt. And even if I do cry out, it will only

RUN DRY OF MONEY. 91

be to get mother to let go and leave off." What I have seen
the little spirit bear — for me — without crying out !

Yet in other respects her mother took great care of her.
Her clothes were always clean and neat, and her mother was
never tired of working at 'em. Such is the inconsistency in
things. Our being down in the marsh country in unhealthy
weather, I consider the cause of Sophy's taking bad low
fever; but however she took it, once she got it she turned
away from her mother for evermore, and nothing would per
suade her to be touched by her mother's hand. She would
shiver and say, "No, no, no," when it was offered at, and
would hide her face on my shoulder, and hold me tighter
round the neck.

The Cheap Jack business had been worse than ever I had
known it, what with one thing and what with another (and
not least with railroads, which will cut it all to pieces, I
expect, at last), and I was run dry of money. For which
reason, one night at that period of little Sophy's being so
bad, either we must have come to a dead-lock for victuals
and drink, or I must have pitched the cart as I did.

I couldn't get the dear child to lie down or leave go of
me, and indeed I hadn't the heart to try, so I stepped out
on the footboard with her holding round my neck. They
all set up a laugh when they see us, and one chuckle-headed
Joskin (that I hated for it) made the bidding, "Tuppence
for her!"

" Now, you country boobies," says I, feeling as if my heart
was a heavy weight at the end of a broken sashline, " I give
you notice that I am a going to charm the money out of
your pockets, and to give you so much more than your
money's worth that you'll only persuade yourselves to draw
your Saturday night's wages ever again arterwards by the
hopes of meeting me to lay 'em out with, which you never
will, and why not ? Because I've made my fortune by selling
my goods on a large scale for seventy-five per cent, less than
I give for 'em, and I am consequently to be elevated to the

92 DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

House of Peers next week, by the title of the Duke of Cheap
and Markis Jackaloorul. Now let's know what you want
to-night, and you shall have it. But first of all, shall I tell
you why I have got this little girl round my neck? You
don't want to know? Then you shall. She belongs to the
Fairies. She's a fortune-teller. She can tell me all about
you in a whisper, and can put me up to whether you're
going to buy a lot or leave it. Now do you want a saw?
No, she says you don't, because you're too clumsy to use one.
Else here's a saw which would be a lifelong blessing to a
handy man, at four shillings, at three and six, at three, at
two and six, at two, at eighteen-pence. But none of you
shall have it at any price, on account of your well-known
awkwardness, which would make it manslaughter. The same
objection applies to this set of three planes which I won't
let you have neither, so don't bid for 'em. Now I am a
going to ask her what you do want." (Then I whispered,
" Your head burns so, that I am afraid it hurts you bad,
my pet," and she answered, without opening her heavy eyes,
" Just a little, father.") « O ! This little fortune-teller says
it's a memorandum-book you want. Then why didn't you
mention it? Here it is. Look at it. Two hundred super
fine hot-pressed wire-wove pages — if you don't believe me,
count 'em — ready ruled for your expenses, an everlastingly
pointed pencil to put 'em down with, a double-bladed pen
knife to scratch 'em out with, a book of printed tables to
calculate your income with, and a camp-stool to sit down
upon while you give your mind to it ! Stop ! And an
umbrella to keep the moon off when you give your mind to
it on a pitch dark night. Now I won't ask you how much
for the lot, but how little? How little are you thinking of?
Don't be ashamed to mention it, because my fortune-teller
knows already." (Then making believe to whisper, I kissed
her, and she kissed me.) " Why, she says you are thinking
of as little as three and threepence! I couldn't have
believed it, even of you, unless she told me. Three and

LITTLE SOPHY FADING AWAY. 93

threepence ! And a set of printed tables in the lot that'll
calculate your income up to forty thousand a year ! With
an income of forty thousand a year, you grudge three and
sixpence. Well then, I'll tell you my opinion. I so despise
the threepence, that I'd sooner take three shillings. There.
For three shillings, three shillings, three shillings ! Gone.
Hand 'em over to the lucky man."

As there had been no bid at all, everybody looked about
and grinned at everybody, while I touched little Sophy's face
and asked her if she felt faint, or giddy. " Not very, father.
It will soon be over." Then turning from the pretty patient
eyes, which were opened now, and seeing nothing but grins
across my lighted grease-pot, I went on again in my Cheap
Jack style. "Where's the butcher?" (My sorrowful eye
had just caught sight of a fat young butcher on the outside
of the crowd.) "She says the good luck is the butcher's.
Where is he ? " Everybody handed on the blushing butcher
to the front, and there was a roar, and the butcher felt
himself obliged to put his hand in his pocket, and take the
lot. The party so picked out, in general, does feel obliged
to take the lot — good four times out of six. Then we had
another lot, the counterpart of that one, and sold it sixpence
cheaper, which is always wery much enjoyed. Then we had
the spectacles. It ain't a special profitable lot, but I put
'em on, and I see what the Chancellor of the Exchequer is
going to take off the taxes, and I see what the sweetheart
of the young woman in the shawl is doing at home, and I
see what the Bishops has got for dinner, and a deal more
that seldom fails to fetch 'em up in their spirits ; and the
better their spirits, the better their bids. Then we had the
ladies' lot, — the teapot, tea-caddy, glass sugar-basin, half-a-
dozen spoons, and caudle-cup — and all the time I was
making similar excuses to give a look or two and say a word
or two to my poor child. It was while the second ladies' lot
was holding 'em enchained that I felt her lift herself a little
on my shoulder, to look across the dark street. "What

94 DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

troubles you, darling?'1 "Nothing troubles me, father. I
am not at all troubled. But don't I see a pretty churchyard
over there?" "Yes, my dear." "Kiss me twice, dear
father, and lay me down to rest upon that churchyard grass
so soft and green." I staggered back into the cart with her
head dropped on my shoulder, and I says to her mother,
" Quick. Shut the door ! Don't let those laughing people
see ! " " What's the matter ? " she cries. " O woman, woman,"
I tells her, "you'll never catch my little Sophy by her hair
again, for she has flown away from you ! "

Maybe those were harder words than I meant 'em ; but
from that time forth my wife took to brooding, and would
sit in the cart or walk beside it, hours at a stretch, with her
arms crossed, and her eyes looking on the ground. When
her furies took her (which was rather seldomer than before)
they took her in a new way, and she banged herself about
to that extent that I was forced to hold her. She got none
the better for a little drink now and then, and through some
years I used to wonder, as I plodded along at the old horse's
head, whether there was many carts upon the road that held
so much dreariness as mine, for all my being looked up to as
the King of the Cheap Jacks. So sad our lives went on till
one summer evening, when, as we were coming into Exeter,
out of the farther West of England, we saw a woman beating
a child in a cruel manner, who screamed, " Don't beat me !
O mother, mother, mother!" Then my wife stopped her
ears, and ran away like a wild thing, and next day she was
found in the river.

Me and my dog were all the company left in the cart now ;
and the dog learned to give a short bark when they wouldn't
bid, and to give another and a nod of his head when I asked
him, " Who said half a crown ? Are you the gentleman, sir,
that offered half a crown?" He attained to an immense
height of popularity, and I shall always believe taught himself
entirely out of his own head to growl at any person in the
crowd that bid as low as sixpence But he got to be well

ACQUAINTED WITH A GIANT. 95

on in years, and one night when I was conwulsing York
with the spectacles, he took a conwulsion on his own account
upon the very footboard by me, and it finished him.

Being naturally of a tender turn, I had dreadful lonely
feelings on me arter this. I conquered 'em at selling times,
having a reputation to keep (not to mention keeping myself),
but they got me down in private, and rolled upon me. That's
often the way with us public characters. See us on the foot
board, and you'd give pretty well anything you possess to be
us. See us off the footboard, and you'd add a trifle to be
off your bargain. It was under those circumstances that I
come acquainted with a giant. I might have been too high
to fall into conversation with him, had it not been for my
lonely feelings. For the general rule is, going round the
country, to draw the line at dressing up. When a man can't
trust his getting a living to his undisguised abilities, you
consider him below your sort. And this giant when on view
figured as a Roman.

He was a languid young man, which I attribute to the
distance betwixt his extremities. He had a little head and
less in it, he had weak eyes and weak knees, and altogether
you couldn't look at him without feeling that there was greatly
too much of him both for his joints and his mind. But he
was an amiable though timid young man (his mother let him
out, and spent the money), and we come acquainted when he
was walking to ease the horse betwixt two fairs. He was
called Rinaldo di Velasco, his name being Pickleson.

This giant, otherwise Pickleson, mentioned to me under
the seal of confidence that, beyond his being a burden to
himself, his life was made a burden to him by the cruelty of
his master towards a step-daughter who was deaf and dumb.
Her mother was dead, and she had no living soul to take her
part, and was used most hard. She travelled with his master's
caravan only because there was nowhere to leave her, and
this giant, otherwise Pickleson, did go so far as to believe
that his master often tried to lose her. He was such a very

96

DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

languid young man, that I don't know how long it didn't
take him to get this story out, but it passed through his
defective circulation to his top extremity in course of time.

When I heard this account from the giant, otherwise
Pickleson, and likewise that the poor girl had beautiful long
dark hair, and was often pulled down by it and beaten, I
couldn't see the giant through what stood in my eyes. Having
wiped 'em, I give him sixpence (for he was kept as short as
he was long), and he laid it out in two threepenn'orths of gin-
and- water, which so brisked him up, that he sang the Favourite
Comic of Shivery Shakey, ain't it cold? — a popular effect
which his master had tried every other means to get out of
him as a Roman wholly in vain.

His master's name was Mim, a wery hoarse man, and I
knew him to speak to. I went to that Fair as a mere civilian,
leaving the cart outside the town, and I looked about the
back of the Vans while the performing was going on, and at
last, sitting dozing against a muddy cart-wheel, I come upon
the poor girl who was deaf and dumb. At the first look
I might almost have judged that she had escaped from the
Wild Beast Show ; but at the second I thought better of her,
and thought that if she was more cared for and more kindly
used she would be like my child. She was just the same age
that my own daughter would have been, if her pretty head
had not fell down upon my shoulder that unfortunate night.

To cut it short, I spoke confidential to Mini while he was
beating the gong outside betwixt two lots of Pickleson's
publics, and I put it to him, "She lies heavy on your own
hands ; what'll you take for her ? " Mim was a most ferocious
swearer. Suppressing that part of his reply which was
much the longest part, his reply was, "A pair of braces."
" Now I'll tell you," says I, " what I'm a going to do with
you. I'm a going to fetch you half-a-dozen pair of the
primest braces in the cart, and then to take her away with
me." Says Mim (again ferocious), "I'll believe it when I've
got the goods, and no sooner." I made all the haste I could,

INSTRUCTION UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 97

lest he should think twice of it, and the bargain was com
pleted, which Pickleson he was thereby so relieved in his
mind that he come out at his little back door, longways like
a serpent, and give us Shivery Shakey in a whisper among
the wheels at parting.

It was happy days for both of us when Sophy and me
began to travel in the cart. I at once give her the name of
Sophy, to put her ever towards me in the attitude of my
own daughter. We soon made out to begin to understand
one another, through the goodness of the Heavens, when she
knowed that I meant true and kind by her. In a very little
time she was wonderful fond of me. You have no idea what
it is to have anybody wonderful fond of you, unless you
have been got down and rolled upon by the lonely feelings
that I have mentioned as having once got the better of me.

You'd have laughed — or the rewerse — it's according to
your disposition — if you could have seen me trying to teach
Sophy. At first I was helped — you'd never guess by what
— milestones. I got some large alphabets in a box, all the
letters separate on bits of bone, and saying we was going to
WINDSOR, I give her those letters in that order, and then at
every milestone I showed her those same letters in that
same order again, and pointed towards the abode of royalty.
Another time I give her CART, and then chalked the same
upon the cart. Another time I give her DOCTOR MARI
GOLD, and hung a corresponding inscription outside my
waistcoat. People that met us might stare a bit and laugh,
but what did / care, if she caught the idea? She caught it
after long patience and trouble, and then we did begin to
get on swimmingly, I believe you ! At first she was a little
given to consider me the cart, and the cart the abode of
royalty, but that soon wore off.

We had our signs, too, and they was hundreds in number.
Sometimes she would sit looking at me and considering hard
how to communicate with me about something fresh, — how
to ask me what she wanted explained, — and then she was

VOL. II. H

98 DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

(or I thought she was; what does it signify?) so like my
child with those years added to her, that I half-believed it
was herself, trying to tell me where she had been to up in
the skies, and what she had seen since that unhappy night
when she flied away. She had a pretty face, and now that
there was no one to drag at her bright dark hair, and it was
all in order, there was a something touching in her looks that
made the cart most peaceful and most quiet, though not
at all melancholy. [N.B. In the Cheap Jack patter, we
generally sound it lemonjolly, and it gets a laugh.]

The way she learnt to understand any look of mine was
truly surprising. When I sold of a night, she would sit in
the cart unseen by them outside, and would give a eager
look into my eyes when I looked in, and would hand me
straight the precise article or articles I wanted. And then
she would clap her hands, and laugh for joy. And as for me,
seeing her so bright, and remembering what she was when I
first lighted on her, starved and beaten and ragged, leaning
asleep against the muddy cart-wheel, it give me such heart
that I gained a greater heighth of reputation than ever, and
I put Pickleson down (by the name of Mini's Travelling
Giant otherwise Pickleson) for a fypunnote in my will.

This happiness went on in the cart till she was sixteen
year old. By which time I began to feel not satisfied that
I had done my whole duty by her, and to consider that she
ought to have better teaching than I could give her. It drew
a many tears on both sides when I commenced explaining
my views to her; but what's right is right, and you can't
neither by tears nor laughter do away with its character.

So I took her hand in mine, and I went with her one day
to the Deaf and Dumb Establishment in London, and when
the gentleman come to speak to us, I says to him : " Now
I'll tell you what I'll do with you, sir. I am nothing but a
Cheap Jack, but of late years I have laid by for a rainy day
notwithstanding. This is my only daughter (adopted), and
you can't produce a deafer nor a dumber. Teach her the

THE DEAF AND DUMB ESTABLISHMENT. 99

most that can be taught her in the shortest separation that
can be named, — state the figure for it, — and I am game to
put the money down. I won't bate you a single farthing,
sir, but I'll put down the money here and now, and I'll
thankfully throw you in a pound to take it. There ! " The
gentleman smiled, and then, "Well, well," says he, "I must
first know what she has learned already. How do you
communicate with her ? " Then I showed him, and she wrote
in printed writing many names of things and so forth ; and
we held some sprightly conversation, Sophy and me, about a
little story in a book which the gentleman showed her, and
which she was able to read. "This is most extraordinary,"
says the gentleman; "is it possible that you have been her
only teacher?" "I have been her only teacher, sir," I says,
"besides herself." "Then," says the gentleman, and more
acceptable words was never spoke to me, "you're a clever
fellow, and a good fellow." This he makes known to Sophy,
who kisses his hands, claps her own, and laughs and cries
upon it.

We saw the gentleman four times in all, and when he took
down my name and asked how in the world it ever chanced
to be Doctor, it come out that he was own nephew by the
sister's side, if you'll believe me, to the very Doctor that I
was called after. This made our footing still easier, and he
says to me :

"Now, Marigold, tell me what more do you want your
adopted daughter to know?"

" I want her, sir, to be cut off from the world as little as
can be, considering her deprivations, and therefore to be able
to read whatever is wrote with perfect ease and pleasure."

"My good fellow," urges the gentleman, opening his eyes
wide, " why / can't do that myself ! "

I took his joke, and gave him a laugh (knowing by
experience how flat you fall without it), and I mended my
words accordingly.

"What do you mean to do with her afterwards?" asks

100 DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

the gentleman, with a sort of a doubtful eye. " To take her
about the country?'1

"In the cart, sir, but only in the cart. She will live a
private life, you understand, in the cart. I should never
think of bringing her infirmities before the public. I wouldn't
make a show of her for any money."

The gentleman nodded, and seemed to approve.

" Well," says he, " can you part with her for two years ? "

"To do her that good, — yes, sir."

"There's another question," says the gentleman, looking
towards her, — "can she part with you for two years?"

I don't know that it was a harder matter of itself (for the
other was hard enough to me), but it was harder to get over.
However, she was pacified to it at last, and the separation
betwixt us was settled. How it cut up both of us when it
took place, and when I left her at the door in the dark of
an evening, I don't tell. But I know this ; remembering that
night, I shall never pass that same establishment without a
heartache and a swelling in the throat; and I couldn't put
you up the best of lots in sight of it with my usual spirit,
— no, not even the gun, nor the pair of spectacles, — for five
hundred pound reward from the Secretary of State for the
Home Department, and throw in the honour of putting my
legs under his mahogany arterwards.

Still, the loneliness that followed in the cart was not the old
loneliness, because there was a term put to it, however long
to look forward to; and because I could think, when I was
anyways down, that she belonged to me and I belonged to
her. Always planning for her coming back, I bought in a
few months' time another cart, and what do you think I
planned to do with it? I'll tell you. I planned to fit it up
with shelves and books for her reading, and to have a seat
in it where I could sit and see her read, and think that I
had been her first teacher. Not hurrying over the job, I
had the fittings knocked together in contriving ways under
my own inspection, and here was her bed in a berth with

A HAPPY THOUGHT. 101

curtains, and there was her reading-table, and here was her
writing-desk, and elsewhere was her books in rows upon rows,
picters and no picters, bindings and no bindings, gilt-edged
and plain, just as I could pick 'em up for her in lots up
and down the country, North and South and West and East,
Winds liked best and winds liked least, Here and there and
gone astray, Over the hills and far away. And when I had
got together pretty well as many books as the cart would
neatly hold, a new scheme come into my head, which, as it
turned out, kept my time and attention a good deal employed,
and helped me over the two years' stile.

Without being of an awaricious temper, I like to be the
owner of things. I shouldn't wish, for instance, to go
partners with yourself in the Cheap Jack cart. It's not that
I mistrust you, but that I'd rather know it was mine.
Similarly, very likely you'd rather know it was yours. Well !
A kind of a jealousy began to creep into my mind when I
reflected that all those books would have been read by other
people long before they was read by her. It seemed to take
away from her being the owner of 'em like. In this way, the
question got into my head : Couldn't I have a book new-
made express for her, which she should be the first to read ?

It pleased me, that thought did; and as I never was a
man to let a thought sleep (you must wake up all the whole
family of thoughts you've got and burn their nightcaps, or
you won't do in the Cheap Jack line), I set to work at it.
Considering that I was in the habit of changing so much
about the country, and that I should have to find out a
literary character here to make a deal with, and another
literary character there to make a deal with, as opportunities
presented, I hit on the plan that this same book should be
a general miscellaneous lot, — like the razors, flat-iron, chrono
meter watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and looking-glass, —
and shouldn't be offered as a single indiwidual article, like
the spectacles or the gun. When I had come to that con
clusion, I come to another, which shall likewise be yours.

102 DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

Often had I regretted that she never had heard me on the
footboard, and that she never could hear me. It ain't that /
am vain, but that you don't like to put your own light
under a bushel. What's the worth of your reputation, if
you can't convey the reason for it to the person you most
wish to value it? Now I'll put it to you. Is it worth
sixpence, fippence, fourpence, threepence, twopence, a penny,
a halfpenny, a farthing ? No, it ain't. Not worth a farthing.
Very well, then. My conclusion was that I would begin her
book with some account of myself. So that, through reading
a specimen or two of me on the footboard, she might form
an idea of my merits there. I was aware that I couldn't
do myself justice. A man can't write his eye (at least /
don't know how to), nor yet can a man write his voice, nor
the rate of his talk, nor the quickness of his action, nor his
general spicy way. But he can write his turns of speech,
when he is a public speaker, — and indeed I have heard that
he very often does, before he speaks 'em.

Well ! Having formed that resolution, then come the
question of a name. How did I hammer that hot iron into
shape? This way. The most difficult explanation I had
ever had with her was, how I come to be called Doctor, and
yet was no Doctor. After all, I felt that I had failed of
getting it correctly into her mind, with my utmost pains.
But trusting to her improvement in the two years, I thought
that I might trust to her understanding it when she should
come to read it as put down by my own hand. Then I
thought I would try a joke with her and watch how it took,
by which of itself I might fully judge of her understanding
it. We had first discovered the mistake we had dropped into,
through her having asked me to prescribe for her when she
had supposed me to be a Doctor in a medical point of view ;
so thinks I, "Now, if I give this book the name of my
Prescriptions, and if she catches the idea that my only
Prescriptions are for her amusement and interest, — to make
her laugh in a pleasant way, or to make her cry in a pleasant

END OF THE TWO YEARS. 103

way, — it will be a delightful proof to both of us that we
have got over our difficulty."" It fell out to absolute
perfection. For when she saw the book, as I had it got up,
— the printed and pressed book, — lying on her desk in her
cart, and saw the title, DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS,
she looked at me for a moment with astonishment, then
fluttered the leaves, then broke out a laughing in the
charmingest way, then felt her pulse and shook her head,
then turned the pages pretending to read them most atten
tive, then kissed the book to me, and put it to her bosom
with both her hands. I never was better pleased in all
my life !

But let me not anticipate. (I take that expression out of
a lot of romances I bought for her. I never opened a single
one of 'em — and I have opened many — but I found the
romancer saying " let me not anticipate." Which being so, I
wonder why he did anticipate, or who asked him to it.) Let
me not, I say, anticipate. This same book took up all my
spare time. It was no play to get the other articles together
in the general miscellaneous lot, but when it come to my own
article! There! I couldn't have believed the blotting, nor
yet the buckling to at it, nor the patience over it. Which
again is like the footboard. The public have no idea.

At last it was done, and the two years' time was gone
after all the other time before it, and where it's all gone
to, who knows ? The new cart was finished, — yellow outside,
relieved with wermilion and brass fittings, — the old horse was
put in it, a new 'un and a boy being laid on for the Cheap
Jack cart, and I cleaned myself up to go and fetch her.
Bright cold weather it was, cart-chimneys smoking, carts
pitched private on a piece of waste ground over at Wands-
worth, where you may see 'em from the Sou'western Railway
when not upon the road. (Look out of the right-hand
window going down.)

"Marigold," says the gentleman, giving his hand hearty,
" I am very glad to see you."

104 DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

"Yet I have my doubts, sir," says I, "if you can be half
as glad to see me as I am to see you."

"The time has appeared so long, — has it, Marigold?"

"I won't say that, sir, considering its real length;
but "

" What a start, my good fellow ! "

Ah ! I should think it was ! Grown such a woman, so
pretty, so intelligent, so expressive ! I knew then that she
must be really like my child, or I could never have known
her, standing quiet by the door.

" You are affected," says the gentleman in a kindly manner.

"I feel, sir," says I, "that I am but a rough chap in a
sleeved waistcoat."

"I feel," says the gentleman, "that it was you who raised
her from misery and degradation, and brought her into
communication with her kind. But why do we converse alone
together, when we can converse so well with her? Address
her in your own way."

"I am such a rough chap in a sleeved waistcoat, sir," says
I, "and she is such a graceful woman, and she stands so
quiet at the door ! "

"Try if she moves at the old sign," says the gentleman.

They had got it up together o' purpose to please me!
For when I give her the old sign, she rushed to my feet,
and dropped upon her knees, holding up her hands to me
with pouring tears of love and joy ; and when I took her
hands and lifted her, she clasped me round the neck, and lay
there ; and I don't know what a fool I didn't make of myself,
until we all three settled down into talking without sound,
as if there was a something soft and pleasant spread over
the whole world for us.

[A portion is here omitted from the text, having reference
to the sketches contributed by other writers; but the reader
will be pleased to have what follows retained in a note :

"Now I'll tell you what I am a-going to do with you.

A FINAL PRESCRIPTION ADDED. 105

I am a-going to offer you the general miscellaneous lot, her
own book, never read by anybody else but me, added to and
completed by me after her first reading of it, eight-and-forty
printed pages, six-and-ninety columns, Whi tinges own work,
Beaufort House to wit, thrown off by the steam-ingine, best
of paper, beautiful green wrapper, folded like clean linen
come home from the clear-starcher's, and so exquisitely stitched
that, regarded as a piece of needlework alone, it's better
than the sampler of a seamstress undergoing a Competitive
examination for Starvation before the Civil Service Commis
sioners — and I offer the lot for what? For eight pound?
Not so much. For six pound? Less. For four pound.
Why, I hardly expect you to believe me, but that's the sum.
Four pound ! The stitching alone cost half as much again.
Here's forty-eight original pages, ninety-six original columns,
for four pound. You want more for the money ? Take it.
Three whole pages of advertisements of thrilling interest
thrown in for nothing. Read 'em and believe 'em. More?
My best of wishes for your merry Christmases and your
happy New Years, your long lives and your true prosperities.
Worth twenty pound good if they are delivered as I send
them. Remember! Here's a final prescription added, "To
be taken for life," which will tell you how the cart broke
down, and where the journey ended. You think Four Pound
too much? And still you think so? Come! I'll tell you
what then. Say Four Pence, and keep the secret."]

II.

TO BE TAKEN WITH A GRAIN OF SALT.

I HAVE always noticed a prevalent want of courage, even
among persons of superior intelligence and culture, as to
imparting their own psychological experiences when those
have been of a strange sort. Almost all men are afraid -that
what they could relate in such wise would find no parallel or
response in a listener's internal life, and might be suspected
or laughed at. A truthful traveller, who should have seen
some extraordinary creature in the likeness of a sea-serpent,
would have no fear of mentioning it ; but the same traveller,
having had some singular presentiment, impulse, vagaiy of
thought, vision (so called), dream, or other remarkable mental
impression, would hesitate considerably before he would own
to it. To this reticence I attribute much of the obscurity
in which such subjects are involved. We do not habitually
communicate our experiences of these subjective things as we
do our experiences of objective creation. The consequence
is, that the general stock of experience in this regard appears
exceptional, and really is so, in respect of being miserably
imperfect.

In what I am going to relate, I have no intention of setting
up, opposing, or supporting, any theory whatever. I know
the history of the Bookseller of Berlin, I have studied the
case of the wife of a late Astronomer Royal as related by Sir
David Brewster, and I have followed the minutest details of
a much more remarkable case of Spectral Illusion occurring

THE TRIAL FOR MURDER. 107

within my private circle of friends. It may be necessary
to state as to this last, that the sufferer (a lady) was in no
degree, however distant, related to me. A mistaken assumption
on that head might suggest an explanation of a part of my
own case, — but only a part, — which would be wholly without
foundation. It cannot be referred to my inheritance of any
developed peculiarity, nor had I ever before any at all similar
experience, nor have I ever had any at all similar experience
since.

It does not signify how many years ago, or how few, a
certain murder was committed in England, which attracted
great attention. We hear more than enough of murderers as
they rise in succession to their atrocious eminence, and I would
bury the memory of this particular brute, if I could, as his
body was buried, in Newgate Jail. I purposely abstain from
giving any direct clue to the criminal's individuality.

When the murder was first discovered, no suspicion fell — or
I ought rather to say, for I cannot be too precise in my facts,
it was nowhere publicly hinted that any suspicion fell — on
the man who was afterwards brought to trial. As no refer
ence was at that time made to him in the newspapers, it is
obviously impossible that any description of him can at that
time have been given in the newspapers. It is essential that
this fact be remembered.

Unfolding at breakfast my morning paper, containing the
account of that first discovery, I found it to be deeply
interesting, and I read it with close attention. I read it
twice, if not three times. The discovery had been made in
a bedroom, and, when I laid down the paper, I was aware
of a flash — rush — flow — I do not know what to call it,-r—
no word I can find is satisfactorily descriptive, — in which
I seemed to see that bedroom passing through my room,
like a picture impossibly painted on a running river. Though
almost instantaneous in its passing, it was perfectly clear;
so clear that I distinctly, and with a sense of relief, observed
the absence of the dead body from the bed.

108 DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

It was in no romantic place that I had this curious sensa
tion, but in chambers in Piccadilly, very near to the corner
of St. James's-street. It was entirely new to me. I was in
my easy-chair at the moment, and the sensation was accom
panied with a peculiar shiver which started the chair from
its position. (But it is to be noted that the chair ran easily
on castors.) I went to one of the windows (there are two
in the room, and the room is on the second floor) to refresh
my eyes with the moving objects down in Piccadilly. It was
a bright autumn morning, and the street was sparkling and
cheerful. The wind was high. As I looked out, it brought
down from the Park a quantity of fallen leaves, which a
gust took, and whirled into a spiral pillar. As the pillar
fell and the leaves dispersed, I saw two men on the opposite
side of the way, going from West to East. They were one
behind the other. The foremost man often looked back over
his shoulder. The second man followed him, at a distance
of some thirty paces, with his right hand menacingly raised.
First, the singularity and steadiness of this threatening gesture
in so public a thoroughfare attracted my attention; and
next, the more remarkable circumstance that nobody heeded
it. Both men threaded their way among the other passen
gers with a smoothness hardly consistent even with the action
of walking on a pavement; and no single creature, that I
could see, gave them place, touched them, or looked after
them. In passing before my windows, they both stared up
at me. I saw their two faces very distinctly, and I knew
that I could recognise them anywhere. Not that I had con
sciously noticed anything very remarkable in either face,
except that the man who went first had an unusually lower
ing appearance, and that the face of the man who followed
him was of the colour of impure wax.

I am a bachelor, and my valet and his wife constitute my
whole establishment. My occupation is in a certain Branch
Bank, and I wish that my duties as head of a Department
were as light as they are popularly supposed to be. They

MYSTERIOUS BECKONING AT THE DOOR. 109

kept me in town that autumn, when I stood in need of
change. I was not ill, but I was not well. My reader is to
make the most that can be reasonably made of my feeling
jaded, having a depressing sense upon me of a monotonous
life, and being "slightly dyspeptic.1' I am assured by my
renowned doctor that my real state of health at that time
justifies no stronger description, and I quote his own from
his written answer to my request for it.

As the circumstances of the murder, gradually unravelling,
took stronger and stronger possession of the public mind, I
kept them away from mine by knowing as little about them
as was possible in the midst of the universal excitement.
But I knew that a verdict of Wilful Murder had been
found against the suspected murderer, and that he had been
committed to Newgate for trial. I also knew that his trial
had been postponed over one Sessions of the Central Criminal
Court, on the ground of general prejudice and want of time
for the preparation of the defence. I may further have known,
but I believe I did not, when, or about when, the Sessions to
which his trial stood postponed would come on.

My sitting-room, bedroom, and dressing-room, are all on
one floor. With the last there is no communication but
through the bedroom. True, there is a door in it, once com
municating with the staircase; but a part of the fitting of
my bath has been — and had then been for some years — fixed
across it. At the same period, and as a part of the same
arrangement, the door had been nailed up and canvased over.

I was standing in my bedroom late one night, giving some
directions to my servant before he went to bed. My face
was towards the only available door of communication with
the dressing-room, and it was closed. My servant's back
was towards that door. While I was speaking to him, I
saw it open, and a man look in, who very earnestly and
mysteriously beckoned to me. That man was the man who
had gone second of the two along Piccadilly, and whose face
was of the colour of impure wax.

110 DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

The figure, having beckoned, drew back, and closed the
door. With no longer pause than was made by my crossing
the bedroom, I opened the dressing-room door, and looked in.
I had a lighted candle already in my hand. I felt no inward
expectation of seeing the figure in the dressing-room, and I
did not see it there.

Conscious that my servant stood amazed, I turned round
to him, and said: "Derrick, could you believe that in my

cool senses I fancied I saw a " As I there laid my hand

upon his breast, with a sudden start he trembled violently,
and said, " O Lord, yes, sir ! A dead man beckoning ! "

Now I do not believe that this John Derrick, my trusty
and attached servant for more than twenty years, had any
impression whatever of having seen any such figure, until I
touched him. The change in him was so startling, when I
touched him, that I fully believe he derived his impression
in some occult manner from me at that instant.

I bade John Derrick bring some brandy, and I gave him
a dram, and was glad to take one myself. Of what had
preceded that night's phenomenon, I told him not a single
word. Reflecting on it, I was absolutely certain that I had
never seen that face before, except on the one occasion in
Piccadilly. Comparing its expression when beckoning at
the door with its expression when it had stared up at me as
I stood at my window, I came to the conclusion that on the
first occasion it had sought to fasten itself upon my memory,
and that on the second occasion it had made sure of being
immediately remembered.

I was not very comfortable that night, though I felt
a certainty, difficult to explain, that the figure would not
return. At daylight I fell into a heavy sleep, from which I
was awakened by John Derrick's coming to my bedside with
a paper in his hand.

This paper, it appeared, had been the subject of an alter
cation at the door between its bearer and my servant. It was
a summons to me to serve upon a Jury at the forthcoming

SUMMONED ON A JURY. Ill

Sessions of the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey.
I had never before been summoned on such a Jury, as John
Derrick well knew. He believed — I am not certain at this
hour whether with reason or otherwise — that that class of
Jurors were customarily chosen on a lower qualification than
mine, and he had at first refused to accept the summons.
The man who served it had taken the matter very coolly.
He had said that my attendance or non-attendance was
nothing to him ; there the summons was ; and I should deal
with it at my own peril, and not at his.

For a day or two I was undecided whether to respond to
this call, or take no notice of it. I was not conscious of the
slightest mysterious bias, influence, or attraction, one way or
other. Of that I am as strictly sure as of every other state
ment that I make here. Ultimately I decided, as a break in
the monotony of my life, that I would go.

The appointed morning was a raw morning in the month
of November. There was a dense brown fog in Piccadilly,
and it became positively black and in the last degree oppres
sive East of Temple Bar. I found the passages and staircases
of the Court-House flaringly lighted with gas, and the Court
itself similarly illuminated. I think that, until I was conducted
by officers into the Old Court and saw its crowded state, I
did not know that the Murderer was to be tried that day.
I think that, until I was so helped into the Old Court with
considerable difficulty, I did not know into which of the
two Courts sitting my summons would take me. But this
must not be received as a positive assertion, for I am not
completely satisfied in my mind on either point.

I took my seat in the place appropriated to Jurors in
waiting, and I looked about the Court as well as I could
through the cloud of fog and breath that was heavy in it.
I noticed the black vapour hanging like a murky curtain
outside the great windows, and I noticed the stifled sound of
wheels on the straw or tan that was littered in the street;
also, the hum of the people gathered there, which a shrill

112 DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

whistle, or a louder song or hail than the rest, occasionally
pierced. Soon afterwards the Judges, two in number, entered,
and took their seats. The buzz in the Court was awfully
hushed. The direction was given to put the Murderer to
the bar. He appeared there. And in that same instant I
recognised in him the first of the two men who had gone
down Piccadilly.

If my name had been called then, I doubt if I could have
answered to it audibly. But it was called about sixth or
eighth in the panel, and I was by that time able to say
" Here ! " Now, observe. As I stepped into the box, the
prisoner, who had been looking on attentively, but with no
sign of concern, became violently agitated, and beckoned to
his attorney. The prisoner's wish to challenge me was so
manifest, that it occasioned a pause, during which the
attorney, with his hand upon the dock, whispered with his
client, and shook his head. I afterwards had it from that
gentleman, that the prisoner's first affrighted words to him
were, "At all hazards, challenge that man!'1'' But that, as he
would give no reason for it, and admitted that he had not
even known my name until he heard it called and I appeared,
it was not done.

Both on the ground already explained, that I wish to
avoid reviving the unwholesome memory of that Murderer,
and also because a detailed account of his long trial is by no
means indispensable to my narrative, I shall confine myself
closely to such incidents in the ten days and nights during
which we, the Jury, were kept together, as directly bear on
my own curious personal experience. It is in that, and not
in the Murderer, that I seek to interest my reader. It is to
that, and not to a page of the Newgate Calendar, that I
beg attention.

I was chosen Foreman of the Jury. On the second morn
ing of the trial, after evidence had been taken for two hours
(I heard the church clocks strike), happening to cast my eyes
over my brother jurymen, I found an inexplicable difficulty

COUNTING THE JURYMEN. 113

in counting them. I counted them several times, yet always
with the same difficulty. In short, I made them one too many.

I touched the brother juryman whose place was next me,
and I whispered to him, " Oblige me by counting us."" He
looked surprised by the request, but turned his head and
counted. " Why," says he, suddenly, " we are Thirt — ; but
no, it's not possible. No. We are twelve."

According to my counting that day, we were always right
in detail, but in the gross we were always one too many.
There was no appearance — no figure — to account for it ; but
I had now an inward foreshadowing of the figure that was
surely coming.

The Jury were housed at the London Tavern. We all
slept in one large room on separate tables, and we were con
stantly in the charge and under the eye of the officer sworn
to hold us in safe-keeping. I see no reason for suppressing
the real name of that officer. He was intelligent, highly
polite, and obliging, and (I was glad to hear) much respected
in the City. He had an agreeable presence, good eyes,
enviable black whiskers, and a fine sonorous voice. His name
was Mr. Harker.

When we turned into our twelve beds at night, Mr. Barker's
bed was drawn across the door. On the night of the second
day, not being disposed to lie down, and seeing Mr. Harker
sitting on his bed, I went and sat beside him, and offered
him a pinch of snuff. As Mr. Barker's hand touched mine
in taking it from my box, a peculiar shiver crossed him, and
he said, "Who is this?"

Following Mr. Barker's eyes, and looking along the room,
I saw again the figure I expected, — the second of the two
men who had gone down Piccadilly. I rose, and advanced a
few steps; then stopped, and looked round at Mr. Harker.
He was quite unconcerned, laughed, and said in a pleasant
way, " I thought for a moment we had a thirteenth juryman,
without a bed. But I see it is the moonlight."

Making no revelation to Mr. Harker, but inviting him to

VOL. ii. j

114 DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

take a walk with me to the end of the room, I watched what
the figure did. It stood for a few moments by the bedside
of each of my eleven brother jurymen, close to the pillow.
It always went to the right-hand side of the bed, and always
passed out crossing the foot of the next bed. It seemed, from
the action of the head, merely to look down pensively at each
recumbent figure. It took no notice of me, or of my bed,
which was that nearest to Mr. Barker's. It seemed to go
out where the moonlight came in, through a high window,
as by an aerial flight of stairs.

Next morning at breakfast, it appeared that everybody
present had dreamed of the murdered man last night, except
myself and Mr. Harker.

I now felt as convinced that the second man who had gone
down Piccadilly was the murdered man (so to speak), as if it
had been borne into my comprehension by his immediate
testimony. But even this took place, and in a manner for
which I was not at all prepared.

On the fifth day of the trial, when the case for the prose
cution was drawing to a close, a miniature of the murdered
man, missing from his bedroom upon the discovery of the
deed, and afterwards found in a hiding-place where the Mur
derer had been seen digging, was put in evidence. Having been
identified by the witness under examination, it was handed
up to the Bench, and thence handed down to be inspected
by the Jury. As an officer in a black gown was making his
way with it across to me, the figure of the second man who
had gone down Piccadilly impetuously started from the crowd,
caught the miniature from the officer, and gave it to me with
his own hands, at the same time saying, in a low and hollow
tone, — before I saw the miniature, which was in a locket, —
"/ was younger then, and my face was not then drained of
Hood? It also came between me and the brother juryman
to whom I would have given the miniature, and between him
and the brother juryman to whom he would have given it,
and so passed it on through the whole of our number, and

APPARITION OF THE MURDERED MAN. 115

back into my possession. Not one of them, however, detected
this.

At table, and generally when we were shut up together in
Mr. Barker's custody, we had from the first naturally discussed
the day's proceedings a good deal. On that fifth day, the
case for the prosecution being closed, and we having that
side of the question in a completed shape before us, our dis
cussion was more animated and serious. Among our number
was a vestryman, — the densest idiot I have ever seen at large,
— who met the plainest evidence with the most preposterous
objections, and who was sided with by two flabby parochial
parasites ; all the three impanelled from a district so delivered
over to Fever that they ought to have been upon their own
trial for five hundred Murders. When these mischievous
blockheads were at their loudest, which was towards midnight,
while some of us were already preparing for bed, I again saw
the murdered man. He stood grimly behind them, beckoning
to me. On my going towards them, and striking into the
conversation, he immediately retired. This was the beginning
of a separate series of appearances, confined to that long
room in which we were confined. Whenever a knot of my
brother jurymen laid their heads together, I saw the head of
the murdered man among theirs. Whenever their comparison
of notes was going against him, he would solemnly and
irresistibly beckon to me.

It will be borne in mind that down to the production of
the miniature, on the fifth day of the trial, I had never seen
the Appearance in Court. Three changes occurred now that
we entered on the case for the defence. Two of them I will
mention together, first. The figure was now in Court con
tinually, and it never there addressed itself to me, but always
to the person who was speaking at the time. For instance :
the throat of the murdered man had been cut straight across.
In the opening speech for the defence, it was suggested that
the deceased might have cut his own throat. At that very
moment, the figure, with its throat in the dreadful condition

116 DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

referred to (this it had concealed before), stood at the speaker's
elbow, motioning across and across its windpipe, now with
the right hand, now with the left, vigorously suggesting to
the speaker himself the impossibility of such a wound having
been self-inflicted by either hand. For another instance: a
witness to character, a woman, deposed to the prisoner's being
the most amiable of mankind. The figure at that instant
stood on the floor before her, looking her full in the face,
and pointing out the prisoner's evil countenance with an
extended arm and an outstretched finger.

The third change now to be added impressed me strongly
as the most marked and striking of all. I do not theorise
upon it; I accurately state it, and there leave it. Although
the Appearance was not itself perceived by those whom it
addressed, its coming close to such persons was invariably
attended by some trepidation or disturbance on their part.
It seemed to me as if it were prevented, by laws to which I
was not amenable, from fully revealing itself to others, and
yet as if it could invisibly, dumbly, and darkly overshadow
their minds. When the leading counsel for the defence sug
gested that hypothesis of suicide, and the figure stood at the
learned gentleman's elbow, frightfully sawing at its severed
throat, it is undeniable that the counsel faltered in his speech,
lost for a few seconds the thread of his ingenious discourse,
wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, and turned extremely
pale. When the witness to character was confronted by the
Appearance, her eyes most certainly did follow the direction
of its pointed finger, and rest in great hesitation and trouble
upon the prisoner's face. Two additional illustrations will
suffice. On the eighth day of the trial, after the pause which
was every day made early in the afternoon for a few minutes'
rest and refreshment, I came back into court with the rest
of the Jury some little time before the return of the Judges.
Standing up in the box and looking about me, I thought the
figure was not there, until, chancing to raise my eyes to the
gallery, I saw it bending forward, and leaning over a very

CLOSING OF THE TRIAL. 117

decent woman, as if to assure itself whether the Judges had
resumed their seats or not. Immediately afterwards that
woman screamed, fainted, and was carried out. So with the
venerable, sagacious, and patient Judge who conducted the
trial. When the case was over, and he settled himself and
his papers to sum up, the murdered man, entering by the
Judges'1 door, advanced to his Lordship's desk, and looked
eagerly over his shoulder at the pages of his notes which he
was turning. A change came over his Lordship's face; his
hand stopped; the peculiar shiver, that I knew so well,
passed over him ; he faltered, " Excuse me, gentlemen, for a
few moments. I am somewhat oppressed by the vitiated air ; "
and did not recover until he had drunk a glass of water.

Through all the monotony of six of those interminable ten
days, — the same Judges and others on the bench, the same
Murderer in the dock, the same lawyers at the table, the
same tones of question and answer rising to the roof of the
court, the same scratching of the Judge's pen, the same
ushers going in and out, the same lights kindled at the same
hour when there had been any natural light of day, the
same foggy curtain outside the great windows when it was
foggy, the same rain pattering and dripping when it was
rainy, the same footmarks of turnkeys and prisoner day after
day on the same sawdust, the same keys locking and un
locking the same heavy doors, — through all the wearisome
monotony which made me feel as if I had been Foreman
of the Jury for a vast period of time, and Piccadilly had
flourished coevally with Babylon, the murdered man never
lost one trace of his distinctness in my eyes, nor was he at
any moment less distinct than anybody else. I must not
omit, as a matter of fact, that I never once saw the Appear
ance which I call by the name of the murdered man look at
the Murderer. Again and again I wondered, " Why does he
not?" But he never did.

Nor did he look at me, after the production of the
miniature, until the last closing minutes of the trial arrived.

118 DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

We retired to consider, at seven minutes before ten at night.
The idiotic vestryman and his two parochial parasites gave us
so much trouble that we twice returned into Court to beg to
have certain extracts from the Judge's notes re-read. Nine
of us had not the smallest doubt about those passages, neither,
I believe, had any one in the Court ; the dunder-headed
triumvirate, however, having no idea but obstruction, dis
puted them for that very reason. At length we prevailed,
and finally the Jury returned into Court at ten minutes past
twelve.

The murdered man at that time stood directly opposite
the Jury-box, on the other side of the Court. As I took my
place, his eyes rested on me with great attention ; he seemed
satisfied, and slowly shook a great gray veil, which he carried
on his arm for the first time, over his head and whole form.
As I gave in our verdict, " Guilty," the veil collapsed, all was
gone, and his place was empty.

The Murderer, being asked by the Judge, according to
usage, whether he had anything to say before sentence of
Death should be passed upon him, indistinctly muttered
something which was described in the leading newspapers of
the following day as " a few rambling, incoherent, and half-
audible words, in which he was understood to complain that
he had not had a fair trial, because the Foreman of the Jury
was prepossessed against him." The remarkable declaration
that he really made was this : " My Lord, I knew I was a
doomed man, when the Foreman of my Jury came into the box.
My Lord, I knew he would never let me off, because, before I
was taken, he somehow got to my bedside in the night, woke me,
and put a rope round my neck?

I

III.

TO BE TAKEN FOR LIFE.

So every item of my plan was crowned with success. Our
re-united life was more than all that we had looked forward
to. Content and joy went with us as the wheels of the two
carts went round, and the same stopped with us when the
two carts stopped. I was as pleased and as proud as a Pug-
Dog with his muzzle black-leaded for a evening party, and
his tail extra curled by machinery.

But I had left something out of my calculations. Now,
what had I left out ? To help you to guess 111 say, a figure.
Come. Make a guess and guess right. Nought ? No. Nine ?
No. Eight? No. Seven? No. Six? No. Five? No.
Four? No. Three? No. Two? No. One? No. Now
I'll tell you what 111 do with you. Ill say it's another sort
of figure altogether. There. Why then, says you, it's a
mortal figure. No, nor yet a mortal figure. By such means
you get yourself penned into a corner, and you can't help
guessing a immortal figure. That's about it. Why didn't
you say so sooner?

Yes. It was a immortal figure that I had altogether left
out of my calculations. Neither man's, nor woman's, but a
child's. Girl's or boy's ? Boy's. " I, says the sparrow, with
my bow and arrow." Now you have got it.

We were down at Lancaster, and I had done two nights
more than fair average business (though I cannot in honour

120 DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

recommend them as a quick audience) in the open square
there, near the end of the street where Mr. Sly's King's
Arms and Royal Hotel stands. Mini's travelling giant,
otherwise Pickleson, happened at the self-same time to be
trying it on in the town. The genteel lay was adopted with
him. No hint of a van. Green baize alcove leading up to
Pickleson in a Auction Room. Printed poster, "Free list
suspended, with the exception of that proud boast of an
enlightened country, a free press. Schools admitted by private
arrangement. Nothing to raise a blush in the cheek of youth
or shock the most fastidious." Mim swearing most horrible
and terrific, in a pink calico pay-place, at the slackness of
the public. Serious handbill in the shops, importing that it
was all but impossible to come to a right understanding of
the history of David without seeing Pickleson.

I went to the Auction Room in question, and I found it
entirely empty of everything but echoes and mouldiness, with
the single exception of Pickleson on a piece of red drugget.
This suited my purpose, as I wanted a private and confiden
tial word with him, which was : " Pickleson. Owing much
happiness to you, I put you in my will for a fypunnote ; but,
to save trouble, here's fourpunten down, which may equally
suit your views, and let us so conclude the transaction."
Pickleson, who up to that remark had had the dejected
appearance of a long Roman rushlight that couldn't anyhow
get lighted, brightened up at his top extremity, and made his
acknowledgments in a way which (for him) was parliamentary
eloquence. He likewise did add, that, having ceased to draw
as a Roman, Mim had made proposals for his going in as a
conwerted Indian Giant worked upon by The Dairyman's
Daughter. This, Pickleson, having no acquaintance with
the tract named after that young woman, and not being
willing to couple gag with his serious views, had declined to
do, thereby leading to words and the total stoppage of the
unfortunate young man's beer. All of which, during the
whole of the interview, was confirmed by the ferocious growling

THE STRANGE YOUNG MAN.

of Mim down below in the pay-place, which shook the giant
like a leaf.

But what was to the present point in the remarks of
the travelling giant, otherwise Pickleson, was this : " Doctor
Marigold,11 — I give his words without a hope of conweying
their feebleness, — " who is the strange young man that hangs
about your carts ? " — " The strange young man ? " I gives him
back, thinking that he meant her, and his languid circulation
had dropped a syllable. " Doctor,1' he returns, with a pathos
calculated to draw a tear from even a manly eye, "I am
weak, but not so weak yet as that I don't know my words.
I repeat them, Doctor. The strange young man." It then
appeared that Pickleson, being forced to stretch his legs (not
that they wanted it) only at times when he couldn't be seen
for nothing, to wit in the dead of the night and towards
daybreak, had twice seen hanging about my carts, in that
same town of Lancaster where I had been only two nights,
this same unknown young man.

It put me rather out of sorts. What it meant as to
particulars I no more foreboded then than you forebode now,
but it put me rather out of sorts. Howsoever, I made light
of it to Pickleson, and I took leave of Pickleson, advising him
to spend his legacy in getting up his stamina, and to continue
to stand by his religion. Towards morning I kept a look
out for the strange young man, and — what was more — I saw
the strange young man. He was well dressed and well looking.
He loitered very nigh my carts, watching them like as if
he was taking care of them, and soon after daybreak turned
and went away. I sent a hail after him, but he never
started or looked round, or took the smallest notice.

We left Lancaster within an hour or two, on our way
towards Carlisle. Next morning, at daybreak, I looked out
again for the strange young man. I did not see him. But
next morning I looked out again, and there he was once
more. I sent another hail after him, but as before he gave
not the slightest sign of being anyways disturbed. This put

DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

a thought into my head. Acting on it I watched him in
different manners and at different times not necessary to
enter into, till I found that this strange young man was
deaf and dumb.

The discovery turned me over, because I knew that a part
of that establishment where she had been was allotted to
young men (some of them well off), and I thought to myself,
" If she favours him, where am I ? and where is all that I
have worked and planned for?1' Hoping — I must confess to
the selfishness — that she might not favour him, I set myself
to find out. At last I was by accident present at a meeting
between them in the open air, looking on leaning behind a
fir-tree without their knowing of it. It was a moving meet
ing for all the three parties concerned. I knew every syllable
that passed between them as well as they did. I listened
with my eyes, which had come to be as quick and true with
deaf and dumb conversation as my ears with the talk of
people that can speak. He was a-going out to China as
clerk in a merchant's house, which his father had been before
him. He was in circumstances to keep a wife, and he wanted
her to marry him and go along with him. She persisted,
no. He asked if she didn't love him. Yes, she loved
him dearly, dearly; but she could never disappoint her
beloved, good, noble, generous, and I-don't-know-what-all
father (meaning me, the Cheap Jack in the sleeved waistcoat),
and she would stay with him, Heaven bless him ! though it
was to break her heart. Then she cried most bitterly, and
that made up my mind.

While my mind had been in an unsettled state about
her favouring this young man, I had felt that unreasonable
towards Pickleson, that it was well for him he had got his
legacy down. For I often thought, "If it hadn't been for
this same weak-minded giant, I might never have come to
trouble my head and wex my soul about the young man." But,
once that I knew she loved him, — once that I had seen her
weep for him, — it was a different thing. I made it right in

THE LAST PRESCRIPTION. 123

my mind with Pickleson on the spot, and I shook myself
together to do what was right by all.

She had left the young man by that time (for it took a
few minutes to get me thoroughly well shook together), and
the young man was leaning against another of the fir-
trees, — of which there was a cluster, — with his face upon his
arm. I touched him on the back. Looking up and seeing
me, he says, in our deaf-and-dumb talk, "Do not be angry."

"I am not angry, good boy. I am your friend. Come
with me."

I left him at the foot of the steps of the Library Cart,
and I went up alone. She was drying her eyes.

"You have been crying, my dear."

"Yes, father."

"Why?"

"A headache."

"Not a heartache?"

" I said a headache, father."

"Doctor Marigold must prescribe for that headache."

She took up the book of my Prescriptions, and held it up
with a forced smile; but seeing me keep still and look
earnest, she softly laid it down again, and her eyes were
very attentive.

"The Prescription is not there, Sophy."

"Where is it?

"Here, my dear."

I brought her young husband in, and I put her hand in
his, and my only farther words to both of them were these:
" Doctor Marigold's last Prescription. To be taken for life."
After which I bolted.

When the wedding come off, I mounted a coat (blue, and
bright buttons), for the first and last time in all my days,
and I give Sophy away with my own hand. There were
only us three and the gentleman who had had charge of her
for those two years. I give the wedding dinner of four in
the Library Cart. Pigeon-pie, a leg of pickled pork, a pair

DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

of fowls, and suitable garden stuff. The best of drinks. I
give them a speech, and the gentleman give us a speech, and
all our jokes told, and the whole went off like a sky-rocket.
In the course of the entertainment I explained to Sophy
that I should keep the Library Cart as my living-cart when
not upon the road, and that I should keep all her books for
her just as they stood, till she come back to claim them.
So she went to China with her young husband, and it was a
parting sorrowful and heavy, and I got the boy I had
another service ; and so as of old, when my child and wife
were gone, I went plodding along alone, with my whip over
my shoulder, at the old horse's head.

Sophy wrote me many letters, and I wrote her many
letters. About the end of the first year she sent me one in
an unsteady hand : " Dearest father, not a week ago I had
a darling little daughter, but I am so well that they let me
write these words to you. Dearest and best father, I hope
my child may not be deaf and dumb, but I do not yet
know." When I wrote back, I hinted the question; but as
Sophy never answered that question, I felt it to be a sad
one, and I never repeated it. For a long time our letters
were regular, but then they got irregular, through Sophy's
husband being moved to another station, and through my
being always on the move. But we were in one another's
thoughts, I was equally sure, letters or no letters.

Five years, odd months, had gone since Sophy went away.
I was still the King of the Cheap Jacks, and at a greater
height of popularity than ever. I had had a first-rate
autumn of it, and on the twenty-third of December, one
thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, I found myself at
Uxbridge, Middlesex, clean sold out. So I jogged up to
London with the old horse, light and easy, to have my
Christmas-eve and Christmas-day alone by the fire in the
Library Cart, and then to buy a regular new stock of goods
all round, to sell 'em again and get the money.

I am a neat hand at cookery, and I'll tell you what

VISION AND REALITY. 125

I knocked up for my Christmas-eve dinner in the Library
Cart. I knocked up a beefsteak-pudding for one, with two
kidneys, a dozen oysters, and a couple of mushrooms thrown
in. It's a pudding to put a man in good humour with
everything, except the two bottom buttons of his waistcoat.
Having relished that pudding and cleared away, I turned the
lamp low, and sat down by the light of the fire, watching it
as it shone upon the backs of Sophy's books.

Sophy's books so brought up Sophy's self, that I saw her
touching face quite plainly, before I dropped off dozing by
the fire. This may be a reason why Sophy, with her deaf-
and-dumb child in her arms, seemed to stand silent by me
all through my nap. I was on the road, off the road, in all
sorts of places, North and South and West and East, Winds
liked best and winds liked least, Here and there and gone
astray, Over the hills and far away, and still she stood silent
by me, with her silent child in her arms. Even when I woke
with a start, she seemed to vanish, as if she had stood by
me in that very place only a single instant before.

I had started at a real sound, and the sound was on the
steps of the cart. It was the light hurried tread of a child,
coming clambering up. That tread of a child had once been
so familiar to me, that for half a moment I believed I was
a-going to see a little ghost.

But the touch of a real child was laid upon the outer
handle of the door, and the handle turned, and the door
opened a little way, and a real child peeped in. A bright
little comely girl with large dark eyes.

Looking full at me, the tiny creature took off her mite of
a straw hat, and a quantity of dark curls fell all about her
face. Then she opened her lips, and said in a pretty voice,

" Grandfather ! "

" Ah, my God ! " I cries out. " She can speak ! "

"Yes, dear grandfather. And I am to ask you whether
there was ever any one that I remind you of?"

In a moment Sophy was round my neck, as well as the

126 DOCTOR MARIGOLD.

child, and her husband was a-wringing my hand with his
face hid, and we all had to shake ourselves together before
we could get over it. And when we did begin to get over
it, and I saw the pretty child a-talking, pleased and quick
and eager and busy, to her mother, in the signs that I had
first taught her mother, the happy and yet pitying tears fell
rolling down my face.

MUGBY JUNCTION

[1866]

MUGBY JUNCTION.

In Jfour Chapters.

CHAPTER I.

BARBOX BROTHERS.

L

" GUARD ! What place is this ? "

"Mugby Junction, sir."

" A windy place ! "

"Yes, it mostly is, sir."

" And looks comfortless indeed ! "

"Yes, it generally does, sir."

"Is it a rainy night still?"

"Pours, sir."

"Open the door. Til get out."

"You'll have, sir," said the guard, glistening with drops
of wet, and looking at the tearful face of his watch by
the light of his lantern as the traveller descended, "three
minutes here."

"More, I think. — For I am not going on."

" Thought you had a through ticket, sir ? "

" So I have, but I shall sacrifice the rest of it. I want
my luggage."

VOL. II. K

130 MUGBY JUNCTION.

" Please to come to the van and point it out, sir. Be good
enough to look very sharp, sir. Not a moment to spare.1'

The guard hurried to the luggage van, and the traveller
hurried after him. The guard got into it, and the traveller
looked into it.

"Those two large black portmanteaus in the corner where
your light shines. Those are mine."

" Name upon 'em, sir ? "

"Barbox Brothers."

"Stand clear, sir, if you please. One. Two. Right!*"
Lamp waved. Signal lights ahead already changing. Shriek
from engine. Train gone.

"Mugby Junction!" said the traveller, pulling up the
woollen muffler round his throat with both hands. "At
past three o'clock of a tempestuous morning ! So ! "

He spoke to himself. There was no one else to speak to.
Perhaps, though there had been any one else to speak to,
he would have preferred to speak to himself. Speaking to
himself he spoke to a man within five years of fifty either
way, who had turned grey too soon, like a neglected fire ; a
man of pondering habit, brooding carriage of the head, and
suppressed internal voice; a man with many indications on
him of having been much alone.

He stood unnoticed on the dreary platform, except by the
rain and by the wind. Those two vigilant assailants made
a rush at him. "Very well," said he, yielding. "It signifies
nothing to me to what quarter I turn my face."

Thus, at Mugby Junction, at past three o'clock of a
tempestuous morning, the traveller went where the weather
drove him.

Not but what he could make a stand when he was so
minded, for, coming to the end of the roofed shelter (it is
of considerable extent at Mugby Junction), and looking out
upon the dark night, with a yet darker spirit-wing of storm
beating its wild way through it, he faced about, and held his
own as ruggedly in the difficult direction as he had held it

SHADOWY SHAPES. 131

in the easier one. Thus, with a steady step, the traveller
went up and down, up and down, up and down, seeking
nothing and finding it.

A place replete with shadowy shapes, this Mugby Junction
in the black hours of the four-arid-twenty. Mysterious
goods trains, covered with palls and gliding on like vast
weird funerals, conveying themselves guiltily away from
the presence of the few lighted lamps, as if their freight
had come to a secret and unlawful end. Half-miles of coal
pursuing in a Detective manner, following when they lead,
stopping when they stop, backing when they back. Red-
hot embers showering out upon the ground, down this dark
avenue, and down the other, as if torturing fires were being
raked clear; concurrently, shrieks and groans and grinds
invading the ear, as if the tortured were at the height of
their suffering. Iron-barred cages full of cattle jangling by
midway, the drooping beasts with horns entangled, eyes
frozen with terror, and mouths too : at least they have long
icicles (or what seem so) hanging from their lips. Unknown
languages in the air, conspiring in red, green, and white
characters. An earthquake, accompanied with thunder and
lightning, going up express to London. Now, all quiet, all
rusty, wind and rain in possession, lamps extinguished,
Mugby Junction dead and indistinct, with its robe drawn
over its head, like Caesar.

Now, too, as the belated traveller plodded up and down,
a shadowy train went by him in the gloom which was no
other than the train of a life. From whatsoever intangible
deep cutting or dark tunnel it emerged, here it came,
unsummoned and unannounced, stealing upon him, and
passing away into obscurity. Here mournfully went by a
child who had never had a childhood or known a parent,
inseparable from a youth with a bitter sense of his nameless-
ness, coupled to a man the enforced business of whose best
years had been distasteful and oppressive, linked to an un
grateful friend, dragging after him a woman once beloved.

MUGBY JUNCTION.

Attendant, with many a clank and wrench, were lumbering
cares, dark meditations, huge dim disappointments, monotonous
years, a long jarring line of the discords of a solitary and
unhappy existence.

" — Yours, sir?"

The traveller recalled his eyes from the waste into which
they had been staring, and fell back a step or so under the
abruptness, and perhaps the chance appropriateness, of the
question.

" Oh ! My thoughts were not here for the moment.
Yes. Yes. Those two portmanteaus are mine. Are you
a Porter?"

"On Porter's wages, sir. But I am Lamps."

The traveller looked a little confused.

"Who did you say you are?"

" Lamps, sir," showing an oily cloth in his hand, as further
explanation.

"Surely, surely. Is there any hotel or tavern here?"

"Not exactly here, sir. "There is a Refreshment Room

here, but " Lamps, with a mighty serious look, gave his

head a warning roll that plainly added — "but it's a blessed
circumstance for you that it's not open."

"You couldn't recommend it, I see, if it was available?"

" Ask your pardon, sir. If it was ? "

"Open?"

"It ain't my place, as a paid servant of the company, to
give my opinion on any of the company's toepics," — he
pronounced it more like toothpicks, — "beyond lamp-ile and
cottons," returned Lamps in a confidential tone; "but,
speaking as a man, I wouldn't recommend my father (if he
was to come to life again) to go and try how he'd be treated
at the Refreshment Room. Not speaking as a man, no, I
would not™

The traveller nodded conviction. " I suppose I can put up
in the town? There is a town here?" For the traveller
(though a stay-at-home compared with most travellers) had

LAMPS. 133

been, like many others, carried on the steam winds and the
iron tides through that Junction before, without having ever,
as one might say, gone ashore there.

" Oh yes, there's a town, sir ! Anyways, there's town enough
to put up in. But," following the glance of the other at his
luggage, "this is a very dead time of the night with us, sir.
The deadest time. I might almost call it our deadest and
buriedest time."

"No porters about?"

"Well, sir, you see," returned Lamps, confidential again,
"they in general goes off with the gas. That's how it is.
And they seem to have overlooked you, through your walk
ing to the furder end of the platform. But, in about twelve
minutes or so, she may be up."

"Who may be up?"

"The three forty-two, sir. She goes off in a sidin' till
the Up X passes, and then she" — here an air of hopeful
vagueness pervaded Lamps — "does all as lays in her
power."

" I doubt if I comprehend the arrangement."

"I doubt if anybody do, sir. She's a Parliamentary, sir.
And, you see, a Parliamentary, or a Skirmishun "

" Do you mean an Excursion ? "

"That's it, sir. — A Parliamentary or a Skirmishun, she
mostly doos go off into a sidin'. But, when she can get a
chance, she's whistled out of it, and she's whistled up into
doin' all as," — Lamps again wore the air of a highly
sanguine man who hoped for the best, — "all as lays in her
power."

He then explained that porters on duty, being required
to be in attendance on the Parliamentary matron in question,
would doubtless turn up with the gas. In the meantime, if
the gentleman would not very much object to the smell of

lamp-oil, and would accept the warmth of his little room

The gentleman, being by this time very cold, instantly closed
with the proposal.

134 MUGBY JUNCTION.

A greasy little cabin it was, suggestive, to the sense of smell,
of a cabin in a Whaler. But there was a bright fire burning
in its rusty grate, and on the floor there stood a wooden
stand of newly trimmed and lighted lamps, ready for carriage
service. They made a bright show, and their light, and the
warmth, accounted for the popularity of the room, as borne
witness to by many impressions of velveteen trousers on a form
by the fire, and many rounded smears and smudges of stooping
velveteen shoulders on the adjacent wall. Various untidy
shelves accommodated a quantity of lamps and oil-cans, and
also a fragrant collection of what looked like the pocket-
handkerchiefs of the whole lamp family.

As Barbox Brothers (so to call the traveller on the warranty
of his luggage) took his seat upon the form, and warmed
his now ungloved hands at the fire, he glanced aside at a
little deal desk, much blotched with ink, which his elbow
touched. Upon it were some scraps of coarse paper, and a
superannuated steel pen in very reduced and gritty circum
stances.

From glancing at the scraps of paper, he turned involun
tarily to his host, and said, with some roughness :

" Why, you are never a poet, man ? "

Lamps had certainly not the conventional appearance of
one, as he stood modestly rubbing his squab nose with a
handkerchief so exceedingly oily, that he might have been
in the act of mistaking himself for one of his charges. He
was a spare man of about the Barbox Brothers time of life,
with his features whimsically drawn upward as if they were
attracted by the roots of his hair. He had a peculiarly
shining transparent complexion, probably occasioned by con
stant oleaginous application; and his attractive hair, being
cut short, and being grizzled, and standing straight up on
end as if it in its turn were attracted by some invisible
magnet above it, the top of his head was not very unlike
a lamp-wick.

"But, to be sure, it's no business of mine,"" said Barbox

A COMPOSER OF COMIC SONGS. 135

Brothers. "That was an impertinent observation on my part.
Be what you like."

" Some people, sir," remarked Lamps in a tone of apology,
"are sometimes what they don't like."

" Nobody knows that better than I do, " sighed the other.
«I have been what I don't like, all my life."

"When I first took, sir," resumed Lamps, "to composing
little Comic-Songs-like "

Barbox Brothers eyed him with great disfavour.

" — To composing little Comic-Songs-like — and what was
more hard — to singing 'em afterwards," said Lamps, " it went
against the grain at that time, it did indeed."

Something that was not all oil here shining in Lamps's eye,
Barbox Brothers withdrew his own a little disconcerted, looked
at the fire, and put a foot on the top bar. " Why did you
do it, then ? " he asked after a short pause ; abruptly enough,
but in a softer tone. " If you didn't want to do it, why did
you do it ? Where did you sing them ? Public-house ? "

To which Mr. Lamps returned the curious reply: "Bed
side."

At this moment, while the traveller looked at him for
elucidation, Mugby Junction started suddenly, trembled
violently, and opened its gas eyes. " She's got up ! " Lamps
announced, excited. "What lays in her power is sometimes
more, and sometimes less ; but it's laid in her power to get
up to-night, by George ! "

The legend "Barbox Brothers," in large white letters on
two black surfaces, was very soon afterwards trundling on a
truck through a silent street, and, when the owner of the
legend had shivered on the pavement half an hour, what
time the porter's knocks at the Inn Door knocked up the
whole town first, and the Inn last, he groped his way into
the close air of a shut-up house, and so groped between the
sheets of a shut-up bed that seemed to have been expressly
refrigerated for him when last made.

136 MUGBY JUNCTION.

II.

" You remember me, Young Jackson ? "

"What do I remember if not you? You are my first
remembrance. It was you who told me that was my name.
It was you who told me that on every twentieth of
December my life had a penitential anniversary in it called a
birthday. I suppose the last communication was truer than
the first !"

"What am I like, Young Jackson ?"

" You are like a blight all through the year to me. You
hard-lined, thin-lipped, repressive, changeless woman with a
wax mask on. You are like the Devil to me ; most of all
when you teach me religious things, for you make me abhor
them."

" You remember me, Mr. Young Jackson ? " In another
voice from another quarter.

"Most gratefully, sir. You were the ray of hope and
prospering ambition in my life. When I attended your
course, I believed that I should come to be a great healer,
and I felt almost happy — even though I was still the one
boarder in the house with that horrible mask, and ate and
drank in silence and constraint with the mask before me,
every day. As I had done every, every, every day, through
my school-time and from my earliest recollection."

" What am I like, Mr. Young Jackson ? "

"You are like a Superior Being to me. You are like
Nature beginning to reveal herself to me. I hear you again,
as one of the hushed crowd of young men kindling under
the power of your presence and knowledge, and you bring
into my eyes the only exultant tears that ever stood in
them."

" You remember Me, Mr. Young Jackson ? " In a grating
voice from quite another quarter.

"Too well. You made your ghostly appearance in my

THE FIRM OF BARBOX BROTHERS. 137

life one day, and announced that its course was to be
suddenly and wholly changed. You showed me which was
my wearisome seat in the Galley of Barbox Brothers.
(When they were, if they ever were, is unknown to me;
there was nothing of them but the name when I bent to
the oar.) You told me what I was to do, and what to be
paid; you told me afterwards, at intervals of years, when I
was to sign for the Firm, when I became a partner, when I
became the Firm. I know no more of it, or of myself."

"What am I like, Mr. Young Jackson?"

"You are like my father, I sometimes think. You are
hard enough and cold enough so to have brought up an
acknowledged son. I see your scanty figure, your close brown
suit, and your tight brown wig ; but you, too, wear a wax
mask to your death. You never by a chance remove it — it
never by a chance falls off — and I know no more of you."

Throughout this dialogue, the traveller spoke to himself at
his window in the morning, as he had spoken to himself at
the Junction overnight. And as he had then looked in the
darkness, a man who had turned grey too soon, like a neglected
fire : so he now looked in the sunlight, an ashier grey, like
a fire which the brightness of the sun put out.

The firm of Barbox Brothers had been some offshoot or
irregular branch of the Public Notary and bill-broking tree.
It had gained for itself a griping reputation before the days
of Young Jackson, and the reputation had stuck to it and
to him. As he had imperceptibly come into possession of
the dim den up in the corner of a court off Lombard Street,
on whose grimy windows the inscription Barbox Brothers had
for many long years daily interposed itself between him and
the sky, so he had insensibly found himself a personage
held in chronic distrust, whom it was essential to screw tight
to every transaction in which he engaged, whose word was
never to be taken without his attested bond, whom all dealers
with openly set up guards and wards against. This character
had come upon him through no act of his own. It was as

138 MUGBY JUNCTION.

if the original Barbox had stretched himself down upon the
office floor, and had thither caused to be conveyed Young
Jackson in his sleep, and had there effected a metempsychosis
and exchange of persons with him. The discovery — aided in
its turn by the deceit of the only woman he had ever loved,
and the deceit of the only friend he had ever made : who
eloped from him to be married together — the discovery, so
followed up, completed what his earliest rearing had begun.
He shrank, abashed, within the form of Barbox, and lifted
up his head and heart no more.

But he did at last effect one great release in his condition.
He broke the oar he had plied so long, and he scuttled and
sank the galley. He prevented the gradual retirement of an
old conventional business from him, by taking the initiative
and retiring from it. With enough to live on (though, after
all, with not too much), he obliterated the firm of Barbox
Brothers from the pages of the Post-Office Directory and the
face of the earth, leaving nothing of it but its name on two
portmanteaus.

" For one must have some name in going about, for people
to pick up," he explained to Mugby High Street, through
the Inn window, "and that name at least was real once.
Whereas, Young Jackson ! — Not to mention its being a sadly
satirical misnomer for Old Jackson."

He took up his hat and walked out, just in time to see,
passing along on the opposite side of the way, a velveteen
man, carrying his day^s dinner in a small bundle that might
have been larger without suspicion of gluttony, and pelting
away towards the Junction at a great pace.

"There's Lamps!" said Barbox Brothers. "And by-the-
bye— »

Ridiculous, surely, that a man so serious, so self-con
tained, and not yet three days emancipated from a routine
of drudgery, should stand rubbing his chin in the street, in
a brown study about Comic Songs.

"Bedside?" said Barbox Brothers testily. "Sings them

COMPLICATED LINES. 139

at the bedside? Why at the bedside, unless he goes to bed
drunk? Does, I shouldn't wonder. But it's no business of
mine. Let me see. Mugby Junction, Mugby Junction.
Where shall I go next? As it came into my head last
night when I woke from an uneasy sleep in the carriage and
found myself here, I can go anywhere from here. Where
shall I go? Til go and look at the Junction by daylight.
There's no hurry, and I may like the look of one Line better
than another."

But there were so many Lines. Gazing down upon them
from a bridge at the Junction, it was as if the concentrating
Companies formed a great Industrial Exhibition of the works
of extraordinary ground spiders that spun iron. And then
so many of the Lines went such wonderful ways, so crossing
and curving among one another, that the eye lost them.
And then some of them appeared to start with the fixed
intention of going five hundred miles, and all of a sudden
gave it up at an insignificant barrier, or turned off into a
workshop. And then others, like intoxicated men, went a
little way very straight, and surprisingly slued round and
came back again. And then others were so chock-full of
trucks of coal, others were so blocked with trucks of casks,
others were so gorged with trucks of ballast, others were so
set apart for wheeled objects like immense iron cotton-reels :
while others were so bright and clear, and others were so
delivered over to rust and ashes and idle wheelbarrows out
of work, with their legs in the air (looking much like their
masters on strike), that there was no beginning, middle, or
end to the bewilderment.

Barbox Brothers stood puzzled on the bridge, passing his
right hand across the lines on his forehead, which multiplied
while he looked down, as if the railway Lines were getting
themselves photographed on that sensitive plate. Then was
heard a distant ringing of bells and blowing of whistles.
Then, puppet-looking heads of men popped out of boxes in
perspective, and popped in again. Then, prodigious wooden

140 MUGBY JUNCTION.

razors, set up on end, began shaving the atmosphere. Then,
several locomotive engines in several directions began to
scream and be agitated. Then, along one avenue a train
came in. Then, along another two trains appeared that
didn't come in, but stopped without. Then, bits of trains
broke off. Then, a struggling horse became involved with
them. Then, the locomotives shared the bits of trains, and
ran away with the whole.

"I have not made my next move much clearer by this.
No hurry. No need to make up my mind to-day, or
to-morrow, nor yet the day after. I'll take a walk."

It fell out somehow (perhaps he meant it should) that
the walk tended to the platform at which he had alighted,
and to Lamps's room. But Lamps was not in his room. A
pair of velveteen shoulders were adapting themselves to one
of the impressions on the wall by Lamps's fireplace, but
otherwise the room was void. In passing back to get out of
the station again, he learnt the cause of this vacancy, by
catching sight of Lamps on the opposite line of railway,
skipping along the top of a train, from carriage to carriage,
and catching lighted namesakes thrown up to him by a
coadjutor.

"He is busy. He has not much time for composing or
singing Comic Songs this morning, I take it."

The direction he pursued now was into the country,
keeping very near to the side of one great Line of railway,
and within easy view of others. "I have half a mind," he
said, glancing around, "to settle the question from this
point, by saying, Til take this set of rails, or that, or
t'other, and stick to it."1 They separate themselves from the
confusion, out here, and go their ways."

Ascending a gentle hill of some extent, he came to a few
cottages. There, looking about him as a very reserved man
might who had never looked about him in his life before, he
saw some six or eight young children come merrily trooping
and whooping from one of the cottages, and disperse. But

THE FACE AT THE WINDOW. 141

not until they had all turned at the little garden-gate, and
kissed their hands to a face at the upper window : a low
window enough, although the upper, for the cottage had
but a story of one room above the ground.

Now, that the children should do this was nothing; but
that they should do this to a face lying on the sill of the
open window, turned towards them in a horizontal position,
and apparently only a face, was something noticeable. He
looked up at the window again. Could only see a very fragile,
though a very bright face, lying on one cheek on the window-
sill. The delicate smiling face of a girl or woman. Framed
in long bright brown hair, round which was tied a light blue
band or fillet, passing under the chin.

He walked on, turned back, passed the window again, shyly
glanced up again. No change. He struck off by a winding
branch-road at the top of the hill — which he must otherwise
have descended — kept the cottages in view, worked his way
round at a distance so as to come out once more into the
main road, and be obliged to pass the cottages again. The
face still lay on the window-sill, but not so much inclined
towards him. And now there were a pair of delicate hands
too. They had the action of performing on some musical
instrument, and yet it produced no sound that reached his
ears.

" Mugby Junction must be the maddest place in England,1"
said Barbox Brothers, pursuing his way down the hill.
"The first thing I find here is a Railway Porter who
composes comic songs to sing at his bedside. The second
thing I find here is a face, and a pair of hands playing a
musical instrument that don't play ! "

The day was a fine bright day in the early beginning of
November, the air was clear and inspiriting, and the landscape
was rich in beautiful colours. The prevailing colours in the
court off Lombard Street, London city, had been few and
sombre. Sometimes, when the weather elsewhere was very
bright indeed, the dwellers in those tents enjoyed a pepper-

MUGBY JUNCTION.

and-salt-coloured day or two, but their atmosphere's usual
wear was slate or snuff coloured.

He relished his walk so well that he repeated it next day.
He was a little earlier at the cottage than on the day before,
and he could hear the children up-stairs singing to a regular
measure, and clapping out the time with their hands.

" Still, there is no sound of any musical instrument,"" he
said, listening at the corner, "and yet I saw the performing
hands again as I came by. What are the children singing?
Why, good Lord, they can never be singing the multiplication
table?"

They were, though, and with infinite enjoyment. The
mysterious face had a voice attached to it, which occasionally
led or set the children right. Its musical cheerfulness was
delightful. The measure at length stopped, and was succeeded
by a murmuring of young voices, and then by a short song
which he made out to be about the current month of the
year, and about what work it yielded to the labourers in
the fields and farmyards. Then there was a stir of little feet,
and the children came trooping and whooping out, as on the
previous day. And again, as on the previous day, they all
turned at the garden-gate, and kissed their hands — evidently
to the face on the window-sill, though Barbox Brothers from
his retired post of disadvantage at the corner could not see it.

But, as the children dispersed, he cut off one small straggler
— a brown-faced boy with flaxen hair — and said to him :

" Come here, little one. Tell me, whose house is that ? "

The child, with one swarthy arm held up across his eyes,
half in shyness, and half ready for defence, said from behind
the inside of his elbow :

"Phoebe's.11

" And who," said Barbox Brothers, quite as much embarrassed
by his part in the dialogue as the child could possibly be by
his, "is Phoebe?"

To which the child made answer : " Why, Phoebe, of course."

The small but sharp observer had eyed his questioner closely,

PHCEBE. 143

and had taken his moral measure. He lowered his guard,
and rather assumed a tone with him : as having discovered
him to be an unaccustomed person in the art of polite
conversation.

"Phcebe," said the child, "can't be anybobby else but
Phcebe. Can she?"

"No, I suppose not."

"Well," returned the child, "then why did you ask me?"

Deeming it prudent to shift his ground, Barbox Brothers
took up a new position.

"What do you do there? Up there in that room where
the open window is. What do you do there ? "

"Cool," said the child.

"Eh?"

" Co-o-ol," the child repeated in a louder voice, lengthening
out the word with a fixed look and great emphasis, as much
as to say : " What's the use of your having grown up, if
you're such a donkey as not to understand me ? "

" Ah ! School, school," said Barbox Brothers. " Yes, yes,
yes. And Phoebe teaches you ? "

The child nodded.

"Good boy."

" Tound it out, have you ? " said the child.

"Yes, I have found it out. What would you do with
twopence, if I gave it you ? "

"Pend it."

The knock-down promptitude of this reply leaving him not
a leg to stand upon, Barbox Brothers produced the twopence
with great lameness, and withdrew in a state of humiliation.

But, seeing the face on the window-sill as he passed the
cottage, he acknowledged its presence there with a gesture,
which was not a nod, not a bow, not a removal of his hat
from his head, but was a diffident compromise between or
struggle with all three. The eyes in the face seemed amused,
or cheered, or both, and the lips modestly said : " Good day
to you, sir."

144. MUGBY JUNCTION.

" I find I must stick for a time to Mugby Junction," said
Barbox Brothers with much gravity, after once more stopping
on his return road to look at the Lines where they went
their several ways so quietly. "I can't make up my mind
yet which iron road to take. In fact, I must get a little
accustomed to the Junction before I can decide."

So, he announced at the Inn that he was "going to stay
on for the present," and improved his acquaintance with the
Junction that night, and again next morning, and again next
night and morning : going down to the station, mingling with
the people there, looking about him down all the avenues of
railway, and beginning to take an interest in the incomings
and outgoings of the trains. At first, he often put his head
into Lamps's little room, but he never found Lamps there.
A pair or two of velveteen shoulders he usually found there,
stooping over the fire, sometimes in connection with a clasped
knife and a piece of bread and meat; but the answer to his
inquiry, "Where's Lamps?" was, either that he was "t'other
side the line," or, that it was his off-time, or (in the latter
case) his own personal introduction to another Lamps who
was not his lamps. However, he was not so desperately set
upon seeing Lamps now, but he bore the disappointment.
Nor did he so wholly devote himself to his severe application
to the study of Mugby Junction as to neglect exercise. On
the contrary, he took a walk every day, and always the same
walk. But the weather turned cold and wet again, and the
window was never open.

m.

At length, after a lapse of some days, there came another
streak of fine bright hardy autumn weather. It was a Satur
day. The window was open, and the children were gone.
Not surprising, this, for he had patiently watched and waited
at the corner until they were gone.

NOT AN INVALID! 145

"Good day," he said to the face; absolutely getting his
hat clear off his head this time.

"Good day to you, sir.1'

" I am glad you have a fine sky again to look at."

" Thank you, sir. It is kind of you."

"You are an invalid, I fear?"

"No, sir. I have very good health."

" But are you not always lying down ? "

"Oh yes, I am always lying down, because I cannot sit
up ! But I am not an invalid."

The laughing eyes seemed highly to enjoy his great mistake.

"Would you mind taking the trouble to come in, sir?
There is a beautiful view from this window. And you would
see that I am not at all ill — being so good as to care."

It was said to help him, as he stood irresolute, but evidently
desiring to enter, with his diffident hand on the latch of the
garden-gate. It did help him, and he went in.

The room up-stairs was a very clean white room with a
low roof. Its only inmate lay on a couch that brought her
face to a level with the window. The couch was white too;
and her simple dress or wrapper being light blue, like the
band around her hair, she had an ethereal look, and a fanciful
appearance of lying among clouds. He felt that she instinc
tively perceived him to be by habit a downcast taciturn
man; it was another help to him to have established that
understanding so easily, and got it over.

There was an awkward constraint upon him, nevertheless,
as he touched her hand, and took a chair at the side of her
couch.

"I see now," he began, not at all fluently, "how you
occupy your hand. Only seeing you from the path outside,
I thought you were playing upon something."

She was engaged in very nimbly and dexterously making
lace. A lace-pillow lay upon her breast; and the quick
movements and changes of her hands upon it, as she worked,
had given them the action he had misinterpreted.

VOL. H. L

146 MUGBY JUNCTION.

"That is curious," she answered with a bright smile.
"For I often fancy, myself, that I play tunes while I am
at work."

" Have you any musical knowledge ? "

She shook her head.

"I think I could pick out tunes, if I had any instrument,
which could be made as handy to me as my lace-pillow. But
I dare say I deceive myself. At all events, I shall never
know."

" You have a musical voice. Excuse me ; I have heard
you sing."

"With the children?" she answered, slightly colouring.
"Oh yes. I sing with the dear children, if it can be called
singing."

Barbox Brothers glanced at the two small forms in the
room, and hazarded the speculation that she was fond of
children, and that she was learned in new systems of teaching
them ?

"Very fond of them," she said, shaking her head again;
" but I know nothing of teaching, beyond the interest I have
in it, and the pleasure it gives me when they learn. Perhaps
your overhearing my little scholars sing some of their lessons
has led you so far astray as to think me a grand teacher?
Ah ! I thought so ! No, I have only read and been told
about that system. It seemed so pretty and pleasant, and
to treat them so like the merry Robins they are, that I look
up with it in my little way. You don't need to be told
what a very little way mine is, sir," she added with a glance
at the small forms and round the room.

All this time her hands were busy at her lace-pillow. As
they still continued so, and as there was a kind of substitute
for conversation in the click and play of its pegs, Barbox
Brothers took the opportunity of observing her. He guessed
her to be thirty. The charm of her transparent face and
large bright brown eyes was, not that they were passively
resigned, but that they were actively and thoroughly cheerful.

A HAPPY DISPOSITION. 147

Even her busy hands, which of their own thinness alone might
have besought compassion, plied their task with a gay courage
that made mere compassion an unjustifiable assumption of
superiority, and an impertinence.

He saw her eyes in the act of rising towards his, and
he directed his towards the prospect, saying : " Beautiful,
indeed!"

" Most beautiful, sir. I have sometimes had a fancy that
I would like to sit up, for once, only to try how it looks to
an erect head. But what a foolish fancy that would be to
encourage ! It cannot look more lovely to any one than it
does to me/'

Her eyes were turned to it, as she spoke, with most
delighted admiration and enjoyment. There was not a trace
in it of any sense of deprivation.

" And those threads of railway, with their puffs of smoke
and steam changing places so fast, make it so lively for me,"
she went on. "I think of the number of people who can
go where they wish, on their business, or their pleasure; I
remember that the puffs make signs to me that they are
actually going while I look; and that enlivens the prospect
with abundance of company, if I want company. There is
the great Junction, too. I don't see it under the foot of the
hill, but I can very often hear it, and I always know it is
there. It seems to join me, in a way, to I don't know how
many places and things that / shall never see."

With an abashed kind of idea that it might have already
joined himself to something he had never seen, he said
constrainedly: "Just so."

"And so you see, sir," pursued Phoebe, "I am not the
invalid you thought me, and I am very well off indeed."

"You have a happy disposition," said Barbox Brothers:
perhaps with a slight excusatory touch for his own disposition.

" Ah ! But you should know my father," she replied. " His
is the happy disposition ! — Don't mind, sir ! " For his reserve
took the alarm at a step upon the stairs, and he distrusted

148 MUGBY JUNCTION.

that he would be set down for a troublesome intruder.
" This is my father coming."

The door opened, and the father paused there.

" Why, Lamps ! " exclaimed Barbox Brothers, starting from
his chair. " How do you DO, Lamps ? "

To which Lamps responded : " The gentleman for Nowhere !
How do you DO, sir?"

And they shook hands, to the greatest admiration and
surprise of Lamps's daughter.

" I have looked you up half-a-dozen times since that night, "
said Barbox Brothers, "but have never found you."

" So I've heerd on, sir, so I've heerd on," returned Lamps.
" It's your being noticed so often down at the Junction, with
out taking any train, that has begun to get you the name
among us of the gentleman for Nowhere. No offence in my
having called you by it when took by surprise, I hope, sir ? "

"None at all. It's as good a name for me as any other
you could call me by. But may I ask you a question in the
corner here?"

Lamps suffered himself to be led aside from his daughter's
couch by one of the buttons of his velveteen jacket.

" Is this the bedside where you sing your songs ? "

Lamps nodded.

The gentleman for Nowhere clapped him on the shoulder,
and they faced about again.

" Upon my word, my dear," said Lamps then to his daughter,
looking from her to her visitor, "it is such an amaze to me,
to find you brought acquainted with this gentleman, that I
must (if this gentleman will excuse me) take a rounder."

Mr. Lamps demonstrated in action what this meant, by
pulling out his oily handkerchief rolled up in the form of a
ball, and giving himself an elaborate smear, from behind the
right ear, up the cheek, across the forehead, and down the
other cheek to behind his left ear. After this operation he
shone exceedingly.

"It's according to my custom when particular warmed up

FITS AND MISFITS.

149

by any agitation, sir," he offered by way of apology. "And
really, I am throwed into that state of amaze by finding you
brought acquainted with Phoebe, that I — that I think I will,
if you'll excuse me, take another rounder." Which he did,
seeming to be greatly restored by it.

They were now both standing by the side of her couch,
and she was working at her lace-pillow. "Your daughter
tells me," said Barbox Brothers, still in a half-reluctant
shamefaced way, "that she never sits up."

"No, sir, nor never has done. You see, her mother (who
died when she was a year and two months old) was subject
to very bad fits, and as she had never mentioned to me that
she was subject to fits, they couldn't be guarded against.
Consequently, she dropped the baby when took, and this
happened."

"It was very wrong of her," said Barbox Brothers with
a knitted brow, "to marry you, making a secret of her
infirmity."

" Well, sir ! " pleaded Lamps in behalf of the long-deceased.
"You see, Phoebe and me, we have talked that over too.
And Lord bless us ! Such a number on us has our infirmi
ties, what with fits, and what with misfits, of one sort and
another, that if we confessed to 'em all before we got
married, most of us might never get married."

"Might not that be for the better?"

" Not in this case, sir," said Phoebe, giving her hand to her
father.

"No, not in this case, sir," said her father, patting it
between his own.

" You correct me," returned Barbox Brothers with a blush ;
" and I must look so like a Brute, that at all events it would
be superfluous in me to confess to that infirmity. I wish you
would tell me a little more about yourselves. I hardly know
how to ask it of you, for I am conscious that I have a bad
stiff manner, a dull discouraging way with me, but I wish you
would."

150 MUGBY JUNCTION.

" With all our hearts, sir," returned Lamps gaily for both.
"And first of all, that you may know my name "

" Stay ! " interposed the visitor with a slight flush. " What
signifies your name? Lamps is name enough for me. I like
it. It is bright and expressive. What do I want more ? "

"Why, to be sure, sir,1' returned Lamps. "I have in
general no other name down at the Junction ; but I thought,
on account of your being here as a first-class single, in a
private character, that you might "

The visitor waved the thought away with his hand, and
Lamps acknowledged the mark of confidence by taking another
rounder.

"You are hard-worked, I take for granted?4" said Barbox
Brothers, when the subject of the rounder came out of it
much dirtier than he went into it.

Lamps was beginning, "Not particular so*" — when his
daughter took him up.

"Oh yes, sir, he is very hard-worked. Fourteen, fifteen,
eighteen hours a day. Sometimes twenty-four hours at a
time."

" And you," said Barbox Brothers, " what with your school,
Phoebe, and what with your lace-making "

"But my school is a pleasure to me," she interrupted,
opening her brown eyes wider, as if surprised to find him so
obtuse. "I began it when I was but a child, because it
brought me and other children into company, don't you see ?
That was not work. I carry it on still, because it keeps
children about me. That is not work. I do it as love, not
as work. Then my lace-pillow ; " her busy hands had stopped,
as if her argument required all her cheerful earnestness, but
now went on again at the name ; " it goes with my thoughts
when I think, and it goes with my tunes when I hum any,
.and that's not work. Why, you yourself thought it was
music, you know, sir. And so it is to me."

" Everything is ! " cried Lamps radiantly. " Everything is
music to her, sir."

ALWAYS ON THE BRIGHT SIDE. 151

" My father is, at any rate," said Phoebe, exultingly pointing
her thin forefinger at him. "There is more music in my
father than there is in a brass band."

" I say ! My dear ! It's very fillyillially done, you know ;
but you are flattering your father," he protested, sparkling.

" No, I am not, sir, I assure you. No, I am not. If you
could hear my father sing, you would know I am not. But
you never will hear him sing, because he never sings to any
one but me. However tired he is, he always sings to me
when he comes home. When I lay here long ago, quite a
poor little broken doll, he used to sing to me. More than
that, he used to make songs, bringing in whatever little jokes
we had between us. More than that, he often does so to
this day. Oh ! Til tell of you, father, as the gentleman has
asked about you. He is a poet, sir."

"I shouldn't wish the gentleman, my dear," observed
Lamps, for the moment turning grave, "to carry away that
opinion of your father, because it might look as if I was
given to asking the stars in a molloncolly manner what they
was up to. Which I wouldn't at once waste the time, and
take the liberty, my dear."

"My father," resumed Phoebe, amending her text, "is
always on the bright side, and the good side. You told me,
just now, I had a happy disposition. How can I help it?"

"Well; but, my dear," returned Lamps argumentatively,
"how can / help it? Put it to yourself, sir. Look at her.
Always as you see her now. Always working — and after all,
sir, for but a very few shillings a week — always contented,
always lively, always interested in others, of all sorts. I
said, this moment, she was always as you see her now. So
she is, with a difference that comes to much the same. For,
when it is my Sunday off and the morning bells have done
ringing, I hear the prayers and thanks read in the touchingest
way, and I have the hymns sung to me — so soft, sir, that
you couldn't hear 'em out of this room — in notes that seem
to me, I am sure, to come from Heaven and go back to it."

152 MUGBY JUNCTION.

It might have been merely through the association of these
words with their sacredly quiet time, or it might have been
through the larger association of the words with the Redeemer's
presence beside the bedridden ; but here her dexterous fingers
came to a stop on the lace-pillow, and clasped themselves
around his neck as he bent down. There was great natural
sensibility in both father and daughter, the visitor could
easily see; but each made it, for the other's sake, retiring,
not demonstrative ; and perfect cheerfulness, intuitive or ac
quired, was either the first or second nature of both. In a
very few moments Lamps was taking another rounder with
his comical features beaming, while Phoebe's laughing eyes
(just a glistening speck or so upon their lashes) were again
directed by turns to him, and to her work, and to Barbox
Brothers.

" When my father, sir," she said brightly, " tells you about
my being interested in other people, even though they know
nothing about me — which, by-the-bye, I told you myself —
you ought to know how that comes about. That's my
father's doing."

"No, it isn't ! " he protested.

"Don't you believe him, sir; yes, it is. He tells me of
everything he sees down at his work. You would be surprised
what a quantity he gets together for me every day. He
looks into the carriages, and tells me how the ladies are
dressed — so that I know all the fashions ! He looks into the
carriages, and tells me what pairs of lovers he sees, and what
new-married couples on their wedding trip — so that I know
all about that ! He collects chance newspapers and books —
so that I have plenty to read ! He tells me about the sick
people who are travelling to try to get better — so that I know
all about them ! In short, as I began by saying, he tells me
everything he sees and makes out down at his work, and you
can't think what a quantity he does see and make out."

"As to collecting newspapers and books, my dear," said
Lamps, " it's clear I can have no merit in that, because they're

PHOEBE'S NEWSMAN. 153

not my perquisites. You see, sir, it's this way: A Guard,
hell say to me, ' Hallo, here you are, Lamps. I've saved this
paper for your daughter. How is she a-going on?' A
Head-Porter, he'll say to me, 'Here! Catch hold, Lamps.
Here's a couple of wollumes for your daughter. Is she pretty
much where she were?' And that's what makes it double
welcome, you see. If she had a thousand pound in a box,
they wouldn't trouble themselves about her; but being what
she is — that is, you understand," Lamps added, somewhat
hurriedly, "not having a thousand pound in a box — they
take thought for her. And as concerning the young pairs,
married and unmarried, it's only natural I should bring home
what little I can about them, seeing that there's not a Couple
of either sort in the neighbourhood that don't come of their
own accord to confide in Phoebe."

She raised her eyes triumphantly to Barbox Brothers as
she said:

"Indeed, sir, that is true. If I could have got up and
gone to church, I don't know how often I should have been
a bridesmaid. But, if I could have done that, some girls in
love might have been jealous of me, and, as it is, no girl is
jealous of me. And my pillow would not have been half as
ready to put the piece of cake under, as I always find it,"
she added, turning her face on it with a light sigh, and a
smile at her father.

The arrival of a little girl, the biggest of the scholars,
now led to an understanding on the part of Barbox Brothers,
that she was the domestic of the cottage, and had come to
take active measures in it, attended by a pail that might
have extinguished her, and a broom three times her height.
He therefore rose to take his leave, and took it ; saying that,
if Phoebe had no objection, he would come again.

He had muttered that he would come "in the course of
his walks." The course of his walks must have been highly
favourable to his return, for he returned after an interval
of a single day.

154 MUGBY JUNCTION.

" You thought you would never see me any more, I suppose ? "
he said to Phoebe as he touched her hand, and sat down by
her couch.

"Why should I think so?" was her surprised rejoinder.

"I took it for granted you would mistrust me."

"For granted, sir? Have you been so much mistrusted?"

"I think I am justified in answering yes. But I may have
mistrusted, too, on my part. No matter just now. We
were speaking of the Junction last time. I have passed hours
there since the day before yesterday."

"Are you now the gentleman for Somewhere?" she asked
with a smile.

" Certainly for Somewhere ; but I don't yet know Where.
You would never guess what I am travelling from. Shall I
tell you ? I am travelling from my birthday."

Her hands stopped in her work, and she looked at him
with incredulous astonishment.

"Yes," said Barbox Brothers, not quite easy in his ohair,
"from my birthday. I am, to myself, an unintelligible book
with the earlier chapters all torn out, and thrown away. My
childhood had no grace of childhood, my youth had no charm
of youth, and what can be expected from such a lost begin
ning ? " His eyes meeting hers as they were addressed intently
to him, something seemed to stir within his breast, whispering :
"Was this bed a place for the graces of childhood and the
charms of youth to take to kindly ? Oh, shame, shame ! "

" It is a disease with me," said Barbox Brothers, checking
himself, and making as though he had a difficulty in swallow
ing something, " to go wrong about that. I don't know how
I came to speak of that. I hope it is because of an old
misplaced confidence in one of your sex involving an old
bitter treachery. I don't know. I am all wrong together."

Her hands quietly and slowly resumed their work. Glancing
at her, he saw that her eyes were thoughtfully following them.

" I am travelling from my birthday," he resumed, " because
it has always been a dreary day to me. My first free birthday

CHOICE OF A ROAD. 155

coming round some five or six weeks hence, I am travelling to
put its predecessors far behind me, and to try to crush the
day — or, at all events, put it out of my sight — by heaping
new objects on it.

As he paused, she looked at him ; but only shook her head
as being quite at a loss.

"This is unintelligible to your happy disposition," he
pursued, abiding by his former phrase as if there were some
lingering virtue of self-defence in it. " I knew it would be,
and am glad it is. However, on this travel of mine (in
which I mean to pass the rest of my days, having abandoned
all thought of a fixed home), I stopped, as you have heard
from your father, at the Junction here. The extent of its
ramifications quite confused me as to whither I should go,
from here. I have not yet settled, being still perplexed
among so many roads. What do you think I mean to do ?
How many of the branching roads can you see from your
window ? "

Looking out, full of interest, she answered, " Seven.1'

" Seven,1' said Barbox Brothers, watching her with a grave
smile. " Well ! I propose to myself at once to reduce the
gross number to those very seven, and gradually to fine them
down to one — the most promising for me — and to take that."

"But how will you know, sir, which is the most
promising ? " she asked, with her brightened eyes roving over
the view.

" Ah ! " said Barbox Brothers with another grave smile,
and considerably improving in his ease of speech. "To be
sure. In this way. Where your father can pick up so much
every day for a good purpose, I may once and again pick up a
little for an indifferent purpose. The gentleman for Nowhere
must become still better known at the Junction. He shall
continue to explore it, until he attaches something that he
has seen, heard, or found out, at the head of each of the seven
roads, to the road itself. And so his choice of a road shall
be determined by his choice among his discoveries."

156 MUGBY JUNCTION.

Her hands still busy, she again glanced at the prospect, as
if it comprehended something that had not been in it before,
and laughed as if it yielded her new pleasure.

" But I must not forget," said Barbox Brothers, " (having
got so far) to ask a favour. I want your help in this
expedient of mine. I want to bring you what I pick up at
the heads of the seven roads that you lie here looking out at,
and to compare notes with you about it. May I ? They say
two heads are better than one. I should say myself that
probably depends upon the heads concerned. But I am
quite sure, though we are so newly acquainted, that your
head and your father's have found out better things, Phoebe,
than ever mine of itself discovered.11

She gave him her sympathetic right hand, in perfect rapture
with his proposal, and eagerly and gratefully thanked him.

" That's well ! " said Barbox Brothers. " Again I must
not forget (having got so far) to ask a favour. Will you
shut your eyes ? "

Laughing playfully at the strange nature of the request,
she did so.

"Keep them shut," said Barbox Brothers, going softly to
the door, and coming back. " You are on your honour,
mind, not to open your eyes until I tell you that you may ? "

" Yes ! On my honour."

"Good. May I take your lace-pillow from you for a
minute?"

Still laughing and wondering, she removed her hands from
it, and he put it aside.

"Tell me. Did you see the puffs of smoke and steam
made by the morning fast-train yesterday on road number
seven from here?"

" Behind the elm-trees and the spire ? "

" That's the road," said Barbox Brothers, directing his eyes
towards it.

" Yes. I watched them melt away."

"Anything unusual in what they expressed?"

A PRESENT FOR PHCEBE. 157

" No ! " she answered merrily.

"Not complimentary to me, for I was in that train. I
went — don't open your eyes — to fetch you this, from the
great ingenious town. It is not half so large as your lace-
pillow, and lies easily and lightly in its place. These little
keys are like the keys of a miniature piano, and you supply
the air required with your left hand. May you pick out
delightful music from it, my dear! For the present — you
can open your eyes now — good-bye ! "

In his embarrassed way, he closed the door upon himself,
and only saw, in doing so, that she ecstatically took the
present to her bosom and caressed it. The glimpse gladdened
his heart, and yet saddened it ; for so might she, if her youth
had flourished in its natural course, have taken to her breast
that day the slumbering music of her own child's voice.

CHAPTER II.

BARBOX BROTHERS AND CO.

WITH good-will and earnest purpose, the gentleman for
Nowhere began, on the very next day, his researches at the
heads of the seven roads. The results of his researches, as he
and Phoebe afterwards set them down in fair writing, hold
their due places in this veracious chronicle. But they
occupied a much longer time in the getting together than
they ever will in the perusal. And this is probably the case
with most reading matter, except when it is of that highly
beneficial kind (for Posterity) which is " thrown off in a few
moments of leisure*" by the superior poetic geniuses who
scorn to take prose pains.

It must be admitted, however, that Barbox by no means
hurried himself. His heart being in his work of good-nature,
he revelled in it. There was the joy, too (it was a true joy
to him), of sometimes sitting by, listening to Phoebe as she
picked out more and more discourse from her musical instru
ment, and as her natural taste and ear refined daily upon
her first discoveries. Besides being a pleasure, this was an
occupation, and in the course of weeks it consumed hours.
It resulted that his dreaded birthday was close upon him
before he had troubled himself any more about it.

The matter was made more pressing by the unforeseen
circumstance that the councils held (at which Mr. Lamps,
beaming most brilliantly, on a few rare occasions assisted)

A TICKET FOR SOMEWHERE. 159

respecting the road to be selected were, after all, in nowise
assisted by his investigations. For, he had connected this
interest with this road, or that interest with the other, but
could deduce no reason from it for giving any road the
preference. Consequently, when the last council was holden,
that part of the business stood, in the end, exactly where it
had stood in the beginning.

" But, sir," remarked Phcebe, " we have only six roads after
all. Is the seventh road dumb ? "

" The seventh road ? Oh ! " said Barbox Brothers, rubbing
his chin. " That is the road I took, you know, when I went
to get your little present. That is its story, Phcebe."

u Would you mind taking that road again, sir ? " she asked
with hesitation.

" Not in the least ; it is a great high-road after all."

"I should like you to take it," returned Phcebe with a
persuasive smile, "for the love of that little present which
must ever be so dear to me. I should like you to take it,
because that road can never be again like any other road to
me. I should like you to take it, in remembrance of your
having done me so much good : of your having made me so
much happier ! If you leave me by the road you travelled
when you went to do me this great kindness," sounding a
faint chord as she spoke, " I shall feel, lying here watching
at my window, as if it must conduct you to a prosperous end,
and bring you back some day."

"It shall be done, my dear; it shall be done."

So at last the gentleman for Nowhere took a ticket for
Somewhere, and his destination was the great ingenious
town.

He had loitered so long about the Junction that it was
the eighteenth of December when he left it. " High time,"
he reflected, as he seated himself in the train, " that I started
in earnest! Only one clear day remains between me and
the day I am running away from. Ill push onward for the
hill-country to-morrow. Ill go to Wales."

160 MUGBY JUNCTION.

It was with some pains that he placed before himself the
undeniable advantages to be gained in the way of novel
occupation for his senses from misty mountains, swollen
streams, rain, cold, a wild seashore, and rugged roads. And
yet he scarcely made them out as distinctly as he could have
wished. Whether the poor girl, in spite of her new resource,
her music, would have any feeling of loneliness upon her
now — just at first — that she had not had before ; whether
she saw those very puffs of steam and smoke that he saw, as
he sat in the train thinking of her ; whether her face would
have any pensive shadow on it as they died out of the distant
view from her window ; whether, in telling him he had done
her so much good, she had not unconsciously corrected his
old moody bemoaning of his station in life, by setting him
thinking that a man might be a great healer, if he would,
and yet not be a great doctor ; these and other similar medi
tations got between him and his Welsh picture. There was
within him, too, that dull sense of vacuity which follows
separation from an object of interest, and cessation of a
pleasant pursuit; and this sense, being quite new to him,
made him restless. Further, in losing Mugby Junction, he
had found himself again ; and he was not the more enamoured
of himself for having lately passed his time in better
company.

But surely here, not far ahead, must be the great ingenious
town. This crashing and clashing that the train was under
going, and this coupling on to it of a multitude of new
echoes, could mean nothing less than approach to the great
station. It did mean nothing less. After some stormy flashes
of town lightning, in the way of swift revelations of red
brick blocks of houses, high red brick chimney-shafts, vistas
of red brick railway arches, tongues of fire, blocks of smoke,
valleys of canal, and hills of coal, there came the thundering
in at the journey's end.

Having seen his portmanteaus safely housed in the hotel
he chose, and having appointed his dinner hour, Barbox

A MEMORABLE WALK. 161

Brothers went out for a walk in the busy streets. And now
it began to be suspected by him that Mugby Junction was
a Junction of many branches, invisible as well as visible, and
had joined him to an endless number of by-ways. For,
whereas he would, but a little while ago, have walked these
streets blindly brooding, he now had eyes and thoughts for
a new external world. How the many toiling people lived,
and loved, and died ; how wonderful it was to consider the
various trainings of eye and hand, the nice distinctions of
sight and touch, that separated them into classes of workers,
and even into classes of workers at subdivisions of one com
plete whole which combined their many intelligences and
forces, though of itself but some cheap object of use or orna
ment in common life ; how good it was to know that such
assembling in a multitude on their part, and such contribution
of their several dexterities towards a civilising end, did not
deteriorate them as it was the fashion of the supercilious
Mayflies of humanity to pretend, but engendered among them
a self-respect, and yet a modest desire to be much wiser than
they were (the first evinced in their well-balanced bearing
and manner of speech when he stopped to ask a question;
the second, in the announcements of their popular studies
and amusements on the public walls); these considerations,
and a host of such, made his walk a memorable one. " I too
am but a little part of a great whole," he began to think ;
" and to be serviceable to myself and others, or to be happy,
I must cast my interest into, and draw it out of, the common
stock."

Although he had arrived at his journey's end for the day
by noon, he had since insensibly walked about the town so
far and so long that the lamp-lighters were now at their
work in the streets, and the shops were sparkling up
brilliantly. Thus reminded to turn towards his quarters, he
was in the act of doing so, when a very little hand crept
into his, and a very little voice said :

« Oh ! if you please, I am lost ! *

VOL. II. M

162 MUGBY JUNCTION.

He looked down, and saw a very little fair-haired girl.

"Yes," she said, confirming her words with a serious nod,
" I am indeed. I am lost ! "

Greatly perplexed, he stopped, looked about him for help,
descried none, and said, bending low :

" Where do you live, my child ? "

" I don't know where I live," she returned. " I am lost."

" What is your name ? "

" Polly."

" What is your other name ? "

The reply was prompt, but unintelligible.

Imitating the sound as he caught it, he hazarded the guess,
" Trivits."

" Oh no ! " said the child, shaking her head. " Nothing
like that."

" Say it again, little one."

An unpromising business. For this time it had quite a
different sound.

He made the venture, " Paddens ? "

" Oh no ! " said the child. " Nothing like that."

"Once more. Let us try it again, dear."

A most hopeless business. This time it swelled into four
syllables. " It can't be Tappitarver ? " said Barbox Brothers,
rubbing his head with his hat in discomfiture.

" No ! It ain't," the child quietly assented.

On her trying this unfortunate name once more, with
extraordinary efforts at distinctness, it swelled into eight
syllables at least.

" Ah ! I think," said Barbox Brothers with a desperate air
of resignation, " that we had better give it up."

"But I am lost," said the child, nestling her little hand
more closely in his, "and you'll take care of me, won't
you?"

If ever a man were disconcerted by division between com
passion on the one hand, and the very imbecility of irresolu
tion on the other, here the man was. " Lost ! " he repeated,

AN ADVENTURE. 163

looking down at the child. "I am sure / am. What is to
be done?"

" Where do you live ? " asked the child, looking up at him
wistfully.

" Over there," he answered, pointing vaguely in the direction
of his hotel.

" Hadn't we better go there ? " said the child.

u Really," he replied, " I don't know but what we had."

So they set off, hand-in-hand. He, through comparison of
himself against his little companion, with a clumsy feeling on
him as if he had just developed into a foolish giant. She,
clearly elevated in her own tiny opinion by having got him
so neatly out of his embarrassment.

" We are going to have dinner when we get there, I suppose?"
said Polly.

" Well," he rejoined, " I Yes, I suppose we are."

"Do you like your dinner?" asked the child.

"Why, on the whole," said Barbox Brothers, "yes, I think
I do."

"I do mine," said Polly. "Have you any brothers and
sisters?"

" No. Have you ? "

"Mine are dead."

" Oh ! " said Barbox Brothers. With that absurd sense of
unwieldiness of mind and body weighing him down, he would
have not known how to pursue the conversation beyond this
curt rejoinder, but that the child was always ready for him.

"What," she asked, turning her soft hand coaxingly in
his, " are you going to do to amuse me after dinner ? "

" Upon my soul, Polly," exclaimed Barbox Brothers, very
much at a loss, " I have not the slightest idea ! "

" Then I tell you what," said Polly. " Have you got any
cards at your house ? "

"Plenty," said Barbox Brothers in a boastful vein.

" Very well. Then I'll build houses, and you shall look at
me. You mustn't blow, you know."

164 MUGBY JUNCTION.

" Oh no," said Barbox Brothers. " No, no, no. No blowing.
Blowing's not fair."

He flattered himself that he had said this pretty well for
an idiotic monster; but the child, instantly perceiving the
awkwardness of his attempt to adapt himself to her level,
utterly destroyed his hopeful opinion of himself by saying
compassionately : " What a funny man you are ! "

Feeling, after this melancholy failure, as if he every minute
grew bigger and heavier in person, and weaker in mind, Bar-
box gave himself up for a bad job. No giant ever submitted
more meekly to be led in triumph by all-conquering Jack
than he to be bound in slavery to Polly.

"Do you know any stories?" she asked him.

He was reduced to the humiliating confession : " No."

" What a dunce you must be, mustn't you ? " said Polly.

He was reduced to the humiliating confession : " Yes."

"Would you like me to teach you a story? But you
must remember it, you know, and be able to tell it right to
somebody else afterwards."

He professed that it would afford him the highest mental
gratification to be taught a story, and that he would humbly
endeavour to retain it in his mind. Whereupon Polly, giving
her hand a new little turn in his, expressive of settling down
for enjoyment, commenced a long romance, of which every
relishing clause began with the words : " So this," or, " And
so this." As, " So this boy ; " or, " So this fairy ; " or, " And
so this pie was four yards round, and two yards and a quarter
deep." The interest of the romance was derived from the
intervention of this fairy to punish this boy for having a
greedy appetite. To achieve which purpose, this fairy made
this pie, and this boy ate and ate and ate, and his cheeks
swelled and swelled and swelled. There were many tributary
circumstances, but the forcible interest culminated in the
total consumption of this pie, and the bursting of this boy.
Truly he was a fine sight, Barbox Brothers, with serious
attentive face, and ear bent down, much jostled on the

A LESSON IN ROMANCE. 165

pavements of the busy town, but afraid of losing a single
incident of the epic, lest he should be examined in it by-
and-by, and found deficient.

Thus they arrived at the hotel. And there he had to say
at the bar, and said awkwardly enough : " I have found a
little girl!"

The whole establishment turned out to look at the little
girl. Nobody knew her ; nobody could make out her name,
as she set it forth — except one chambermaid, who said it was
Constantinople — which it wasn't.

"I will dine with my young friend in a private room,1'
said Barbox Brothers to the hotel authorities, "and perhaps
you will be so good as to let the police know that the pretty
baby is here. I suppose she is sure to be inquired for soon,
if she has not been already. Come along, Polly."

Perfectly at ease and peace, Polly came along, but, finding
the stairs rather stiff work, was carried up by Barbox Brothers.
The dinner was a most transcendant success, and the Barbox
sheepishness, under Polly's directions how to mince her meat
for her, and how to diffuse gravy over the plate with a
liberal and equal hand, was another fine sight.

"And now," said Polly, "while we are at dinner, you be
good, and tell me that story I taught you."

With the tremors of a Civil Service examination upon him,
and very uncertain indeed, not only as to the epoch at which
the pie appeared in history, but also as to the measurements
of that indispensable fact, Barbox Brothers made a shaky
beginning, but under encouragement did very fairly. There
was a want of breadth observable in his rendering of the
cheeks, as well as the appetite, of the boy ; and there was a
certain tameness in his fairy, referable to an under-current
of desire to account for her. Still, as the first lumbering
performance of a good-humoured monster, it passed muster.

" I told you to be good," said Polly, " and you are good,
ain't you ? "

"I hope so," replied Barbox Brothers.

166 MUGBY JUNCTION.

Such was his deference that Polly, elevated on a platform
of sofa cushions in a chair at his right hand, encouraged him
with a pat or two on the face from the greasy bowl of her
spoon, and even with a gracious kiss. In getting on her feet
upon her chair, however, to give him this last reward, she
toppled forward among the dishes, and caused him to exclaim,
as he effected her rescue : " Gracious Angels ! Whew ! I
thought we were in the fire, Polly ! "

" What a coward you are, ain't you ? " said Polly when
replaced.

" Yes, I am rather nervous," he replied. " Whew ! Don't,
Polly ! Don't flourish your spoon, or you'll go over sideways.
Don't tilt up your legs when you laugh, Polly, or you'll go
over backwards. Whew ! Polly, Polly, Polly," said Barbox
Brothers, nearly succumbing to despair, "we are environed
with dangers ! "

Indeed, he could descry no security from the pitfalls that
were yawning for Polly, but in proposing to her, after dinner,
to sit upon a low stool. UI will, if you will," said Polly.
So, as peace of mind should go before all, he begged the
waiter to wheel aside the table, bring a pack of cards, a
couple of footstools, and a screen, and close in Polly and
himself before the fire, as it were in a snug room within the
room. Then, finest sight of all, was Barbox Brothers on his
footstool, with a pint decanter on the rug, contemplating
Polly as she built successfully, and growing blue in the face
with holding his breath, lest he should blow the house
down.

" How you stare, don't you ? " said Polly in a houseless
pause.

Detected in the ignoble fact, he felt obliged to admit,
apologetically : " I am afraid I was looking rather hard at
you, Polly."

" Why do you stare ? " asked Polly.

"I cannot,'\he murmured to himself, "recall why. — I don't
know, Polly." "

A NEW EMBARRASSMENT 167

" You must be a .simpleton to do things and not know
why, mustn't you ? " said Polly.

In spite of which reproof, he looked at the child again
intently, as she bent her head over her card structure, her
rich curls shading her face. " It is impossible," he thought,
" that I can ever have seen this pretty baby before. Can I
have dreamed of her ? In some sorrowful dream ? "

He could make nothing of it. So he went into the build
ing trade as a journeyman under Polly, and they built three
stories high, four stories high ; even five.

" I say ! Who do you think is coming ? " asked Polly,
rubbing her eyes after tea.

He guessed: "The waiter ?"

" No," said Polly, " the dustman. I am getting sleepy."

A new embarrassment for Barbox Brothers !

"I don't think I am going to be fetched to-night," said
Polly. " What do you think ? "

He thought not, either. After another quarter of an hour,
the dustman not merely impending, but actually arriving,
recourse was had to the Constantinopolitan chambermaid:
who cheerily undertook that the child should sleep in a com
fortable and wholesome room, which she herself would share.

" And I know you will be careful, won't you," said Barbox
Brothers, as a new fear dawned upon him, "that she don't
fallout of bed?"

Polly found this so highly entertaining that she was under
the neccessity of clutching him round the neck with both
arms as he sat on his footstool picking up the cards, and
rocking him to and fro, with her dimpled chin on his
shoulder.

"Oh, what a coward you are, ain't you?" said Polly.
"Do you fall out of bed?"

" N— not generally, Polly."

"No more do I."

With that, Polly gave him a reassuring hug or two to
keep him going, and then giving that confiding mite of a

168 MUGBY JUNCTION.

hand of hers to be swallowed up in the hand of the Constan-
tinopolitan chambermaid, trotted off, chattering, without a
vestige of anxiety.

He looked after her, had the screen removed and the table
and chairs replaced, and still looked after her. He paced
the room for half an hour. " A most engaging little creature,
but it's not that. A most winning little voice, but it's not
that. That has much to do with it, but there is something
more. How can it be that I seem to know this child?
What was it she imperfectly recalled to me when I felt her
touch in the street, and, looking down at her, saw her
looking up at me?"

" Mr. Jackson ! "

With a start he turned towards the sound of the subdued
voice, and saw his answer standing at the door.

" Oh, Mr. Jackson, do not be severe with me ! Speak a
word of encouragement to me, I beseech you."

"You are Polly's mother."

"Yes."

Yes. Polly herself might come to this, one day. As
you see what the rose was in its faded leaves ; as you see
what the summer growth of the woods was in their wintry
branches; so Polly might be traced, one day, in a careworn
woman like this, with her hair turned grey. Before him
were the ashes of a dead fire that had once burned bright.
This was the woman he had loved. This was the woman he
had lost. Such had been the constancy of his imagination
to her, so had Time spared her under its withholding, that
now, seeing how roughly the inexorable hand had struck her,
his soul was filled with pity and amazement.

He led her to a chair, and stood leaning on a corner of
the chimney-piece, with his head resting on his hand, and
his face half averted.

"Did you see me in the street, and show me to your
child?" he asked.

"Yes."

POLLY'S MOTHER. 169

" Is the little creature, then, a party to deceit ? "
" I hope there is no deceit. I said to her, ' We have lost
our way, and I must try to find mine by myself. Go to
that gentleman, and tell him you are lost. You shall be
fetched by-and-by.' Perhaps you have not thought how very
young she is?1'

"She is very self-reliant."
" Perhaps because she is so young/'
He asked, after a short pause, "Why did you do this ?*
"Oh, Mr. Jackson, do you ask me? In the hope that
you might see something in my innocent child to soften your
heart towards me. Not only towards me, but towards my
husband."

He suddenly turned about, and walked to the opposite end
of the room. He came back again with a slower step, and
resumed his former attitude, saying:

" I thought you had emigrated to America ? "
"We did. But life went ill with us there, and we came
back."

"Do you live in this town?"

" Yes. I am a daily teacher of music here. My husband
is a book-keeper."

"Are you — forgive my asking — poor?"
"We earn enough for our wants. That is not our
distress. My husband is very, very ill of a lingering disorder.

He will never recover "

" You check yourself. If it is for want of the encouraging
word you spoke of, take it from me. I cannot forget the
old time, Beatrice."

" God bless you ! " she replied with a burst of tears, and
gave him her trembling hand.

" Compose yourself. I cannot be composed if you are not,
for to see you weep distresses me beyond expression. Speak
freely to me. Trust me."

She shaded her face with her veil, and after a little while
spoke calmly. Her voice had the ring of Polly's.

170 MUGBY JUNCTION.

"It is not that my husband's mind is at all impaired by
his bodily suffering, for I assure you that is not the case.
But in his weakness, and in his knowledge that he is incur
ably ill, he cannot overcome the ascendancy of one idea. It
preys upon him, embitters every moment of his painful life,
and will shorten it."

She stopping, he said again : " Speak freely to me. Trust
me."

"We have had five children before this darling, and they
all lie in their little graves. He believes that they have
withered away under a curse, and that it will blight this
child like the rest."

"Under what curse?"

"Both I and he have it on our conscience that we
tried you very heavily, and I do not know but that, if I were
as ill as he, I might suffer in my mind as he does. This is
the constant burden : — * I believe, Beatrice, I was the only
friend that Mr. Jackson ever cared to make, though I was so
much his junior. The more influence he acquired in the
business, the higher he advanced me, and I was alone in his
private confidence. I came between him and you, and I
took you from him. We were both secret, and the blow fell
when he was wholly unprepared. The anguish it caused a
man so compressed must have been terrible; the wrath it
awakened inappeasable. So, a curse came to be invoked on
our poor pretty little flowers, and they fall.'1"

"And you, Beatrice," he asked, when she had ceased to
speak, and there had been a silence afterwards, "how say
you?"

" Until within these few weeks I was afraid of you, and I
believed that you would never, never forgive."

" Until within these few weeks," he repeated. " Have you
changed your opinion of me within these few weeks ? "

"Yes."

"For what reason?"

"I was getting some pieces of music in a shop in this

FORGIVENESS. 171

town, when, to my terror, you came in. As I veiled my
face and stood in the dark end of the shop, I heard you
explain that you wanted a musical instrument for a bedridden
girl. Your voice and manner were so softened, you showed
such interest in its selection, you took it away yourself with
so much tenderness of care and pleasure, that I knew you
were a man with a most gentle heart. Oh, Mr. Jackson, Mr.
Jackson, if you could have felt the refreshing rain of tears
that followed for me ! "

Was Phoebe playing at that moment on her distant couch ?
He seemed to hear her.

"I inquired in the shop where you lived, but could get no
information. As I had heard you say that you were going
back by the next train (but you did not say where), I resolved
to visit the station at about that time of day, as often as I
could, between my lessons, on the chance of seeing you again.
I have been there very often, but saw you no more until
to-day. You were meditating as you walked the street,
but the calm expression of your face emboldened me to send
my child to you. And when I saw you bend your head to
speak tenderly to her, I prayed to GOD to forgive me for
having ever brought a sorrow on it. I now pray to you to
forgive me, and to forgive my husband. I was very young,
he was young too, and, in the ignorant hardihood of such a
time of life, we don't know what we do to those who have
undergone more discipline. You generous man ! You good
man ! So to raise me up and make nothing of my crime
against you ! " — for he would not see her on her knees, and
soothed her as a kind father might have soothed an erring
daughter — " thank you, bless you, thank you ! "

When he next spoke, it was after having drawn aside
the window curtain and looked out awhile. Then he only
said:

"Is Polly asleep?"

" Yes. As I came in, I met her going away up-stairs, and
put her to bed myself."

172 MUGBY JUNCTION.

"Leave her with me for to-morrow, Beatrice, and write me
your address on this leaf of my pocket-book. In the evening
I will bring her home to you — and to her father."

"Hallo!"" cried Polly, putting her saucy sunny face in at
the door next morning when breakfast was ready : " I thought
I was fetched last night?"

" So you were, Polly, but I asked leave to keep you here
for the day, and to take you home in the evening."

" Upon my word l" said Polly. " You are very cool, ain't
you?"

However, Polly seemed to think it a good idea, and added :

" I suppose I must give you a kiss, though you are cool."

The kiss given and taken, they sat down to breakfast in a
highly conversational tone.

" Of course, you are going to amuse me?" said Polly.

" Oh, of course ! " said Barbox Brothers.

In the pleasurable height of her anticipations, Polly found
it indispensable to put down her piece of toast, cross one
of her little fat knees over the other, and bring her little
fat right hand down into her left hand with a business
like slap. After this gathering of herself together, Polly,
by that time a mere heap of dimples, asked in a wheedling
manner :

" What are we going to do, you dear old thing ? "

" Why, I was thinking," said Barbox Brothers, " — but are
you fond of horses, Polly ? "

" Ponies, I am," said Polly, " especially when their tails are
long. But horses — n — no — too big, you know."

"Well," pursued Barbox Brothers, in a spirit of grave
mysterious confidence adapted to the importance of the con
sultation, "I did see yesterday, Polly, on the walls, pictures
of two long-tailed ponies, speckled all over "

" No, no, NO ! " cried Polly, in an ecstatic desire to linger
on the charming details. "Not speckled all over!"

A PROGRAMME OF AMUSEMENTS. 173

" Speckled all over. Which ponies j ump through hoops "

"No, no, NO!" cried Polly as before. "They never jump
through hoops ! "

" Yes, they do. Oh, I assure you they do ! And eat pie
in pinafores "

"Ponies eating pie in pinafores!" said Polly. "What a
story-teller you are, ain't you ? "

" Upon my honour. — And fire off guns.1'

(Polly hardly seemed to see the force of the ponies resorting
to fire-arms.)

" And I was thinking," pursued the exemplary Earbox, " that
if you and I were to go to the Circus where these ponies are,
it would do our constitutions good."

" Does that mean amuse us ? " inquired Polly. " What long
words you do use, don't you ? "

Apologetic for having wandered out of his depth, he
replied :

"That means amuse us. That is exactly what it means.
There are many other wonders besides the ponies, and we
shall see them all. Ladies and gentlemen in spangled dresses,
and elephants and lions and tigers."

Polly became observant of the teapot, with a curled-up
nose indicating some uneasiness of mind.

"They never get out, of course," she remarked as a mere
truism.

" The elephants and lions and tigers ? Oh, dear no ! "

" Oh, dear no ! " said Polly. " And of course nobody's
afraid of the ponies shooting anybody."

" Not the least in the world."

"No, no, not the least in the world," said Polly.

" I was also thinking," proceeded Barbox, " that if we were
to look in at the toy-shop, to choose a doll "

" Not dressed ! " cried Polly with a clap of her hands.
" No, no, NO, not dressed ! "

"Full-dressed. Together with a house, and all things
necessary for house-keeping "

174

MUGBY JUNCTION.

Polly gave a little scream, and seemed in danger of falling
into a swoon of bliss.

" What a darling you are ! " she languidly exclaimed,
leaning back in her chair. " Come and be hugged, or I must
come and hug you."

This resplendent programme was carried into execution
with the utmost rigour of the law. It being essential to
make the purchase of the doll its first feature — or that lady
would have lost the ponies — the toy-shop expedition took
precedence. Polly in the magic warehouse, with a doll as large
as herself under each arm, and a neat assortment of some
twenty more on view upon the counter, did indeed present a
spectacle of indecision not quite compatible with unalloyed
happiness, but the light cloud passed. The lovely specimen
oftenest chosen, oftenest rejected, and finally abided by, was
of Circassian descent, possessing as much boldness of beauty
as was reconcilable with extreme feebleness of mouth, and
combining a sky-blue silk pelisse with rose-coloured satin
trousers, and a black velvet hat: which this fair stranger to
our northern shores would seem to have founded on the
portraits of the late Duchess of Kent. The name this dis
tinguished foreigner brought with her from beneath the
glowing skies of a sunny clime was (on Polly's authority) Miss
Melluka, and the costly nature of her outfit as a housekeeper,
from the Barbox coffers, may be inferred from the two facts
that her silver tea-spoons were as large as her kitchen poker,
and that the proportions of her watch exceeded those of her
frying-pan. Miss Melluka was graciously pleased to express
her entire approbation of the Circus, and so was Polly; for
the ponies were speckled, and brought down nobody when
they fired, and the savagery of the wild beasts appeared to
be mere smoke — which article, in fact, they did produce in
large quantities from their insides. The Barbox absorption
in the general subject throughout the realisation of these
delights was again a sight to see, nor was it less worthy to
behold at dinner, when he drank to Miss Melluka, tied stiff

RECONCILIATION. 175

in a chair opposite to Polly (the fair Circassian possessing an
unbendable spine), and even induced the waiter to assist in
carrying out with due decorum the prevailing glorious idea.
To wind up, there came the agreeable fever of getting Miss
Melluka and all her wardrobe and rich possessions into a fly
with Polly, to be taken home. But, by that time, Polly had
become unable to look upon such accumulated joys with
waking eyes, and had withdrawn her consciousness into the
wonderful Paradise of a child's sleep. " Sleep, Polly, sleep,"
said Barbox Brothers, as her head dropped on his shoulder;
" you shall not fall out of this bed easily, at any rate ! "

What rustling piece of paper he took from his pocket, and
carefully folded into the bosom of Polly's frock, shall not be
mentioned. He said nothing about it, and nothing shall be
said about it. They drove to a modest suburb of the great
ingenious town, and stopped at the fore-court of a small
house. " Do not wake the child," said Barbox Brothers softly
to the driver; "I will carry her in as she is."

Greeting the light at the opened door which was held by
Polly's mother, Polly's bearer passed on with mother and
child into a ground-floor room. There, stretched on a sofa,
lay a sick man, sorely wasted, who covered his eyes with his
emaciated hands.

** Tresham," said Barbox in a kindly voice, " I have brought
you back your Polly, fast asleep. Give me your hand, and
tell me you are better."

The sick man reached forth his right hand, and bowed his
head over the hand into which it was taken, and kissed it.
"Thank you, thank you! I may say that I am well and
happy."

" That's brave," said Barbox. " Tresham, I have a fancy

Can you make room for me beside you here ? "

He sat down on the sofa as he said the words, cherishing
the plump peachey cheek that lay uppermost on his shoulder.

" I have a fancy, Tresham (I am getting quite an old fellow
now, you know, and old fellows may take fancies into their

176 MUGBY JUNCTION.

heads sometimes), to give up Polly, having found her, to no
one but you. Will you take her from me ? "

As the father held out his arms for the child, each of the
two men looked steadily at the other.

" She is very dear to you, Tresham ? "

"Unutterably dear."

"God bless her! It is not much, Polly," he continued,
turning his eyes upon her peaceful face as he apostrophized
her, "it is not much, Polly, for a blind and sinful man to
invoke a blessing on something so far better than himself as
a little child is ; but it would be much — much upon his cruel
head, and much upon his guilty soul — if he could be so
wicked as to invoke a curse. He had better have a millstone
round his neck, and be cast into the deepest sea. Live and
thrive, my pretty baby ! " Here he kissed her. " Live and
prosper, and become in time the mother of other little
children, like the Angels who behold The Father's face ! "

He kissed her again, gave her up gently to both her parents,
and went out.

But he went not to Wales. No, he never went to Wales.
He went straightway for another stroll about the town, and
he looked in upon the people at their work, and at their play,
here, there, everywhere, and where not. For he was Barbox
Brothers and Co. now, and had taken thousands of partners
into the solitary firm. i

He had at length got back to his hotel room, and was
standing before his fire refreshing himself with a glass of hot
drink which he had stood upon the chimney-piece, when he
heard the town clocks striking, and, referring to his watch,
found the evening to have so slipped away, that they were
striking twelve. As he put up his watch again, his eyes met
those of his reflection in the chimney-glass.

"Why, it's your birthday already," he said, smiling.
" You are looking very well. I wish you many happy returns
of the day."

He had never before bestowed that wish upon himself.

ESTABLISHED AT THE JUNCTION. 177

"By Jupiter!" he discovered, "it alters the whole case of
running away from one's birthday ! It's a thing to explain to
Phoebe. Besides, here is quite a long story to tell her, that
has sprung out of the road with no story. I'll go back,
instead of going on. Ill go back by my friend Lamps's Up
X presently.1"

He went back to Mugby Junction, and, in point of fact,
he established himself at Mugby Junction. It was the
convenient place to live in, for brightening Phoebe's life.
It was the convenient place to live in, for having her taught
music by Beatrice. It was the convenient place to live in,
for occasionally borrowing Polly. It was the convenient
place to live in, for being joined at will to all sorts of
agreeable places and persons. So, he became settled there,
and, his house standing in an elevated situation, it is note
worthy of him in conclusion, as Polly herself might (not
irreverently) have put it :

" There was an Old Barbox who lived on a hill,
And if he ain't gone, he lives there still."

HERE FOLLOWS THE SUBSTANCE OF WHAT WAS SEEN, HEARD,
OR OTHERWISE PICKED UP, BY THE GENTLEMAN FOR NOWHERE,
IN HIS CAREFUL STUDY OF THE JUNCTION.

VOL. II.

CHAPTER III.

MAIN LINE: THE BOY AT MUGBY.

I AM the boy at Mugby. That's about what I am.

You don't know what I mean ? What a pity ! But I
think you do. I think you must. Look here. I am the
boy at what is called The Refreshment Room at Mugby
Junction, and what's proudest boast is, that it never yet
refreshed a mortal being.

Up in a corner of the Down Refreshment Room at Mugby
Junction, in the height of twenty-seven cross draughts (Fve
often counted 'em while they brush the First-Class hair
twenty-seven ways), behind the bottles, among the glasses,
bounded on the nor'west by the beer, stood pretty far to the
right of a metallic object that's at times the tea-urn and at
times the soup- tureen, according to the nature of the last
twang imparted to its contents which are the same ground
work, fended off from the traveller by a barrier of stale
sponge-cakes erected atop of the counter, and lastly exposed
sideways to the glare of Our Missis's eye — you ask a Boy so
sitiwated, next time you stop in a hurry at Mugby, for
anything to drink; you take particular notice that he'll try
to seem not to hear you, that he'll appear in a absent manner
to survey the Line through a transparent medium composed
of your head and body, and that he won't serve you as long
as you can possibly bear it. That's me.

What a lark it is ! We are the Model Establishment,

THE MODEL REFRESHMENT ROOM. 179

we are, at Mugby. Other Refreshment Rooms send their
imperfect young ladies up to be finished off by Our Missis.
For some of the young ladies, when they're new to the
business, come into it mild ! Ah ! Our Missis, she soon
takes that out of 'em. Why, I originally come into the
business meek myself. But Our Missis, she soon took that
out of me.

What a delightful lark it is ! I look upon us Refreshmenters
as ockipying the only proudly independent footing on the
Line. There's Papers, for instance, — my honourable friend,
if he will allow me to call him so, — him as belongs to Smith's
bookstall. Why, he no more dares to be up to our Refresh-
menting games than he dares to jump atop of a locomotive
with her steam at full pressure, and cut away upon her
alone, driving himself, at limited-mail speed. Papers, he'd
get his head punched at every compartment, first, second,
and third, the whole length of a train, if he was to ventur
to imitate my demeanour. It's the same with the porters,
the same with the guards, the same with the ticket clerks, the
same the whole way up to the secretary, traffic-manager, or
very chairman. There ain't a one -among 'em on the nobly
independent footing we are. Did you ever catch one of tliem^
when you wanted anything of him, making a system of
surveying the Line through a transparent medium composed
of your head and body ? I should hope not.

You should see our Bandolining Room at Mugby Junction.
It's led to by the door behind the counter, which you'll
notice usually stands ajar, and it's the room where Our
Missis and our young ladies Bandolines their hair. You
should see 'em at it, betwixt trains, Bandolining away, as if
they was anointing themselves for the combat. When you're
telegraphed, you should see their noses all a-going up with
scorn, as if it was a part of the working of the same Cooke
and Wheatstone electrical machinery. You should hear Our
Missis give the word, "Here comes the Beast to be Fed!"
and then you should see 'em indignantly skipping across the

180 MUGBY JUNCTION.

Line, from the Up to the Down, or Wicer Warsaw, and
begin to pitch the stale pastry into the plates, and chuck
the sawdust sangwiches under the glass covers, and get out
the — ha, ha, ha ! — the sherry, — O my eye, my eye ! — for your
Refreshment.

It's only in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free
(by which, of course, I mean to say Britannia) that Refresh-
menting is so effective, so 'olesorne, so constitutional a check
upon the public. There was a Foreigner, which having
politely, with his hat off, beseeched our young ladies and
Our Missis for " a leetel gloss hoff prarndee," and having had
the Line surveyed through him by all and no other acknow
ledgment, was a-proceeding at last to help himself, as seems
to be the custom in his own country, when Our Missis, with
her hair almost a-coming un-Bandolined with rage, and her
eyes omitting sparks, flew at him, cotched the decanter out
of his hand, and said, " Put it down ! I won't allow that ! "
The foreigner turned pale, stepped back with his arms
stretched out in front of him, his hands clasped, and his
shoulders riz, and exclaimed : " Ah ! Is it possible, this !
That these disdaineous females and this ferocious old woman
are placed here by the administration, not only to empoison
the voyagers, but to affront them ! Great Heaven ! How
arrives it? The English people. Or is he then a slave?
Or idiot?" Another time, a merry, wideawake American
gent had tried the sawdust and spit it out, and had tried
the Sherry and spit that out, and had tried in vain to sustain
exhausted natur upon Butter-Scotch, and had been rather
extra Bandolined and Line-surveyed through, when, as the
bell was ringing and he paid Our Missis, he says, very loud
and good-tempered : " I tell Yew what 'tis, ma'arm. I la'af.
Theer! I la'af. I Dew. I oughter ha' seen most things,
for I hail from the Onlimited side of the Atlantic Ocean,
and I haive travelled right slick over the Limited, head on
through Jeerusalemm and the East, and likeways France and
Italy, Europe Old World, and am now upon the track to

OUR MISSIS GOES TO FRANCE. 181

the Chief Europian Village ; but such an Institution as Yew,
and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin's solid and liquid,
afore the glorious Tarnal I never did see yet! And if I
hain't found the eighth wonder of monarchical Creation, in
finding Yew, and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixings solid
and liquid, all as aforesaid, established in a country where
the people air not absolute Loo-naticks, I am Extra Double
Darned with a Nip and Frizzle to the innermostest grit!
Wheerfur— Theer !— I la'af! I Dew, ma'arm. I la'af!"
And so he went, stamping and shaking his sides, along the
platform all the way to his own compartment.

I think it was her standing up agin the Foreigner as giv1
Our Missis the idea of going over to France, and droring a
comparison betwixt Refreshmenting as followed among the
frog-eaters, and Refreshmenting as triumphant in the Isle
of the Brave and Land of the Free (by which, of course, I
mean to say agin, Britannia). Our young ladies, Miss Whiff,
Miss Piff, and Mrs. Sniff, was unanimous opposed to her
going; for, as they says to Our Missis one and all, it is well
beknown to the hends of the herth as no other nation except
Britain has a idea of anythink, but above all of business.
Why then should you tire yourself to prove what is already
proved? Our Missis, however (being a teazer at all pints)
stood out grim obstinate, and got a return pass by South
eastern Tidal, to go right through, if such should be her
dispositions, to Marseilles.

Sniff is husband to Mrs. Sniff, and is a regular insignificant
cove. He looks arter the sawdust department in a back
room, and is sometimes, when we are very hard put to it, let
behind the counter with a corkscrew ; but never when it can
be helped, his demeanour towards the public being disgusting
servile. How Mrs. Sniff ever come so far to lower herself as
to marry him, I don't know; but I suppose Tie does, and I
should think he wished he didn't, for he leads a awful life.
Mrs. Sniff couldn't be much harder with him if he was public.
Similarly, Miss Whiff and Miss Piff, taking the tone of Mrs.

182

MUGBY JUNCTION.

Sniff, they shoulder Sniff about when he is let in with a
corkscrew, and they whisk things out of his hands when in
his servility he is a-going to let the public have 'em, and they
snap him up when in the crawling baseness of his spirit he
is a-going to answer a public question, and they drore more
tears into his eyes than ever the mustard does which he all
day long lays on to the sawdust. (But it ain't strong.) Once,
when Sniff had the repulsiveness to reach across to get the
milk-pot to hand over for a baby, I see Our Missis in her
rage catch him by both his shoulders, and spin him out
into the Bandolining Room.

But Mrs. Sniff,— how different ! She's the one ! She's the
one as you'll notice to be always looking another way from
you, when you look at her. She's the one with the small
waist buckled in tight in front, and with the lace cuffs at
her wrists, which she puts on the edge of the counter before
her, and stands a-smoothing while the public foams. This
smoothing the cuffs and looking another way while the public
foams is the last accomplishment taught to the young ladies
as come to Mugby to be finished by Our Missis; and it's
always taught by Mrs. Sniff.

When Our Missis went away upon her journey, Mrs. Sniff
was left in charge. She did hold the public in check most
beautiful ! In all my time, I never see half so many cups
of tea given without milk to people as wanted it with, nor
half so many cups of tea with milk given to people as wanted
it without. When foaming ensued, Mrs. Sniff would say:
"Then you'd better settle it among yourselves, and change
with one another." It was a most highly delicious lark. I
enjoyed the Refreshmenting business more than ever, and
was so glad I had took to it when young.

Our Missis returned. It got circulated among the young
ladies, and it as it might be penetrated to me through the
crevices of the Bandolining Room, that she had Orrors to
reveal, if revelations so contemptible could be dignified with
the name. Agitation become awakened. Excitement was

VIEWS OF FOREIGN REFRESHMENTING. 183

up in the stirrups. Expectation stood a-tiptoe. At length
it was put forth that on our slacked evening in the week,
and at our slackest time of that evening betwixt trains, Our
Missis would give her views of foreign Refreshmenting, in
the Bandolining Room.

It was arranged tasteful for the purpose. The Bandolining
table and glass was hid in a corner, a arm-chair was elevated
on a packing-case for Our Missis's ockypation, a table and a
tumbler of water (no sherry in it, thankee) was placed beside
it. Two of the pupils, the season being autumn, and holly
hocks and dahlias being in, ornamented the wall with three
devices in those flowers. On one might be read, "MAY
ALBION NEVER LEARN ; " on another, " KEEP THE PUBLIC
DOWN ; " on another, " OUR REFRESHMENTING CHARTER." The
whole had a beautiful appearance, with which the beauty
of the sentiments corresponded.

On Our Missis's brow was wrote Severity, as she ascended
the fatal platform. (Not that that was anythink new.) Miss
Whiff and Miss Piff sat at her feet. Three chairs from the
Waiting Room might have been perceived by a average eye,
in front of her, on which the pupils was accommodated.'
Behind them a very close observer might have discerned a
Boy. Myself.

"Where,"" said Our Missis, glancing gloomily around, "is
Sniff?"

" I thought it better," answered Mrs. Sniff, " that he should
not be let to come in. He is such an Ass."

"No doubt," assented Our Missis. "But for that reason
is it not desirable to improve his mind?"

" Oh, nothing will ever improve Aim," said Mrs. Sniff.

" However," pursued Our Missis, " call him in, Ezekiel."

I called him in. The appearance of the low-minded cove
was hailed with disapprobation from all sides, on account of
his having brought his corkscrew with him. He pleaded
"the force of habit."

"The force!" said Mrs. Sniff. "Don't let us have you

184 MUGBY JUNCTION.

talking about force, for Gracious1 sake. There! Do stand
still where you are, with your back against the wall."
' He is a smiling piece of vacancy, and he smiled in the mean
way in which he will even smile at the public if he gets a
chance (language can say no meaner of him), and he stood
upright near the door with the back of his head agin the
wall, as if he was a- waiting for somebody to come and measure
his heighth for the Army.

"I should not enter, ladies," says Our Missis, "on the
revolting disclosures I am about to make, if it was not in
the hope that they will cause you to be yet more implacable
in the exercise of the power you wield in a constitutional
country, and yet more devoted to the constitutional motto
which I see before me," — it was behind her, but the words
sounded better so, — " ' May Albion never learn ! ' "

Here the pupils as had made the motto admired it, and
cried, " Hear ! Hear ! Hear ! " Sniff, showing an inclination
to join in chorus, got himself frowned down by every brow.

"The baseness of the French," pursued Our Missis, "as
displayed in the fawning nature of their Refreshmenting,
equals, if not surpasses, any think as was ever heard of the
baseness of the celebrated Bonaparte."

Miss Whiff, Miss Piff, and me, we drored a heavy breath,
equal to saying, "We thought as much!" Miss Whiff and
Miss Piff seeming to object to my droring mine along with
theirs, I drored another to aggravate 'em.

" Shall I be believed," says Our Missis, with flashing eyes,
"when I tell you that no sooner had I set my foot upon
that treacherous shore "

Here Sniff, either bursting out mad, or thinking aloud,
says, in a low voice : " Feet. Plural, you know."

The cowering that come upon him when he was spurned by
all eyes, added to his being beneath contempt, was sufficient
punishment for a cove so grovelling. In the midst of a
silence rendered more impressive by the turned-up female
noses with which it was pervaded, Our Missis went on :

FIRST UNCONSTITUTIONAL EXPERIENCE. 185

"Shall I be believed when I tell you, that no sooner had
I landed," this word with a killing look at Sniff, "on that
treacherous shore, than I was ushered into a Refreshment
Room where there were — I do not exaggerate — actually eatable
things to eat?"

A groan burst from the ladies. I not only did myself the
honour of jining, but also of lengthening it out.

"Where there were," Our Missis added, "not only eatable
things to eat, but also drinkable things to drink ? "

A murmur, swelling almost into a scream, ariz. Miss PifF,
trembling with indignation, called out, "Name?"

"I will name," said Our Missis. "There was roast fowls,
hot and cold; there was smoking roast veal surrounded with
browned potatoes; there was hot soup with (again I ask
shall I be credited?) nothing bitter in it, and no flour to
choke off the consumer; there was a variety of cold dishes
set off with jelly; there was salad; there was — mark me!
fresh pastry, and that of a light construction; there was
a luscious show of fruit; there was bottles and decanters
of sound small wine, of every size, and adapted to every
pocket; the same odious statement will apply to brandy;
and these were set out upon the counter so that all could
help themselves."

Our Missis's lips so quivered, that Mrs. Sniff, though
scarcely less convulsed than she were, got up and held the
tumbler to them.

" This," proceeds Our Missis, " was my first unconstitutional
experience. Well would it have been if it had been my last
and worst. But no. As I proceeded farther into that
enslaved and ignorant land, its aspect became more hideous.
I need not explain to this assembly the ingredients and
formation of the British Refreshment sangwich ? "

Universal laughter, — except from Sniff, who, as sangwich-
cutter, shook his head in a state of the utmost dejection as
he stood with it agin the wall.

"Well!" said Our Missis, with dilated nostrils. "Take a

186 MUGBY JUNCTION.

fresh, crisp, long, crusty penny loaf made of the whitest and
best flour. Cut it longwise through the middle. Insert a
fair and nicely fitting slice of ham. Tie a smart piece of
ribbon round the middle of the whole to bind it together.
Add at one end a neat wrapper of clean white paper by
which to hold it And the universal French Refreshment
sangwich busts on your disgusted vision."

A cry of " Shame ! " from all — except Sniff, which rubbed
his stomach with a soothing hand.

"I need not,"" said Our Missis, "explain to this assembly
the usual formation and fitting of the British Refreshment
Room?"

No, no, and laughter. Sniff agin shaking his head in low
spirits agin the wall.

" Well," said Our Missis, " what would you say to a general
decoration of everythink, to hangings (sometimes elegant),
to easy velvet furniture, to abundance of little tables, to
abundance of little seats, to brisk bright waiters, to great
convenience, to a pervading cleanliness and tastefulness posi
tively addressing the public, and making the Beast thinking
itself worth the pains ? "

Contemptuous fury on the part of all the ladies. Mrs.
Sniff looking as if she wanted somebody to hold her, and
everybody else looking as if they'd rayther not.

" Three times," said Our Missis, working herself into a truly
terrimenjious state, — "three times did I see these shameful
things, only between the coast and Paris, and not counting
either: at Hazebroucke, at Arras, at Amiens. But worse
remains. Tell me, what would you call a person who should
propose in England that there should be kept, say at our
own model Mugby Junction, pretty baskets, each holding an
assorted cold lunch and dessert for one, each at a certain fixed
price, and each within a passenger's power to take away, to
empty in the carriage at perfect leisure, and to return at
another station fifty or a hundred miles farther on ? "

There was disagreement what such a person should be called.

A MALIGNANT MANIAC. 187

Whether revolutionist, atheist, Bright (/ said him), or Un-
English. Miss Piff screeched her shrill opinion last, in the
words : " A malignant maniac ! "

"I adopt," says Our Missis, "the brand set upon such a
person by the righteous indignation of my friend Miss Piff.
A malignant maniac. Know, then, that that malignant maniac
has sprung from the congenial soil of France, and that his
malignant madness was in unchecked action on this same
part of my journey."

I noticed that Sniff was a-rubbing his hands, and that Mrs.
Sniff had got her eye upon him. But I did not take more
particular notice, owing to the excited state in which the
young ladies was, and to feeling myself called upon to keep
it up with a howl.

" On my experience south of Paris," said Our Missis, in a
deep tone, "I will not expatiate. Too loathsome were the
task ! But fancy this. Fancy a guard coming round, with
the train at full speed, to inquire how many for dinner.
Fancy his telegraphing forward the number of dinners. Fancy
every one expected, and the table elegantly laid for the
complete party. Fancy a charming dinner, in a charming
room, and the head-cook, concerned for the honour of every
dish, superintending in his clean white jacket and cap.
Fancy the Beast travelling six hundred miles on end, very
fast, and with great punctuality, yet being taught to expect
all this to be done for it ! "

A spirited chorus of " The Beast ! "

I noticed that Sniff was agin a-rubbing his stomach with a
soothing hand, and that he had drored up one leg. But agin
I didn't take particular notice, looking on myself as called
upon to stimulate public feeling. It being a lark besides.

"Putting everything together," said Our Missis, "French
Refreshmenting comes to this, and oh, it comes to a nice
total ! First : eatable things to eat, and drinkable things to
drink."

A groan from the young ladies, kep' up by me.

188 MUGBY JUNCTION.

" Second : convenience, and even elegance/'

Another groan from the young ladies, kep1 up by me.

"Third: moderate charges."

This time a groan from me, kep' up by the young ladies.

"Fourth: — and here," says Our Missis, "I claim your
angriest sympathy, — attention, common civility, nay, even
politeness ! "

Me and the young ladies regularly raging mad all together.

"And I cannot in conclusion,"" says Our Missis, with her
spitefullest sneer, "give you a completer pictur of that de
spicable nation (after what I have related), than assuring
you that they wouldn't bear our constitutional ways and noble
independence at Mugby Junction, for a single month, and
that they would turn us to the right-about and put another
system in our places, as soon as look at us ; perhaps sooner,
for I do not believe they have the good taste to care to look
at us twice."

The swelling tumult was arrested in its rise. Sniff, bore
away by his servile disposition, had drored up his leg with a
higher and a higher relish, and was now discovered to be
waving his corkscrew over his head. It was at this moment
that Mrs. Sniff, who had kep*1 her eye upon him like the
fabled obelisk, descended on her victim. Our Missis followed
them both out, and cries was heard in the sawdust department.

You come into the Down Refreshment Room, at the
Junction, making believe you don't know me, and Til pint
you out with my right thumb over my shoulder which is Our
Missis, and which is Miss WhifF, and which is Miss Piff, and
which is Mrs. Sniff. But you won't get a chance to see Sniff,
because he disappeared that night. Whether he perished,
tore to pieces, I cannot say ; but his corkscrew alone remains,
to bear witness to the servility of his disposition.

CHAPTER IV.

NO. 1 BRANCH LINE I THE SIGNAL-MAN.

" HALLOA ! Below there ! "

When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was stand
ing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled
round its short pole. One would have thought, considering
the nature of the ground, that he could not have doubted
from what quarter the voice came ; but instead of looking
up to where I stood on the top of the steep cutting nearly
over his head, he turned himself about, and looked down the
Line. There was something remarkable in his manner of
doing so, though I could not have said for my life what.
But I know it was remarkable enough to attract my notice,
even though his figure was foreshortened and shadowed, down
in the deep trench, and mine was high above him, so steeped
in the glow of an angry sunset, that I had shaded my eyes
with my hand before I saw him at all.

"Halloa! Below!11

From looking down the Line, he turned himself about
again, and, raising his eyes, saw my figure high above him.

" Is there any path by which I can come down and speak
to you ? "

He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down
at him without pressing him too soon with a repetition of
my idle question. Just then there came a vague vibration
in the earth and air, quickly changing into a violent pulsa
tion, and an oncoming rush that caused me to start back, as

190 MUGBY JUNCTION.

though it had force to draw me down. When such vapour
as rose to my height from this rapid train had passed me,
and was skimming away over the landscape, I looked down
again, and saw him refurling the flag he had shown while the
train went by.

I repeated my inquiry. After a pause, during which he
seemed to regard me with fixed attention, he motioned with
his rolled-up flag towards a point on my level, some two or
three hundred yards distant. I called down to him, "All
right ! " and made for that point. There, by dint of looking
closely about me, I found a rough zigzag descending path
notched out, which I followed.

The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate.
It was made through a clammy stone, that became oozier
and wetter as I went down. For these reasons, I found the
way long enough to give me time to recall a singular air of
reluctance or compulsion with which he had pointed out the
path.

When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to
see him again, I saw that he was standing between the rails
on the way by which the train had lately passed, in an
attitude as if he were waiting for me to appear. He had his
left hand at his chin, and that left elbow rested on his right
hand, crossed over his breast. His attitude was one of such
expectation and watchfulness that I stopped a moment,
wondering at it.

I resumed my downward way, and stepping out upon the
level of the railroad, and drawing nearer to him, saw that he
was a dark sallow man, with a dark beard and rather heavy
eyebrows. His post was in as solitary and dismal a place
as ever I saw. On either side, a dripping- wet wall of jagged
stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky ; the perspective
one way only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon ;
the shorter perspective in the other direction terminating in
a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a black
tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous,

THE SIGNAL-MAN ON DUTY. 191

depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight ever found
its way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell;
and so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill
to me, as if I had left the natural world.

Before he stirred, I was near enough to him to have
touched him. Not even then removing his eyes from mine,
he stepped back one step, and lifted his hand.

This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had
riveted my attention when I looked down from up yonder.
A visitor was a rarity, I should suppose; not an unwelcome
rarity, I hoped ? In me, he merely saw a man who had been
shut up within narrow limits all his life, and who, being at
last set free, had a newly-awakened interest in these great
works. To such purpose I spoke to him ; but I am far
from sure of the terms I used ; for, besides that I am not
happy in opening any conversation, there was something in
the man that daunted me.

He directed a most curious look towards the red light near
the tunnel's mouth, and looked all about it, as if something
were missing from it, and then looked at me.

That light was part of his charge ? Was it not ?

He answered in a low voice, — " Don't you know it is ?"

The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused
the fixed eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit,
not a man. I have speculated since, whether there may have
been infection in his mind.

In my turn, I stepped back. But in making the action, I
detected in his eyes some latent fear of me. This put the
monstrous thought to flight.

" You look at me," I said, forcing a smile, " as if you had
a dread of me."

"I was doubtful," he returned, "whether I had seen you
before."

"Where?"

He pointed to the red light he had looked at.

"There?"! said.

192 MUGBY JUNCTION.

Intently watchful of me, he replied (but without sound),
"Yes."

66 My good fellow, what should I do there ? However, be
that as it may, I never was there, you may swear."

" I think I may," he rejoined. "Yes ; I am sure I may."

His manner cleared, like my own. He replied to my
remarks with readiness, and in well-chosen words. Had he
much to do there? Yes; that was to say, he had enough
responsibility to bear; but exactness and watchfulness were
what was required of him, and of actual work — manual
labour — he had next to none. To change that signal, to
trim those lights, and to turn this iron handle now and then,
was all he had to do under that head. Regarding those
many long and lonely hours of which I seemed to make so
much, he could only say that the routine of his life had
shaped itself into that form, and he had grown used to it.
He had taught himself a language down here, — if only to
know it by sight, and to have formed his own crude ideas of
its pronunciation, could be called learning it. He had also
worked at fractions and decimals, and tried a little algebra;
but he was, and had been as a boy, a poor hand at figures.
Was it necessary for him when on duty always to remain in
that channel of damp air, and could he never rise into the
sunshine from between those high stone walls? Why, that
depended upon times and circumstances. Under some con
ditions there would be less upon the Line than under others,
and the same held good as to certain hours of the day
and night. In bright weather, he did choose occasions for
getting a little above these lower shadows; but, being at
all times liable to be called by his electric bell, and at such
times listening for it with redoubled anxiety, the relief was
less than I would suppose.

He took me into his box, where there was a fire, a desk
for an official book in which he had to make certain entries,
a telegraphic instrument with its dial, face, and needles, and
the little bell of which he had spoken. On my trusting

GONE DOWN IN THE WORLD. 193

that he would excuse the remark that he had been well
educated, and (I hoped I might say without offence), perhaps
educated above that station, he observed that instances of
slight incongruity in such wise would rarely be found wanting
among large bodies of men ; that he had heard it was so in
workhouses, in the police force, even in that last desperate
resource, the army ; and that he knew it was so, more or less,
in any great railway staff. He had been, when young (if I
could believe it, sitting in that hut, — he scarcely could), a
student of natural philosophy, and had attended lectures ; but
he had run wild, misused his opportunities, gone down, and
never risen again. He had no complaint to offer about that.
He had made his bed, and he lay upon it. It was far too
late to make another.

All that I have here condensed he said in a quiet manner,
with his grave dark regards divided between me and the fire.
He threw in the word, " Sir,"" from time to time, and especially
when he referred to his youth, — as though to request me to
understand that he claimed to be nothing but what I found
him. He was several times interrupted by the little bell,
and had to read off messages, and send replies. Once he had
to stand without the door, and display a flag as a train
passed, and make some verbal communication to the driver.
In the discharge of his duties, I observed him to be remarkably
exact and vigilant, breaking off his discourse at a syllable,
and remaining silent until what he had to do was done.

In a word, I should have set this man down as one of the
safest of men to be employed in that capacity, but for the
circumstance that while he was speaking to me he twice
broke off with a fallen colour, turned his face towards the
little bell when it did NOT ring, opened the door of the hut
(which was kept shut to exclude the unhealthy damp), and
looked out towards the red light near the mouth of the tunnel.
On both of those occasions, he came back to the fire with
the inexplicable air upon him which I had remarked, without
being able to define, when we were so far asunder.

VOL. IT. o

194 MUGBY JUNCTION.

Said I, when I rose to leave him, "You almost make me
think that I have met with a contented man.1'

(I am afraid I must acknowledge that I said it to lead
him on.)

"I believe I used to be so," he rejoined, in the low voice
in which he had first spoken ; " but I am troubled, sir, I am
troubled."

He would have recalled the words if he could. He had
said them, however, and I took them up quickly.

" With what ? What is your trouble ? "

" It is very difficult to impart, sir. It is very, very difficult
to speak of. If ever you make me another visit, I will try
to tell you."

" But I expressly intend to make you another visit. Say,
when shall it be?"

" I go off early in the morning, and I shall be on again at
ten to-morrow night, sir."

"I will come at eleven."

He thanked me, and went out at the door with me. " 111
show my white light, sir," he said, in his peculiar low voice,
"till you have found the way up. When you have found
it, don't call out ! And when you are at the top, don't
call out!"

His manner seemed to make the place strike colder to me,
but I said no more than, "Very well."

"And when you come down to-morrow night, don't call
out ! Let me ask you a parting question. What made you
cry, « Halloa ! Below there ! ' to-night ? "

"Heaven knows," said I. "I cried something to that
effect "

"Not to that effect, sir. Those were the very words. I
know them well."

"Admit those were the very words. I said them, no
doubt, because I saw you below."

"For no other reason?"

" What other reason could I possibly have ? "

RNING.

A SPECTRAL WARNING. , 195

"You had no feeling that they were conveyed to you in
any supernatural way?"

"No."

He wished me good night, and held up his light. I walked
by the side of the down Line of rails (with a very disagree
able sensation of a train coming behind me) until I found
the path. It was easier to mount than to descend, and I got
back to my inn without any adventure.

Punctual to my appointment, I placed my foot on the first
notch of the zigzag next night, as the distant clocks were
striking eleven. He was waiting for me at the bottom, with
his white light on. " I have not called out," I said, when we
came close together ; " may I speak now ? " " By all means,
sir." "Good night, then, and here's my hand." "Good
night, sir, and here's mine." With that we walked side by
side to his box, entered it, closed the door, and sat down by
the fire.

"I have made up my mind, sir," he began, bending
forward as soon as we were seated, and speaking in a tone
but a little above a whisper, "that you shall not have to ask
me twice what troubles me. I took you for some one else
yesterday evening. That troubles me."

"That mistake?"

"No. That some one else."

"Who is it?"

"I don't know."

"Like me?"

"I don't know. I never saw the face. The left arm is
across the face, and the right arm is waved, — violently waved.
This way."

I followed his action with my eyes, and it was the action of
an arm gesticulating, with the utmost passion and vehemence,
"For God's sake, clear the way !"

" One moonlight night," said the man, " I was sitting here,
when I heard a voice cry, ' Halloa ! Below there ! ' I started
up, looked from that door, and saw this Some one else

196 MUGBY JUNCTION.

standing by the red light near the tunnel, waving as I just
now showed you. The voice seemed hoarse with shouting, and
it cried, < Look out ! Look out ! ' And then again, ' Halloa !
Below there ! Look out ! ' I caught up my lamp, turned it
on red, and ran towards the figure, calling, ' What's wrong ?
What has happened? Where?' It stood just outside the
blackness of the tunnel. I advanced so close upon it that I
wondered at its keeping the sleeve across its eyes. I ran right
up at it, and had my hand stretched out to pull the sleeve
away, when it was gone.*"

"Into the tunnel?" said I.

"No. I ran on into the tunnel, five hundred yards. I
stopped, and held my lamp above my head, and saw the
figures of the measured distance, and saw the wet stains
stealing down the walls and trickling through the arch. I
ran out again faster than I had run in (for I had a mortal
abhorrence of the place upon me), and I looked all round
the red light with my own red light, and I went up the iron
ladder to the gallery atop of it, and I came down again,
and ran back here. I telegraphed both ways, 'An alarm
has been given. Is anything wrong?1 The answer came
back, both ways, 'All well.'"

Resisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my
spine, I showed him how that this figure must be a deception
of his sense of sight; and how that figures, originating in
disease of the delicate nerves that minister to the functions of
the eye, were known to have often troubled patients, some
of whom had become conscious of the nature of their afflic
tion, and had even proved it by experiments upon them
selves. "As to an imaginary cry," said I, "do but listen
for a moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while
we speak so low, and to the wild harp it makes of the
telegraph wires."

That was all very well, he returned, after we had sat
listening for a while, and he ought to know something of
the wind and the wires, — he who so often passed long winter

A REMARKABLE COINCIDENCE. 197

nights there, alone and watching. But he would beg to
remark that he had not finished.

I asked his pardon, and he slowly added these words,
touching my arm, —

"Within six hours after the Appearance, the memorable
accident on this Line happened, and within ten hours the
dead and wounded were brought along through the tunnel
over the spot where the figure had stood/'

A disagreeable shudder crept over me, but I did my best
against it. It was not to be denied, I rejoined, that this was a
remarkable coincidence, calculated deeply to impress his mind.
But it was unquestionable that remarkable coincidences did
continually occur, and they must be taken into account in
dealing with such a subject. Though to be sure I must admit,
I added (for I thought I saw that he was going to bring
the objection to bear upon me), men of common sense did
not allow much for coincidences in making the ordinary
calculations of life.

He again begged to remark that he had not finished.

I again begged his pardon for being betrayed into inter
ruptions.

"This," he said, again laying his hand upon my arm, and
glancing over his shoulder with hollow eyes, " was just a year
ago. Six or seven months passed, and I had recovered from
the surprise and shock, when one morning, as the day was
breaking, I, standing at the door, looked towards the red light,
and saw the spectre again." He stopped, with a fixed look
at me.

"Did it cry out?"

"No. It was silent."

" Did it wave its arm ? "

"No. It leaned against the shaft of the light, with both
hands before the face. Like this."

Once more I followed his action with my eyes. It was an
action of mourning. I have seen such an attitude in stone
figures on tombs.

198 MUGBY JUNCTION.

"Did you go up to it?"

" I came in and sat down, partly to collect my thoughts,
partly because it had turned me faint. When I went to
the door again, daylight was above me, and the ghost
was gone."

" But nothing followed ? Nothing came of this ? "

He touched me on the arm with his forefinger twice or
thrice, giving a ghastly nod each time : —

"That very day, as a train came out of the tunnel, I
noticed, at a carriage window on my side, what looked like
a confusion of hands and heads, and something waved. I
saw it just in time to signal the driver, Stop ! He shut off,
and put his brake on, but the train drifted past here a
hundred and fifty yards or more. I ran after it, and, as I
went along, heard terrible screams and cries. A beautiful
young lady had died instantaneously in one of the compart
ments, and was brought in here, and laid down on this floor
between us."

Involuntarily I pushed my chair back, as I looked from
the boards at which he pointed to himself.

"True, sir. True. Precisely as it happened, so I tell
it you."

I could think of nothing to say, to any purpose, and my
mouth was very dry. The wind and the wires took up the
story with a long lamenting wail.

He resumed. "Now, sir, mark this, and judge how my
mind is troubled. The spectre came back a week ago. Ever
since, it has been there, now and again, by fits and starts."

"At the light?"

" At the Danger-light."

"What does it seem to do?"

He repeated, if possible with increased passion and vehe
mence, that former gesticulation of, "For God's sake, clear
the way ! "

Then he went on. "I have no peace or rest for it. It
calls to me, for many minutes together, in an agonised manner,

THE SIGNAL-MAN PERPLEXED. 199

'Below there! Look out! Look out!' It stands waving
to me. It rings my little bell "

I caught at that. "Did it ring your bell yesterday
evening when I was here, and you went to the door?"

"Twice."

"Why, see," said I, "how your imagination misleads you.
My eyes were on the bell, and my ears were open to the bell,
and if I am a living man, it did NOT ring at those times.
No, nor at any other time, except when it was rung in the
natural course of physical things by the station communicating
with you."

He shook his head. " I have never made a mistake as to
that yet, sir. I have never confused the spectre's ring with
the man's. The ghost's ring is a strange vibration in the
bell that it derives from nothing else, and I have not
asserted that the bell stirs to the eye. I don't wonder that
you failed to hear it. But / heard it."

"And did the spectre seem to be there, when you looked
out?"

" It WAS there."

"Both times?"

He repeated firmly : " Both times."

"Will you come to the door with me, and look for it
now?"

He bit his under lip as though he were somewhat unwilling,
but arose. I opened the door, and stood on the step, while
he stood in the doorway. There was the Danger-light.
There was the dismal mouth of the tunnel. There were the
high, wet stone walls of the cutting. There were the stars
above them.

" Do you see it ? " I asked him, taking particular note of
his face. His eyes were prominent and strained, but not very
much more so, perhaps, than my own had been when I had
directed them earnestly towards the same spot.

"No," he answered. "It is not there."

"Agreed," said I.

200

MUGBY JUNCTION.

We went in again, shut the door, and resumed our seats.
I was thinking how best to improve this advantage, if it
might be called one, when he took up the conversation in
such a matter-of-course way, so assuming that there could
be no serious question of fact between us, that I felt myself
placed in the weakest of positions.

"By this time you will fully understand, sir," he said,
"that what troubles me so dreadfully is the question, What
does the spectre mean ? "

I was not sure, I told him, that I did fully understand.

" What is its warning against ? " he said, ruminating, with
his eyes on the fire, and only by times turning them on me.
"What is the danger? Where is the danger? There is
danger overhanging somewhere on the Line. Some dreadful
calamity will happen. It is not to be doubted this third
time, after what has gone before. But surely this is a cruel
haunting of me. What can / do ? "

He pulled out his handkerchief, and wiped the drops from
his heated forehead.

"If I telegraph Danger, on either side of me, or on both,
I can give no reason for it,*' he went on, wiping the palms
of his hands. "I should get into trouble, and do no good.
They would think I was mad. This is the way it would
work, — Message : ' Danger ! Take care ! ' Answer : ' What
Danger ? Where ? " Message : ' Don't know. But, for God's
sake, take care ! "" They would displace me. What else could
they do?"

His pain of mind was most pitiable to see. It was the
mental torture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond
endurance by an unintelligible responsibility involving life.

" When it first stood under the Danger-light," he went on,
putting his dark hair back from his head, and drawing his
hands outward across and across his temples in an extremity
of feverish distress, "why not tell me where that accident
was to happen, — if it must happen? Why not tell me how
it could be averted, — if it could have been averted? When

CONSIDERING HOW TO ACT. 201

on its second coming it hid its face, why not tell me, instead,
' She is going to die. Let them keep her at home ' ? If it
came, on those two occasions, only to show me that its
warnings were true, and so to prepare me for the third,
why not warn me plainly now ? And I, Lord help me !
A mere poor signal-man on this solitary station ! Why
not go to somebody with credit to be believed, and power
to act ? "

When I saw him in this state, I saw that for the poor
man^s sake, as well as for the public safety, what I had to
do for the time was to compose his mind. Therefore, setting
aside all question of reality or unreality between us, I repre
sented to him that whoever thoroughly discharged his duty
must do well, and that at least it was his comfort that he
understood his duty, though he did not understand these
confounding Appearances. In this effort I succeeded far
better than in the attempt to reason him out of his convic
tion. He became calm ; the occupations incidental to his
post as the night advanced began to make larger demands
on his attention : and I left him at two in the morning. I
had offered to stay through the night, but he would not
hear of it.

That I more than once looked back at the red light as I
ascended the pathway, that I did not like the red light, and
that I should have slept but poorly if my bed had been under
it, I see no reason to conceal. Nor did I like the two
sequences of the accident and the dead girl. I see no reason
to conceal that either.

But what ran most in my thoughts was the consideration
how ought I to act, having become the recipient of this
disclosure ? I had proved the man to be intelligent, vigilant,
painstaking, and exact ; but how long might he remain so,
in his state of mind ? Though in a subordinate position, still
he held a most important trust, and would I (for instance)
like to stake my own life on the chances of his continuing
to execute it with precision r

202 MUGBY JUNCTION.

Unable to overcome a feeling that there would be some
thing treacherous in my communicating what he had told
me to his superiors in the Company, without first being plain
with himself and proposing a middle course to him, I
ultimately resolved to offer to accompany him (otherwise
keeping his secret for the present) to the wisest medical
practitioner we could hear of in those parts, and to take
his opinion. A change in his time of duty would come
round next night, he had apprised me, and he would be off
an hour or two after sunrise, and on again soon after sunset.
I had appointed to return accordingly.

Next evening was a lovely evening, and I walked out early
to enjoy it. The sun was not yet quite down when I
traversed the field-path near the top of the deep cutting.
I would extend my walk for an hour, I said to myself, half
an hour on and half an hour back, and it would then be
time to go to my signal-man's box.

Before pursuing my stroll, I stepped to the brink, and
mechanically looked down, from the point from which I had
first seen him. I cannot describe the thrill that seized upon
me, when, close at the mouth of the tunnel, I saw the
appearance of a man, with his left sleeve across his eyes,
passionately waving his right arm.

The nameless horror that oppressed me passed in a moment,
for in a moment I saw that this appearance of a man was a
man indeed, and that there was a little group of other men,
standing at a short distance, to whom he seemed to be
rehearsing the gesture he made. The Danger-light was not
yet lighted. Against its shaft, a little low hut, entirely new
to me, had been made of some wooden supports and tar
paulin. It looked no bigger than a bed.

With an irresistible sense that something was wrong, —
with a flashing self-reproachful fear that fatal mischief had
come of my leaving the man there, and causing no one to be
sent to overlook or correct what he did, — I descended the
notched path with all the speed I could make.

FULFILMENT OF THE WARNING. 203

"What is the matter?" I asked the men.

" Signal-man killed this morning, sir."

" Not the man belonging to that box ? "

« Yes, sir."

"Not the man I know?"

"You will recognise him, sir, if you knew him," said the
man who spoke for the others, solemnly uncovering his own
head, and raising an end of the tarpaulin, "for his face is
quite composed."

" O, how did this happen, how did this happen ? " I asked,
turning from one to another as the hut closed in again.

" He was cut down by an engine, sir. No man in England
knew his work better. But somehow he was not clear of the
outer rail. It was just at broad day. He had struck the
light, and had the lamp in his hand. As the engine came
out of the tunnel, his back was towards her, and she cut
him down. That man drove her, and was showing how it
happened. Show the gentleman, Tom."

The man, who wore a rough dark dress, stepped back to
his former place at the mouth of the tunnel.

" Coming round the curve in the tunnel, sir," he said, " I
saw him at the end, like as if I saw him down a perspective-
glass. There was no time to check speed, and I knew him
to be very careful. As he didn't seem to take heed of the
whistle, I shut it off when we were running down upon him,
and called to him as loud as I could call."

"What did you say?"

" I said, ' Below there ! Look out ! Look out ! For God's
sake, clear the way ! ' "

I started.

" Ah ! it was a dreadful time, sir. I never left off calling
to him. I put this arm before my eyes not to see, and I
waved this arm to the last; but it was no use."

Without prolonging the narrative to dwell on any one
of its curious circumstances more than on any other, I may,

204

MUGBY JUNCTION.

in closing it, point out the coincidence that the warning of
the Engine-Driver included, not only the words which the
unfortunate Signal-man had repeated to me as haunting him,
but also the words which I myself — not he — had attached,
and that only in my own mind, to the gesticulation he had
imitated.

NO THOROUGHFARE

[1867]

[This was written by Mr. Wilkie Collins conjointly with Mr. Dickens ; the
only portions furnished exclusively by Mr. Dickens being the u Overture "
and the " Third Act ;" Mr. Collins contributing to acts first and fourth, and
writing the whole of the second.]

NO THOROUGHFARE.

THE OVERTURE.

DAY of the month and year, November the thirtieth, one
thousand eight hundred and thirty-five. London Time by
the great clock of Saint Paul's, ten at night. All the lesser
London churches strain their metallic throats. Some, flip
pantly begin before the heavy bell of the great cathedral;
some, tardily begin three, four, half a dozen, strokes behind
it; all are in sufficiently near accord, to leave a resonance in
the air, as if the winged father who devours his children, had
made a sounding sweep with his gigantic scythe in flying over
the city.

What is this clock lower than most of the rest, and nearer
to the ear, that lags so far behind to-night as to strike into
the vibration alone ? This is the clock of the Hospital for
Foundling Children. Time was, when the Foundlings were
received without question in a cradle at the gate. Time is,
when inquiries are made respecting them, and they are taken
as by favour from the mothers who relinquish all natural
knowledge of them and claim to them for evermore.

The moon is at the full, and the night is fair with light
clouds. The day has been otherwise than fair, for slush and
mud, thickened with the droppings of heavy fog, lie black in
the streets. The veiled lady who flutters up and down near

208 NO THOROUGHFARE.

the postern-gate of the Hospital for Foundling Children has
need to be well shod to-night.

She flutters to and fro, avoiding the stand of hackney-
coaches, and often pausing in the shadow of the western end
of the great quadrangle wall, with her face turned towards
the gate. As above her there is the purity of the moonlit
sky, and below her there are the defilements of the pavement,
so may she, haply, be divided in her mind between two vistas
of reflection or experience. As her footprints crossing and
recrossing one another have made a labyrinth in the mire, so
may her track in life have involved itself in an intricate and
unravellable tangle.

The postern-gate of the Hospital for Foundling Children
opens, and a young woman comes out. The lady stands
aside, observes closely, sees that the gate is quietly closed
again from within, and follows the young woman.

Two or three streets have been traversed in silence before
she, following close behind the object of her attention,
stretches out her hand and touches her. Then the young
woman stops and looks round, startled.

" You touched me last night, and, when I turned my head,
you would not speak. Why do you follow me like a silent
ghost?"

"It was not,*1 returned the lady, in a low voice, "that I
would not speak, but that I could not when I tried."

"TVTiat do you want of me ? I have never done you any
harm?"

"Never."

"Do I know you?"

"No."

" Then what can you want of me ? "

"Here are two guineas in this paper. Take my poor
little present, and I will tell you."

Into the young woman's face, which is honest and comely,
comes a flush as she replies : " There is neither grown person
nor child in all the large establishment that I belong to, who

SALLY AND THE VEILED LADY. 209

hasn't a good word for Sally. I am Sally. Could I be so
well thought of, if I was to be bought ? "

" I do not mean to buy you ; I mean only to reward you
very slightly."

Sally firmly, but not ungently, closes and puts back the
offering hand. " If there is anything I can do for you, ma'am,
that I will not do for its own sake, you are much mistaken
in me if you think that I will do it for money. What is it
you want?1'

" You are one of the nurses or attendants at the Hospital ;
I saw you leave to-night and last night."

"Yes, I am. I am Sally."

" There is a pleasant patience in your face which makes me
believe that very young children would take readily to you."

« God bless 'em ! So they do."

The lady lifts her veil, and shows a face no older than the
nurse's. A face far more refined and capable than hers, but
wild and worn with sorrow.

"I am the miserable mother of a baby lately received
under your care. I have a prayer to make to you."

Instinctively respecting the confidence which has drawn
aside the veil, Sally — whose ways are all ways of simplicity
and spontaneity — replaces it, and begins to cry.

"You will listen to my prayer?" the lady urges. "You
will not be deaf to the agonised entreaty of such a broken
suppliant as I am?"

" O dear, dear, dear ! " cries Sally. " What shall I say, or
can I say ! , Don't talk of prayers. Prayers are to be put up
to the Good Father of All, and not to nurses and such. And
there ! I am only to hold my place for half a year longer, till
another young woman can be trained up to it. I am going
to be married. I shouldn't have been out last night, and I
shouldn't have been out to-night, but that my Dick (he is the
young man I am going to be married to) lies ill, and I help
his mother and sister to watch him. Don't take on so, don't
take on so ! "

VOL. II. P

210 NO THOROUGHFARE.

" O good Sally, dear Sally," moans the lady, catching at her
dress entreatingly. " As you are hopeful, and I am hopeless ;
as a fair way in life is before you, which can never, never, be
before me ; as you can aspire to become a respected wife, and
as you can aspire to become a proud mother, as you are a
living loving woman, and must die ; for GOD'S sake hear my
distracted petition ! "

" Deary, deary, deary ME ! " cries Sally, her desperation
culminating in the pronoun, " what am I ever to do ? And
there ! See how you turn my own words back upon me. I
tell you I am going to be married, on purpose to make it
clearer to you that I am going to leave, and therefore couldn't
help you if I would, Poor Thing, and you make it seem to
my own self as if I was cruel in going to be married and
not helping you. It ain't kind. Now, is it kind, Poor
Thing?"

" Sally ! Hear me, my dear. My entreaty is for no help
in the future. It applies to what is past. It is only to be
told in two words."

" There ! This is worse and worse," cries Sally, " supposing
that I understand what two words you mean."

"You do understand. What are the names they have
given my poor baby? I ask no more than that. I have
read of the customs of the place. He has been christened in
the chapel, and registered by some surname in the book. He
was received last Monday evening. What have they called
him?"

Down upon her knees in the foul mud of the by-way into
which they have strayed — an empty street without a thorough
fare giving on the dark gardens of the Hospital — the lady
would drop in her passionate entreaty, but that Sally prevents
her.

w Don't ! Don't ! You make me feel as if I was setting
myself up to be good. Let me look in your pretty face
again. Put your two hands in mine. Now, promise. You
will never ask me anything more than the two words?"

THE FOUNDLING CHILDREN AT DINNER.

" Never ! Never ! "

"You will never put them to a bad use, if I say them?"

"Never! Never!"

"Walter Wilding."

The lady lays her face upon the nurse's breast, draws her
close in her embrace with both arms, murmurs a blessing and
the words, " Kiss him for me ! " and is gone.

Day of the month and year, the first Sunday in October,
one thousand eight hundred and forty-seven. London Time
by the great clock of Saint Paul's, half-past one in the after
noon. The clock of the Hospital for Foundling Children is
well up with the Cathedral to-day. Service in the chapel is
over, and the Foundling children are at dinner.

There are numerous lookers-on at the dinner, as the custom
is. There are two or three governors, whole families from
the congregation, smaller groups of both sexes, individual
stragglers of various degrees. The bright autumnal sun
strikes freshly into the wards ; and the heavy-framed windows
through which it shines, and the panelled walls on which it
strikes, are such windows and such walls as pervade Hogarth's
pictures. The girls' refectory (including that of the younger
children) is the principal attraction. Neat attendants silently
glide about the orderly and silent tables ; the lookers-on
move or stop as the fancy takes them ; comments in whispers
on face such a number from such a window are not unfre-
quent ; many of the faces are of a character to fix attention.
Some of the visitors from the outside public are accustomed
visitors. They have established a speaking acquaintance with
the occupants of particular seats at the tables, and halt at
those points to bend down and say a word or two. It is no
disparagement to their kindness that those points are generally
points where personal attractions are. The monotony of the
long spacious rooms and the double lines of faces is agreeably
relieved by these incidents, although so slight.

A veiled lady, who has no companion, goes among the

NO THOROUGHFARE.

company. It would seem that curiosity and opportunity have
never brought her there before. She has the air of being a
little troubled by the sight, and, as she goes the length of
the tables, it is with a hesitating step and an uneasy manner.
At length she comes to the refectory of the boys. They are
so much less popular than the girls that it is bare of visitors
when she looks in at the doorway.

But just within the doorway, chances to stand, inspecting,
an elderly female attendant : some order of matron or house
keeper. To whom the lady addresses natural questions : As,
how many boys ? At what age are they usually put out in
life ? Do they often take a fancy to the sea ? So, lower and
lower in tone until the lady puts the question : " Which is
Walter Wilding?"

Attendant's head shaken. Against the rules.

" You know which is Walter Wilding ? "

So keenly does the attendant feel the closeness with which
the lady's eyes examine her face, that she keeps her own eyes
fast upon the floor, lest by wandering in the right direction
they should betray her.

" I know which is Walter Wilding, but it is not my place,
ma'am, to tell names to visitors."

" But you can show me without telling me."

The lady's hand moves quietly to the attendant's hand.
Pause and silence.

"I am going to pass round the tables," says the lady's
interlocutor, without seeming to address her. " Follow me
with your eyes. The boy that I stop at and speak to, will
not matter to you. But the boy that I touch, will be Walter
Wilding. Say nothing more to me, and move a little away."

Quickly acting on the hint, the lady passes on into the
room, and looks about her. After a few moments, the
attendant, in a staid official way, walks down outside the line
of tables commencing on her left hand. She goes the whole
length of the line, turns, and comes back on the inside. Very
slightly glancing in the lady's direction, she stops, bends

THE VEILED LADY AMONG THE VISITORS.

forward, and speaks. The boy whom she addresses, lifts his
head and replies. Good humouredly and easily, as she listens
to what he says, she lays her hand upon the shoulder of the
next boy on his right. That the action may be well noted,
she keeps her hand on the shoulder while speaking in return,
and pats it twice or thrice before moving away. She com
pletes her tour of the tables, touching no one else, and
passes out by a door at the opposite end of the long room.

Dinner is done, and the lady, too, walks down outside the
line of tables commencing on her left hand, goes the whole
length of the line, turns, and comes back on the inside.
Other people have strolled in, fortunately for her, and stand
sprinkled about. She lifts her veil, and, stopping at the
touched boy, asks how old he is ?

"I am twelve, ma'am," he answers, with his bright eyes
fixed on hers.

" Are you well and happy ? "

"Yes, ma'am;1

" May you take these sweetmeats from my hand ? "

" If you please to give them to me.1"

In stooping low for the purpose, the lady touches the boy's
face with her forehead and with her hair. Then, lowering
her veil again, she passes on, and passes out without looking
back.

ACT I.

THE CURTAIN RISES.

IN a court-yard in the City of London, which was No
Thoroughfare either for vehicles or foot-passengers; a court
yard diverging from a steep, a slippery, and a winding street
connecting Tower-street with the Middlesex shore of the
Thames ; stood the place of business of Wilding and Co.,
Wine Merchants. Probably as a jocose acknowledgment
of the obstructive character of this main approach, the point
nearest to its base at which one could take the river (if so
inodorously minded) bore the appellation Break-Neck-Stairs.
The court-yard itself had likewise been descriptively entitled
in old time, Cripple Corner.

Years before the year one thousand eight hundred and
sixty-one, people had left off taking boat at Break-Neck-Stairs,
and watermen had ceased to ply there. The slimy little
causeway had dropped into the river by a slow process of
suicide, and two or three stumps of piles and a rusty iron
mooring-ring were all that remained of the departed Break-
Neck glories. Sometimes, indeed, a laden coal barge would
bump itself into the place, and certain laborious heavers,
seemingly mud-engendered, would arise, deliver the cargo in
the neighbourhood, shove off, and vanish ; but at most times
the only commerce of Break-Neck-Stairs arose out of the con
veyance of casks and bottles, both full and empty, both to
and from the cellars of Wilding and Co., Wine Merchants.

THE MAN OF PROPERTY AND MAN OF LAW.

Even that commerce was but occasional, and through three-
fourths of its rising tides the dirty indecorous drab of a river
would come solitarily oozing and lapping at the rusty ring,
as if it had heard of the Doge and the Adriatic, and wanted
to be married to the great conserver of its filthiness, the
Right Honourable the Lord Mayor.

Some two hundred and fifty yards on the right, up the
opposite hill (approaching it from the low ground of Break-
Neck-Stairs) was Cripple Corner. There was a pump in
Cripple Corner, there was a tree in Cripple Corner. All
Cripple Corner belonged to Wilding and Co., Wine Merchants.
Their cellars burrowed under it, their mansion towered over
it. It really had been a mansion in the days when merchants
inhabited the City, and had a ceremonious shelter to the
doorway without visible support, like the sounding-board
over an old pulpit. It had also a number of long narrow
strips of window, so disposed in its grave brick front as to
render it symmetrically ugly. It had also, on its roof, a
cupola with a bell in it.

" When a man at five-and-twenty can put his hat on, and
can say 'this hat covers the owner of this property and of
the business which is transacted on this property,' I consider,
Mr. Bintrey, that, without being boastful, he may be allowed
to be deeply thankful. I don't know how it may appear to
you, but so it appears to me."

Thus Mr. Walter Wilding to his man of law, in his own
counting-house; taking his hat down from its peg to suit
the action to the word, and hanging it up again when he
had done so, not to overstep the modesty of nature.

An innocent, open-speaking, unused-looking man, Mr.
Walter Wilding, with a remarkably pink and white com
plexion, and a figure much too bulky for so young a man,
though of a good stature. With crispy curling brown hair,
and amiable bright blue eyes. An extremely communicative
man : a man with whom loquacity was the irrestrainable out
pouring of contentment and gratitude. Mr. Bintrey, on the

216

NO THOROUGHFARE.

other hand, a cautious man, with twinkling beads of eyes in
a large overhanging bald head, who inwardly but intensely
enjoyed the comicality of openness of speech, or hand, or
heart.

« Yes," said Mr. Bintrey. " Yes. Ha, ha ! "

A decanter, two wine-glasses, and a plate of biscuits, stood
on the desk.

"You like this forty-five year old port- wine?"" said Mr.
Wilding.

" Like it ? " repeated Mr. Bintrey. " Rather, sir ! "

"It's from the best corner of our best forty-five year old
bin," said Mr. Wilding.

"Thank you, sir," said Mr. Bintrey. "It's most ex
cellent."

He laughed again, as he* held up his glass and ogled it, at
the highly ludicrous idea of giving away such wine.

"And now," said Wilding, with a childish enjoyment in the
discussion of affairs, " I think we have got everything straight,
Mr. Bintrey."

"Everything straight," said Bintrey.

"A partner secured "

" Partner secured," said Bintrey.

" A housekeeper advertised for "

" Housekeeper advertised for," said Bintrey, " ' apply per
sonally at Cripple Corner, Great Tower-street, from ten to
twelve ' — to-morrow, by-the-bye."

"My late dear mother's affairs wound up "

"Wound up," said Bintrey.

" And all charges paid."

"And all charges paid," said Bintrey, with a chuckle:
probably occasioned by the droll circumstance that they had
been paid without a haggle.

"The mention of my late dear mother," Mr. Wilding
continued, his eyes filling with tears and his pocket-handker
chief drying them, "unmans me still, Mr. Bintrey. You
know how I loved her ; you (her lawyer) know how she loved

HONOURING A MOTHER'S MEMORY. 217

me. The utmost love of mother and child was cherished
between us, and we never experienced one moment's division
or unhappiness from the time when she took me under her
care. Thirteen years in all ! Thirteen years under my late
dear mother's care, Mr. Bintrey, and eight of them her
confidentially acknowledged son ! You know the story, Mr.
Bintrey, who but you, sir!" Mr. Wilding sobbed and dried
his eyes, without attempt at concealment, during these
remarks.

Mr. Bintrey enjoyed his comical port, and said, after rolling
it in his mouth : " I know the story."

"My late dear mother, Mr. Bintrey," pursued the wine-
merchant, " had been deeply deceived, and had cruelly suffered.
But on that subject my late dear mother's lips were for ever
sealed. By whom deceived, or under what circumstances,
Heaven only knows. My late dear mother never betrayed
her betrayer."

" She had made up her mind," said Mr. Bintrey, again
turning his wine on his palate, "and she could hold her
peace." An amused twinkle in his eyes pretty plainly added
— " A devilish deal better than you ever will ! "

" ' Honour,' " said Mr. Wilding, sobbing as he quoted from
the Commandments, "'thy father and thy mother, that thy
days may be long in the land.' When I was in the Found
ling, Mr. Bintrey, I was at such a loss how to do it, that I
apprehended my days would be short in the land. But I
afterwards came to honour my mother deeply, profoundly.
And I honour and revere her memory. For seven happy
years, Mr. Bintrey," pursued Wilding, still with the same
innocent catching in his breath, and the same unabashed
tears, " did my excellent mother article me to my predecessors
in this business, Pebbleson Nephew. Her affectionate fore
thought likewise apprenticed me to the Vintners Company,
and made me in time a free Vintner, and — and — everything
else that the best of mothers could desire. When I came of
age, she bestowed her inherited share in this business upon

218 NO THOROUGHFARE.

me; it was her money that afterwards bought out Pebbleson
Nephew, and painted in Wilding and Co. ; it was she who
left me everything she possessed, but the mourning ring you
wear. And yet, Mr. Bintrey," with a fresh burst of honest
affection, " she is no more. It is little over half a year since
she came into the Corner to read on that door-post with her
own eyes, WILDING AND Co., WINE MERCHANTS. And yet
she is no more ! "

"Sad. But the common lot, Mr. Wilding," observed
Bintrey. "At some time or other we must all be no more."
He placed the forty-five year old port-wine in the universal
condition, with a relishing sigh.

"So now, Mr. Bintrey," pursued Wilding, putting away
his pocket-handkerchief, and smoothing his eyelids with his
fingers, " now that I can no longer show my love and honour
for the dear parent to whom my heart was mysteriously turned
by Nature when she first spoke to me, a strange lady, I
sitting at our Sunday dinner-table in the Foundling, I can
at least show that I am not ashamed of having been a Found
ling, and that I, who never knew a father of my own, wish to
be a father to all in my employment. Therefore," continued
Wilding, becoming enthusiastic in his loquacity, "therefore,
I want a thoroughly good housekeeper to undertake this
dwelling-house of Wilding and Co., Wine Merchants, Cripple
Corner, so that I may restore in it some of the old relations
betwixt employer and employed ! So that I may live in it on
the spot where my money is made ! So that I may daily sit
at the head of the table at which the people in my employ
ment eat together, and may eat of the same roast and boiled,
and drink of the same beer! So that the people in my
employment may lodge under the same roof with me ! So

that we may one and all I beg your pardon, Mr.

Bintrey, but that old singing in my head has suddenly come
on, and I shall feel obliged if you will lead me to the pump."

Alarmed by the excessive pinkness of his client, Mr.
Bintrey lost not a moment in leading him forth into the

A PATRIARCHAL IDEA. 219

court-yard. It was easily done; for the counting-house in
which they talked together opened on to it, at one side of
the dwelling-house. There the attorney pumped with a will,
obedient to a sign from the client, and the client laved his
head and face with both hands, and took a hearty drink.
After these remedies, he declared himself much better.

"Don't let your good feelings excite you,"" said Bintrey,
as they returned to the counting-house, and Mr. Wilding
dried himself on a jack-towel behind an inner door*

" No, no. I won't," he returned, looking out of the towel.
" I won't. I have not been confused, have I ? "

" Not at all. Perfectly clear."

"Where did I leave off, Mr. Bintrey?"

" Well, you left off — but I wouldn't excite myself, if I was
you, by taking it up again just yet."

"I'll take care. I'll take care. The singing in my head,
came on at where, Mr. Bintrey?"

"At roast, and boiled, and beer," answered the lawyer,
prompting — "lodging under the same roof — and one and
all "

" Ah ! And one and all singing in the head together "

"Do you know, I really would not let my good feelings
excite me, if I was you," hinted the lawyer again, anxiously.
"Try some more pump."

"No occasion, no occasion. All right, Mr. Bintrey. And
one and all forming a kind of family ! You see, Mr. Bintrey,
I was not used in my childhood to that sort of individual
existence which most individuals have led, more or less, in
their childhood. After that time I became absorbed in my
late dear mother. Having lost her, I find that I am more
fit for being one of a body than one by myself one. To be
that, and at the same time to do my duty to those dependent
on me, and attach them to me, has a patriarchal and
pleasant air about it. I don't know how it may appear to
you, Mr. Bintrey, but so it appears to me."

" It is not I who am all-important in the case, but you,"

220 NO THOROUGHFARE.

returned Bintrey. " Consequently, how it may appear to me
is of very small importance.1''

" It appears to me" said Mr. Wilding, in a glow, " hopeful,
useful, delightful!1'

" Do you know,11 hinted the lawyer again, " I really would
not ex "

" I am not going to. Then theiVs Handel.11

" There^ who ? " asked Bintrey.

" Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Kent, Purcell, Doctor Arne,
Greene, Mendelssohn. I know the choruses to those anthems
by heart. Foundling Chapel Collection. Why shoukhVt we
learn them together?11

"Who learn them together?11 asked the lawyer, rather
shortly.

" Employer and employed.11

"Ay, ay,1' returned Bintrey, mollified; as if he had half
expected the answer to be, Lawyer and client. "That's
another thing.11

"Not another thing, Mr. Bintrey! The same thing. A
part of the bond among us. We will form a Choir in some
quiet church near the Corner here, and, having sung together
of a Sunday with a relish, we will come home and take an
early dinner together with a relish. The object that I have
at heart now is, to get this system well in action without
delay, so that my new partner may find it founded when he
enters on his partnership.11

" All good be with it ! " exclaimed Bintrey, rising. " May
it prosper ! Is Joey Ladle to take a share in Handel,
Mozart, Haydn, Kent, Purcell, Doctor Arne, Greene, and
Mendelssohn?11

"I hope so.11

"I wish them all well out of it,1' returned Bintrey, with
much heartiness. "Good-bye, sir.11

They shook hands and parted. Then (first knocking with
his knuckles for leave) entered to Mr. Wilding from a door
of communication between his private counting-house and

JOEY LADLE.

that in which his clerks sat, the Head Cellarman of the
cellars of Wilding and Co., Wine Merchants, and erst Head
Cellarman of the cellars of Pebbleson Nephew. The Joey
Ladle in question. A slow and ponderous man, of the dray
man order of human architecture, dressed in a corrugated
suit and bibbed apron, apparently a composite of door-mat
and rhinoceros-hide.

"Respecting this same boarding and lodging, Young
Master Wilding," said he.

"Yes, Joey?"

"Speaking for myself, Young Master Wilding — and I
never did speak and I never do speak for no one else — / don't
want no boarding nor yet no lodging. But if you wish to
board me and to lodge me, take me. I can peck as well
as most men. Where I peck ain't so high a object with me
as What I peck. Nor even so high a object with me as
How Much I peck. Is all to live in the house, Young
Master Wilding? The two other cellarmen, the three
porters, the two 'prentices, and the odd men ? "

" Yes. I hope we shall all be an united family, Joey."

" Ah ! " said Joey. " I hope they may be."

" They ? Rather say we, Joey."

Joey Ladle shook his head. Don't look to me to make we
on it, Young Master Wilding, not at my time of life and
under the circumstarnces which has formed my disposition.
I have said to Pebbleson Nephew many a time, when they
have said to me, 'Put a livelier face upon it, Joey' — I have
said to them, ' Gentlemen, it is all wery well for you that
has been accustomed to take your wine into your systems by
the conwivial channel of your throttles, to put a lively face
upon it; but,' I says, 'I have been accustomed to take my
wine in at the pores of the skin, and, took that way, it acts
different. It acts depressing. It's one thing, gentlemen,' I
says to Pebbleson Nephew, 'to charge your glasses in a
dining-room with a Hip Hurrah and a Jolly Companions
Every One, and it's another thing to be charged yourself,

222 NO THOROUGHFARE.

through the pores, in a low dark cellar and a mouldy
atmosphere. It makes all the difference betwixt bubbles and
wapours,' I tells Pebbleson Nephew. And so it do. I've
been a cellarman my life through, with my mind fully given
to the business. What's the consequence? Tm as muddled
a man as lives — you won't find a muddleder man than me —
nor yet you won't find my equal in molloncolly. Sing of
Filling the bumper fair, Every drop you sprinkle, O'er the
brow of care, Smooths away a wrinkle? Yes. P'raps so.
But try filling yourself through the pores, underground, when
you don't want to it ! "

" I am sorry to hear this, Joey. I had even thought that
you might join a singing-class in the house."

"Me, sir? No, no, Young Master Wilding, you won't
catch Joey Ladle muddling the Armony. A pecking-
machine, sir, is all that I am capable of proving myself, out
of my cellars ; but that you're welcome to, if you think it's
worth your while to keep such a thing on your premises."

" I do, Joey."

" Say no more, sir. The Business's word is my law. And
you're a going to take Young Master George Vendale partner
into the old Business ? "

" I am, Joey."

" More changes, you see ! But don't change the name of
the Firm again. Don't do it, Young Master Wilding. It
was bad luck enough to make it Yourself and Co. Better
by far have left it Pebbleson Nephew that good luck always
stuck to. You should never change luck when it's good,
sir."

" At all events, I have no intention of changing the name
of the House again, Joey."

'Glad to hear it, and wish you good-day, Young Master
Wilding. But you had better by half," muttered Joey Ladle
inaudibly, as he closed the door and shook his head, "have
let the name alone from the first. You had better by half
have followed the luck instead of crossing it."

WANTED, A HOUSEKEEPER.

ENTER THE HOUSEKEEPER.

The wine-merchant sat in his dining-room next morning,
to receive the personal applicants for the vacant post in his
establishment. It was an old-fashioned wainscoted room ; the
panels ornamented with festoons of flowers carved in wood;
with an oaken floor, a well-worn Turkey carpet, and dark
mahogany furniture, all of which had seen service and polish
under Pebbleson Nephew. The great sideboard had assisted
at many business-dinners given by Pebbleson Nephew to their
connection, on the principle of throwing sprats overboard to
catch whales ; and Pebbleson Nephew's comprehensive three-
sided plate-warmer, made to fit the whole front of the large
fireplace, kept watch beneath it over a sarcophagus-shaped
cellaret that had in its time held many a dozen of Pebbleson
Nephew's wine. But the little rubicund old bachelor with a
pigtail, whose portrait was over the sideboard (and who could
easily be identified as decidedly Pebbleson and decidedly not
Nephew), had retired into another sarcophagus, and the
plate-warmer had grown as cold as he. So, the golden and
black griffins that supported the candelabra, with black balls
in their mouths at the end of gilded chains, looked as if in
their old age they had lost all heart for playing at ball, and
were dolefully exhibiting their chains in the Missionary line
of inquiry, whether they had not earned emancipation by
this time, and were not griffins and brothers.

Such a Columbus of a morning was the summer morning,
that it discovered Cripple Corner. The light and warmth
pierced in at the open windows, and irradiated the picture
of a lady hanging over the chimney-piece, the only other
decoration of the walls.

"My mother at five-and-twenty," said Mr. Wilding to
himself, as his eyes enthusiastically followed the light to the
portrait's face, "I hang up here, in order that visitors may
admire my mother in the bloom of her youth and beauty.

NO THOROUGHFARE.

My mother at fifty I hang in the seclusion of my own chamber,
as a remembrance sacred to me. O ! It's you, Jarvis ! "

These latter words he addressed to a clerk who had tapped
at the door, and now looked in.

" Yes, sir. I merely wished to mention that it's gone ten,
sir, and that there are several females in the Counting-
house."

" Dear me ! " said the wine-merchant, deepening in the
pink of his complexion and whitening in the white, "are
there several? So many as several? I had better begin
before there are more. Ill see them one by one, Jarvis, in
the order of their arrival."

Hastily entrenching himself in his easy-chair at the table
behind a great inkstand, having first placed a chair on the
other side of the table opposite his own seat, Mr. Wilding
entered on his task with considerable trepidation.

He ran the gauntlet that must be run on any such occasion.
There were the usual species of profoundly unsympathetic
women, and the usual species of much too sympathetic
women. There were buccaneering widows who came to seize
him, and who griped umbrellas under their arms, as if each
umbrella were he, and each griper had got him. There were
towering maiden ladies who had seen better days, and who
came armed with clerical testimonials to their theology, as
if he were Saint Peter with his keys. There were gentle
maiden ladies who came to marry him. There were profes
sional housekeepers, like non-commissioned officers, who put
him through his domestic exercise, instead of submitting
themselves to catechism. There were languid invalids, to
whom salary was not so much an object as the comforts of
a private hospital. There were sensitive creatures who burst
into tears on being addressed, and had to be restored with
glasses of cold water. There were some respondents who
came two together, a highly promising one and a wholly
unpromising one : of whom the promising one answered
all questions charmingly, until it would at last appear that

A SUITABLE APPLICANT.

she was not a candidate at all, but only the friend of the
unpromising one, who had glowered in absolute silence and
apparent injury.

At last, when the good wine-merchant's simple heart was
failing him, there entered an applicant quite different from
all the rest. A woman, perhaps fifty, but looking younger,
with a face remarkable for placid cheerfulness, and a manner
no less remarkable for its quiet expression of equability of
temper. Nothing in her dress could have been changed to
her advantage. Nothing in the noiseless self-possession of
her manner could have been changed to her advantage.
Nothing could have been in better unison with both, than
her voice when she answered the question : " What name
shall I have the pleasure of noting down?" with the words,
"My name is Sarah Goldstraw. Mrs. Goldstraw. My
husband has been dead many years, and we had no family."

Half a dozen questions had scarcely extracted as much to
the purpose from any one else. The voice dwelt so agreeably
on Mr. Wilding's ear as he made his note, that he was
rather long about it. When he looked up again, Mrs.
Goldstraw's glance had naturally gone round the room, and
now returned to him from the chimney-piece. Its expression
was one of frank readiness to be questioned, and to answer
straight.

"You will excuse my asking you a few questions?" said
the modest wine-merchant.

"O, surely, sir. Or I should have no business here."

" Have you filled the station of housekeeper before ? "

" Only once. I have lived with the same widow lady for
twelve years. Ever since I lost my husband. She was an
invalid, and is lately dead : which is the occasion of my now
wearing black."

" I do not doubt that she has left you the best credentials ?"
said Mr. Wilding.

"I hope I may say, the very best. I thought it would
save trouble, sir, if I wrote down the name and address of

VOL. 11. Q

NO THOROUGHFARE.

her representatives, and brought it with me." Laying a card
on the table.

" You singularly remind me, Mrs. Goldstraw," said Wilding,
taking the card beside him, " of a manner and tone of voice
that I was once acquainted with. Not of an individual — I
feel sure of that, though I cannot recall what it is I have in
my mind — but of a general bearing. I ought to add, it was
a kind and pleasant one.""

She smiled, as she rejoined : " At least, I am very glad of
that, sir."

"Yes," said the wine-merchant, thoughtfully repeating his
last phrase, with a momentary glance at his future housekeeper,
"it was a kind and pleasant one. But that is the most I
can make of it. Memory is sometimes like a half-forgotten
dream. I don't know how it may appear to you, Mrs.
Goldstraw, but so it appears to me."

Probably it appeared to Mrs. Goldstraw in a similar light,
for she quietly assented to the proposition. Mr. Wilding
then offered to put himself at once in communication with
the gentlemen named upon the card: a firm of proctors in
Doctors'* Commons. To this, Mrs. Goldstraw thankfully
assented. Doctors1 Commons not being far off, Mr. Wilding
suggested the feasibility of Mrs. Goldstraw's looking in again,
say in three hours1 time. Mrs. Goldstraw readily undertook
to do so. In fine, the result of Mr. Wilding's inquiries being
eminently satisfactory, Mrs. Goldstraw was that afternoon
engaged (on her own perfectly fair terms) to come to-morrow
and set up her rest as housekeeper in Cripple Corner.

THE HOUSEKEEPER SPEAKS.

On the next day Mrs. Goldstraw arrived, to enter on her
domestic duties.

Having settled herself in her own room, without troubling
the servants, and without wasting time, the new housekeeper
announced herself as waiting to be favoured with any

THE HOUSEKEEPER INSTALLED. 227

instructions which her master might wish to give her. The
wine-merchant received Mrs. Goldstraw in the dining-room,
in which he had seen her on the previous day ; and, the usual
preliminary civilities having passed on either side, the two
sat down to take counsel together on the affairs of the house.

"About the meals, sir?" said Mrs. Goldstraw. "Have I
a large, or a small, number to provide for?"

" If I can carry out a certain old-fashioned plan of mine,"
replied Mr. Wilding, "you will have a large number to
provide for. I am a lonely single man, Mrs. Goldstraw;
and I hope to live with all the persons in my employment
as if they were members of my family. Until that time
comes, you will only have me, and the new partner whom I
expect immediately, to provide for. What my partner's
habits may be, I cannot yet say. But I may describe myself
as a man of regular hours, with an invariable appetite that
you may depend upon to an ounce."

"About breakfast, sir?" asked Mrs. Goldstraw. "Is there
anything particular ? "

She hesitated, and left the sentence unfinished. Her eyes
turned slowly away from her master, and looked towards the
chimney-piece. If she had been a less excellent and expe
rienced housekeeper, Mr. Wilding might have fancied that
her attention was beginning to wander at the very outset of
the interview.

"Eight o'clock is my breakfast-hour," he resumed. "It is
one of my virtues to be never tired of broiled bacon, and it
is one of my vices to be habitually suspicious of the freshness
of eggs." Mrs. Goldstraw looked back at him, still a little
divided between her master's chimney-piece and her master.
"I take tea," Mr. Wilding went on; "and I am perhaps
rather nervous and fidgety about drinking it, within a certain
time after it is made. If my tea stands too long "

He hesitated, on his side, and left the sentence unfinished.
If he had not been engaged in discussing a subject of such
paramount interest to himself as his breakfast, Mrs. Goldstraw

NO THOROUGHFARE.

might have fancied that his attention was beginning to wander
at the very outset of the interview.

"If jour tea stands too long, sir ?" said the house
keeper, politely taking up her master's lost thread.

"If my tea stands too long," repeated the wine-merchant
mechanically, his mind getting farther and farther away from
his breakfast, and his eyes fixing themselves more and more

inquiringly on his housekeeper's face. "If my tea

Dear, dear me, Mrs. Goldstraw ! what is the manner and tone
of voice that you remind me of? It strikes me even more
strongly to-day, than it did when I saw you yesterday.
What can it be?"

"What can it be?" repeated Mrs. Goldstraw.

She said the words, evidently thinking while she spoke them
of something else. The wine-merchant, still looking at her
inquiringly, observed that her eyes wandered towards the
chimney-piece once more. They fixed on the portrait of his
mother, which hung there, and looked at it with that slight
contraction of the brow which accompanies a scarcely conscious
effort of memory. Mr. Wilding remarked :

"My late dear mother, when she was five-and-twenty."

Mrs. Goldstraw thanked him with a movement of the head
for being at the pains to explain the picture, and said, with
a cleared brow, that it was the portrait of a very beautiful
lady.

Mr. Wilding, falling back into his former perplexity, tried
once more to recover that lost recollection, associated so closely,
and yet so undiscoverably, with his new housekeeper's voice
and manner.

"Excuse my asking you a question which has nothing to
do with me or my breakfast," he said. "May I inquire if
you have ever occupied any other situation than the situation
of housekeeper?"

"O yes, sir. I began life as one of the nurses at the
Foundling."

"Why, that's it!" cried the wine-merchant, pushing back

CONCERNING WALTER WILDING. 229

his chair. " By heaven ! Their manner is the manner you
remind me of!"

In an astonished look at him, Mrs. Goldstraw changed
colour, checked herself, turned her eyes upon the ground,
and sat still and silent.

" What is the matter ? " asked Mr. Wilding.

"Do I understand that you were in the Foundling, sir?"

"Certainly. I am not ashamed to own it."

"Under the name you now bear?"

" Under the name of Walter Wilding."

"And the lady ?" Mrs. Goldstraw stopped short

with a look at the portrait which was now unmistakably a
look of alarm.

"You mean my mother," interrupted Mr. Wilding.

"Your — mother," repeated the housekeeper, a little con
strainedly, "removed you from the Foundling? At what
age, sir?"

"At between eleven and twelve years old. Ifs quite a
romantic adventure, Mrs. Goldstraw."

He told the story of the lady having spoken to him, while
he sat at dinner with the other boys in the Foundling, and
of all that had followed in his innocently communicative way.
" My poor mother could never have discovered me," he added,
" if she had not met with one of the matrons who pitied her.
The matron consented to touch the boy whose name was
'Walter Wilding' as she went round the dinner- tables — and
so my mother discovered me again, after having parted from
me as an infant at the Foundling doors."

At those words Mrs. Goldstraw's hand, resting on the table,
dropped helplessly into her lap. She sat, looking at her new
master, with a face that had turned deadly pale, and with
eyes that expressed an unutterable dismay.

" What does this mean ? " asked the wine-merchant. " Stop ! "
he cried. "Is there something else in the past time which I
ought to associate with you ? I remember my mother telling
me of another person at the Foundling, to whose kindness

230 NO THOROUGHFARE.

she owed a debt of gratitude. When she first parted with
me, as an infant, one of the nurses informed her of the name
that had been given to me in the institution. You were that
nurse ? "

" God forgive me, sir — I was that nurse ! "

" God forgive you ? "

"We had better get back, sir (if I may make so bold as
to say so), to my duties in the house,"" said Mrs. Goldstraw.
"Your breakfast-hour is eight. Do you lunch, or dine, in
the middle of the day ? "

The excessive pinkness which Mr. Bintrey had noticed in
his client's face began to appear there once more. Mr.
Wilding put his hand to his head, and mastered some
momentary confusion in that quarter, before he spoke again.

"Mrs. Goldstraw," he said, "you are concealing something
from me ! "

The housekeeper obstinately repeated, "Please to favour
me, sir, by saying whether you lunch, or dine, in the middle
of the day ? "

"I don't know what I do in the middle of the day. I
can't enter into my household affairs, Mrs. Goldstraw, till I
know why you regret an act of kindness to my mother, which
she always spoke of gratefully to the end of her life. You
are not doing me a service by your silence. You are agitating
me, you are alarming me, you are bringing on the singing in
my head.'"

His hand went up to his head again, and the pink in his
face deepened by a shade or two.

"It's hard, sir, on just entering your service,"" said the
housekeeper, " to say what may cost me the loss of your good
will. Please to remember, end how it may, that I only speak
because you have insisted on my speaking, and because I see
that I am alarming you by my silence. When I told the
poor lady, whose portrait you have got there, the name by
which her infant was christened in the Foundling, I allowed
myself to forget my duty, and dreadful consequences, I am

A DREADFUL MISTAKE. 231

afraid, have followed from it. I'll tell you the truth, as
plainly as I can. A few months from the time when I had
informed the lady of her baby's name, there came to our
institution in the country another lady (a stranger), whose
object was to adopt one of our children. She brought the
needful permission with her, and after looking at a great
many of the children, without being able to make up her
mind, she took a sudden fancy to one of the babies — a boy
— under my care. Try, pray try, to compose yourself, sir !
It's no use disguising it any longer. The child the stranger
took away was the child of that lady whose portrait hangs
there!"

Mr. Wilding started to his feet. "Impossible!" he cried
out, vehemently. "What are you talking about? What
absurd story are you telling me now ? There's her portrait !
Haven't I told you so already ? The portrait of my mother ! *

" When that unhappy lady removed you from the Foundling,
in after years," said Mrs. Goldstraw, gently, "she was the
victim, and you were the victim, sir, of a dreadful mistake."

He dropped back into his chair. " The room goes round
with me," he said. " My head ! my head ! " The housekeeper
rose in alarm, and opened the windows. Before she could
get to the door to call for help, a sudden burst of tears
relieved the oppression which had at first almost appeared to
threaten his life. He signed entreatingly to Mrs. Goldstraw
not to leave him. She waited until the paroxysm of weeping
had worn itself out. He raised his head as he recovered
himself, and looked at her with the angry unreasoning
suspicion of a weak man.

" Mistake ? " he said, wildly repeating her last word. " How
do I know you are not mistaken yourself?"

"There is no hope that I am mistaken, sir. I will tell
you why, when you are better fit to hear it."

"Now! now!"

The tone in which he spoke warned Mrs. Goldstraw that
it would be cruel kindness to let him comfort himself a

NO THOROUGHFARE.

moment longer with the vain hope that she might be wrong.
A few words more would end it, and those few words she
determined to speak.

" I have told you," she said, " that the child of the lady
whose portrait hangs there, was adopted in its infancy, and
taken away by a stranger. I am as certain of what I say
as that I am now sitting here, obliged to distress you, sir,
sorely against my will. Please to carry your mind on, now,
to about three months after that time. I was then at the
Foundling, in London, waiting to take some children to our
institution in the country. There was a question that day
about naming an infant — a boy — who had just been received.
We generally named them out of the Directory. On this
occasion, one of the gentlemen who managed the Hospital
happened to be looking over the Register. He noticed that the
name of the baby who had been adopted ('Walter Wilding')
was scratched out — for the reason, of course, that the child
had been removed for good from our care. ' Here's a name
to let,' he said. * Give it to the new foundling who has been
received to-day.' The name was given, and the child was
christened. You, sir, were that child."

The wine-merchant's head dropped on his breast. "I was
that child!" he said to himself, trying helplessly to fix the
idea in his mind. " I was that child ! "

"Not very long after you had been received into the
Institution, sir," pursued Mrs. Goldstraw, " I left my situation
there, to be married. If you will remember that, and if you
can give your mind to it, you will see for yourself how the
mistake happened. Between eleven and twelve years passed
before the lady, whom you have believed to be your mother,
returned to the Foundling, to find her son, and to remove
him to her own home. The lady only knew that her infant
had been called ' Walter Wilding.' The matron who
took pity on her, could but point out the only 'Walter
Wilding' known in the Institution. I, who might have set
the matter right, was far away from the Foundling and all

A DREADFUL DISCOVERY. 233

that belonged to it. There was nothing — there was really
nothing that could prevent this terrible mistake from taking
place. I feel for you — I do indeed, sir! You must think
— and with reason — that it was in an evil hour that I came
here (innocently enough, I'm sure), to apply for your house
keeper's place. I feel as if I was to blame — I feel as if I
ought to have had more self-command. If I had only been
able to keep my face from showing you what that portrait
and what your own words put into my mind, you need never,
to your dying day, have known what you know now."

Mr. Wilding looked up suddenly. The inbred honesty of
the man rose in protest against the housekeeper's last words.
His mind seemed to steady itself, for the moment, under the
shock that had fallen on it.

"Do you mean to say that you would have concealed this
from me if you could ? " he exclaimed.

" I hope I should always tell the truth, sir, if I was asked,"
said Mrs. Goldstraw. "And I know it is better for me
that I should not have a secret of this sort weighing on my
mind. But is it better for you ? What use can it serve
now ?"

" What use ? Why, good Lord ! if your story is true "

" Should I have told it, sir, as I am now situated, if it had
not been true ? "

"I beg your pardon," said the wine-merchant. "You
must make allowance for me. This dreadful discovery is
something I can't realise even yet. We loved each other so
dearly — I felt so fondly that I was her son. She died, Mrs.
Goldstraw, in my arms — she died blessing me as only a mother
could have blessed me. And now, after all these years, to be
told she was not my mother ! O me, O me ! I don't know
what I am saying ! " he cried, as the impulse of self-control
under which he had spoken a moment since, flickered, and
died out. " It was not this dreadful grief— it was something
else that I had it in my mind to speak of. Yes, yes. You
surprised me — you wounded me just now. You talked as if

NO THOROUGHFARE.

you would have hidden this from me, if you could. Don't
talk in that way again. It would have been a crime to have
hidden it. You mean well, I know. I don't want to dis
tress you — you are a kind-hearted woman. But you don't
remember what my position is. She left me all that I possess,
in the firm persuasion that I was her son. I am not her son.
I have taken the place, I have innocently got the inheritance
of another man. He must be found ! How do I know he
is not at this moment in misery, without bread to eat? He
must be found ! My only hope of bearing up against the
shock that has fallen on me, is the hope of doing something
which she would have approved. You must know more,
Mrs. Goldstraw, than you have told me yet. Who was the
stranger who adopted the child? You must have heard the
lady's name ? "

"I never heard it, sir. I have never seen her, or heard of
her, since."

"Did she say nothing when she took the child away?
Search your memory. She must have said something."

"Only one thing, sir, that I can remember. It was a
miserably bad season, that year; and many of the children
were suffering from it. When she took the baby away, the
lady said to me, laughing, 'Don't be alarmed about his
health. He will be brought up in a better climate than this
— I am going to take him to Switzerland.'"

"To Switzerland? What part of Switzerland?"

" She didn't say, sir."

" Only that faint clue ! " said Mr. Wilding. " And a quarter
of a century has passed since the child was taken away !
What am I to do?"

"I hope you won't take offence at my freedom, sir," said
Mrs. Goldstraw; "but why should you distress yourself
about what is to be done ? He may not be alive now, for
anything you know. And, if he is alive, it's not likely he
can be in any distress. The lady who adopted him was a bred
and born lady — it was easy to see that. And she must have

THE NEW PARTNER. 235

satisfied them at the Foundling that she could provide for the
child, or they would never have let her take him away. If I
was in your place, sir — please to excuse my saying so — I
should comfort myself with remembering that I had loved
that poor lady whose portrait you have got there — truly
loved her as my mother, and that she had truly loved me as
her son. All she gave to you, she gave for the sake of that
love. It never altered while she lived; and it won't alter,
I'm sure, as long as yon live. How can you have a better
right, sir, to keep what you have got than that ? "

Mr. Wilding's immovable honesty saw the fallacy in his
housekeeper's point of view at a glance.

"You don't understand rne," he said. "It's because I loved
her that I feel it a duty — a sacred duty — to do justice to
her son. If he is a living man, I must find him : for my
own sake, as well as for his. I shall break down under this
dreadful trial, unless I employ myself — actively, instantly
employ myself — in doing what my conscience tells me ought
to be done. I must speak to my lawyer; I must set my
lawyer at work before I sleep to-night." He approached a
tube in the wall of the room, and called down through it to
the office below. "Leave me for a little, Mrs. Goldstraw,"
he resumed; "I shall be more composed, I shall be better
able to speak to you later in the day. We shall get on well
— I hope we shall get on well together — in spite of what has
happened. It isn't your fault; I know it isn't your fault.
There ! there ! shake hands ; and — and do the best you can
in the house — I can't talk about it now."

The door opened as Mrs. Goldstraw advanced towards it ;
and Mr. Jarvis appeared.

" Send for Mr. Bintrey," said the wine-merchant. " Say I
want to see him directly."

The clerk unconsciously suspended the execution of the
order, by announcing " Mr. Vendale," and showing in the new
partner in the firm of Wilding and Co.

"Pray excuse me for one moment, George Vendale," said

236 NO THOROUGHFARE.

Wilding. "I have a word to say to Jarvis. Send for Mr.
Bintrey," he repeated — " send at once."

Mr. Jarvis laid a letter on the table before he left the room.

" From our correspondents at Neuchatel, I think, sir. The
letter has got the Swiss postmark."

NEW CHARACTERS ON THE SCENE.

The words, "The Swiss Postmark," following so soon upon
the housekeeper's reference to Switzerland, wrought Mr. Wild
ing's agitation to such a remarkable height, that his new
partner could not decently make a pretence of letting it pass
unnoticed.

" Wilding," he asked hurriedly, and yet stopping short and
glancing around as if for some visible cause of his state of
mind : " what is the matter ? "

"My good George Vendale," returned the wine-merchant,
giving his hand with an appealing look, rather as if he wanted
help to get over some obstacle, than as if he gave it in
welcome or salutation : " my good George Vendale, so much
is the matter, that I shall never be myself again. It is
impossible that I can ever be myself again. For, in fact, I
am not myself."

The new partner, a brown-cheeked handsome fellow, of
about his own age, with a quick determined eye and an
impulsive manner, retorted with natural astonishment: "Not
yourself ? "

" Not what I supposed myself to l)e," said Wilding.

" What, in the name of wonder, did you suppose yourself
to be that you are not?" was the rejoinder, delivered with a
cheerful frankness, inviting confidence from a more reticent
man. "I may ask without impertinence, now that we are
partners."

" There again ! " cried Wilding, leaning back in his chair,
with a lost look at the other. " Partners ! I had no right
to come into this business. It was never meant for me. My

THE SWISS POSTMARK.

mother never meant it should be mine. I mean, his mother
meant it should be his — if I mean anything — or if I am
anybody."

" Come, come," urged his partner, after a moment's pause,
and taking possession of him with that calm confidence
which inspires a strong nature when it honestly desires to aid
a weak one. "Whatever has gone wrong, has gone wrong
through no fault of yours, I am very sure. I was not in this
counting-house with you, under the old regime, for three
years, to doubt you, Wilding. We were not younger men
than we are, together, for that. Let me begin our partner
ship by being a serviceable partner, and setting right
whatever is wrong. Has that letter anything to do with it ? "

"Hah!" said Wilding, with his hand to his temple.
" There again ! My head ! I was forgetting the coincidence.
The Swiss postmark."

"At a second glance I see that the letter is unopened, so
it is not very likely to have much to do with the matter,"
said Vendale, with comforting composure. " Is it for you, or
for us?"

"For us," said Wilding.

" Suppose I open it and read it aloud, to get it out of our
way?"

"Thank you, thank you."

"The letter is only from our champagne-making friends,
the house at Neuchatel. 'Dear Sir. We are in receipt of
yours of the 28th ult., informing us that you have taken
your Mr. Vendale into partnership, whereon we beg you to
receive the assurance of our felicitations. Permit us to
embrace the occasion of specially commending to you M.
Jules Obenreizer."* Impossible ! "

Wilding looked up in quick apprehension, and cried, " Eh ? "

" Impossible sort of name," returned his partner, slightly —
"Obenreizer. ' — Of specially commending to you M. Jules
Obenreizer, of Soho-square, London (north side), henceforth
fully accredited as our agent, and who has already had the

238 NO THOROUGHFARE.

honour of making the acquaintance of your Mr. Vendale, in
his (said M. Obenreizer's) native country, Switzerland.' To
be sure ! pooh pooh, what have I been thinking of ! I
remember now ; * when travelling with his niece.' r

"With his ?" Vendale had so slurred the last word,

that Wilding had not heard it.

"When travelling with his Niece. Obenreizer's Niece,"
said Vendale, in a somewhat superfluously lucid manner.
" Niece of Obenreizer. (I met them in my first Swiss tour,
travelled a little with them, and lost them for two years ;
met them again, my Swiss tour before last, and have lost
them ever since.) Obenreizer. Niece of Obenreizer. To be
sure ! Possible sort of name, after all ! ' M. Obenreizer is
in possession of our absolute confidence, and we do not
doubt you will esteem his merits.' Duly signed by the
House, 'Defresnier et Cie.' Very well. I undertake to see
M. Obenreizer presently, and clear him out of the way.
That clears the Swiss postmark out of the way. So now,
my dear Wilding, tell me what I can clear out of your way,
and I'll find a way to clear it."

More than ready and grateful to be thus taken charge of,
the honest wine-merchant wrung his partner's hand, and,
beginning his tale by pathetically declaring himself an
Impostor, told it.

"It was on this matter, no doubt, that you were sending
for Bintrey when I came in?" said his partner, after
reflecting.

" It was."

" He has experience and a shrewd head ; I shall be anxious
to know his opinion. It is bold and hazardous in me to
give you mine before I know his, but I am not good at
holding back. Plainly, then, I do not see these circumstances
as you see them. I do not see your position as you see it.
As to your being an Impostor, my dear Wilding, that is
simply absurd, because no man can be that without being a
consenting party to an imposition. Clearly you never were

IN UNLAWFUL POSSESSION. 239

so. As to your enrichment by the lady who believed you to
be her son, and whom you were forced to believe, on her
showing, to be your mother, consider whether that did
not arise out of the personal relations between you. You
gradually became much attached to her; she gradually
became much attached to you. It was on you, personally
you, as I see the case, that she conferred these worldly
advantages; it was from her, personally her, that you
took them."

"She supposed me,1' objected Wilding, shaking his head,
" to have a natural claim upon her, which I had not."

"I must admit that," replied his partner, "to be true.
But if she had made the ' discovery that you have made, six
months before she died, do you think it would have cancelled
the years you were together, and the tenderness that each
of you had conceived for the other, each on increasing
knowledge of the other ? "

" What I think," said Wilding, simply but stoutly holding
to the bare fact, "can no more change the truth than it can
bring down the sky. The truth is that I stand possessed of
what was meant for another man."

"He may be dead," said Vendale.

"He may be alive," said Wilding. "And if he is alive,
have I not — innocently, I grant you innocently — robbed him
of enough ? Have I not robbed him of all the happy time
that I enjoyed in his stead ? Have I not robbed him of the
exquisite delight that filled my soul when that dear lady,"
stretching his hand towards the picture, "told me she was
my mother? Have I not robbed him of all the care she
lavished on me ? Have I not even robbed him of all the
devotion and duty that I so proudly gave to her ? Therefore
it is that I ask myself, George Vendale, and I ask you, where
is he ? What has become of him ? "

"Who can tell!"

" I must try to find out who can tell. I must institute
inquiries. I must never desist from prosecuting inquiries. I

240 NO THOROUGHFARE.

will live upon the interest of my share — I ought to say his
share — in this business, and will lay up the rest for him.
When I find him, I may perhaps throw myself upon his
generosity; but I will yield up all to him. I will, I swear.
As I loved and honoured her," said Wilding, reverently
kissing his hand towards the picture, and then covering his
eyes with it. "As I loved and honoured her, and have a
world of reasons to be grateful to her ! " And so broke
down again.

His partner rose from the chair he had occupied, and
stood beside him with a hand softly laid upon his shoulder.
" Walter, I knew you before to-day to be an upright man,
with a pure conscience and a fine heart. It is very fortunate
for me that I have the privilege to travel on in life so near
to so trustworthy a man. I am thankful for it. Use me as
your right hand, and rely upon me to the death. Don't
think the worse of me if I protest to you that my uppermost
feeling at present is a confused, you may call it an unreason
able, one. I feel far more pity for the lady and for you,
because you did not stand in your supposed relations, than I
can feel for the unknown man (if he ever became a man),
because he was unconsciously displaced. You have done well
in sending for Mr. Bintrey. What I think will be a part of
his advice, I know is the whole of mine. Do not move a
step in this serious matter precipitately. The secret must be
kept among us with great strictness, for to part with it
lightly would be to invite fraudulent claims, to encourage a
host of knaves, to let loose a flood of perjury and plotting. I
have no more to say now, Walter, than to remind you that
you sold me a share in your business, expressly to save
yourself from more work than your present health is fit for,
and that I bought it expressly to do work, and mean to
do it."

With these words, and a parting grip of his partner's
shoulder that gave them the best emphasis they could have
had, George Vendale betook himself presently to the counting-

DISTRICT OF SOHO. 241

house, and presently afterwards to the address of M. Jules
Obenreizer.

As he turned into Soho-square, and directed his steps
towards its north side, a deepened colour shot across his
sun-browned face, which Wilding, if he had been a better
observer, or had been less occupied with his own trouble,
might have noticed when his partner read aloud a certain
passage in their Swiss correspondent's letter, which he had
not read so distinctly as the rest.

A curious colony of mountaineers has long been enclosed
within that small flat London district of Soho. Swiss watch
makers, Swiss silver-chasers, Swiss jewellers, Swiss importers
of Swiss musical boxes and Swiss toys of various kinds, draw
close together there. Swiss professors of music, painting,
and languages ; Swiss artificers in steady work ; Swiss couriers,
and other Swiss servants chronically out of place ; industrious
Swiss laundresses and clear-starchers ; mysteriously existing
Swiss of both sexes ; Swiss creditable and Swiss discreditable ;
Swiss to be trusted by all means, and Swiss to be trusted by
no means; these diverse Swiss particles are attracted to a
centre in the district of Soho. Shabby Swiss eating-houses,
coffee-houses, and lodging-houses, Swiss drinks and dishes,
Swiss service for Sundays, and Swiss schools for week-days,
are all to be found there. Even the native-born English
taverns drive a sort of broken-English trade ; announcing in
their windows Swiss whets and drains, and sheltering in their
bars Swiss skirmishes of love and animosity on most nights
in the year.

When the new partner in Wilding and Co. rang the bell
of a door bearing the blunt inscription OBENREIZER on a brass
plate — the inner door of a substantial house, whose ground
story was devoted to the sale of Swiss clocks — he passed at
once into domestic Switzerland. A white-tiled stove for
winter-time filled the fireplace of the room into which he was
shown, the room's bare floor was laid together in a neat
pattern of several ordinary woods, the room had a prevalent

VOL, II. B

NO THOROUGHFARE.

air of surface bareness and much scrubbing; and the little
square of flowery carpet by the sofa, and the velvet chimney-
board with its capacious clock and vases of artificial flowers,
contended with that tone, as if, in bringing out the whole
effect, a Parisian had adapted a dairy to domestic purposes.

Mimic water was dropping off a mill-wheel under the
clock. The visitor had not stood before it, following it with
his eyes, a minute, when M. Obenreizer, at his elbow, startled
him by saying, in very good English, very slightly clipped:
" How do you do ? So glad ! "

"I beg your pardon. I didn't hear you come in."

" Not at all ! Sit, please."

Releasing his visitor's two arms, which he had lightly
pinioned at the elbows by way of embrace, M. Obenreizer
also sat, remarking, with a smile : " You are well ? So glad ! "
and touching his elbows again.

" I don't know," said Vendale, after exchange of salutations,
"whether you may yet have heard of me from your House
at Neuchatel?"

"Ah, yes!"

" In connection with Wilding and Co. ? "

" Ah, surely ! "

" Is it not odd that I should come to you, in London here,
as one of the Firm of Wilding and Co., to pay the Firm's
respects ? "

" Not at all ! What did I always observe when we were
on the mountains ? We call them vast ; but the world is so
little. So little is the world, that one cannot keep away
from persons. There are so few persons in the world, that
they continually cross and re-cross. So very little is the
world, that one cannot get rid of a person. Not," touching
his elbows again, with an ingratiatory smile, "that one
would desire to get rid of you."

" I hope not, M. Obenreizer."

" Please call me, in your country, Mr. I call myself so, for
I love your country. If I could be English ! But I am born.

MR. OBENREIZER. 243

And you? Though descended from so fine a family, you
have had the condescension to come into trade ? Stop though.
Wines? Is it trade in England or profession? Not fine
art?"

"Mr. Obenreizer," returned Vendale, somewhat out of
countenance, "I was but a silly young fellow, just of age,
when I first had the pleasure of travelling with you, and
when you and I and Mademoiselle your niece — who is
well?"

"Thank you. Who is well."

" — Shared some slight glacier dangers together. If, with
a boy's vanity, I rather vaunted my family, I hope I did so
as a kind of introduction of myself. It was very weak, and in
very bad taste; but perhaps you know our English proverb,
'Live and Learn.'"

"You make too much of it," returned the Swiss. "And
what the devil ! After all, yours was a fine family."

George Vendale's laugh betrayed a little vexation as he
rejoined: "Well! I was strongly attached to my parents,
and when we first travelled together, Mr. Obenreizer, I was
in the first flush of coming into what my father and mother
left me. So I hope it may have been, after all, more
youthful openness of speech and heart than boastfulness."

" All openness of speech and heart ! No boastfulness ! "
cried Obenreizer. " You tax yourself too heavily. You tax
yourself, my faith ! as if you was your Government taxing
you ! Besides, it commenced with me. I remember, that
evening in the boat upon the lake, floating among the
reflections of the mountains and valleys, the crags and pine
woods, which were my earliest remembrance, I drew a word-
picture of my sordid childhood. Of our poor hut, by the
waterfall which my mother showed to travellers ; of the cow
shed where I slept with the cow ; of my idiot half-brother
always sitting at the door, or limping down the Pass to beg ;
of my half-sister always spinning, and resting her enormous
goitre on a great stone ; of my being a famished naked little

244 NO THOROUGHFARE;

wretch of two or three years, when they were men and women
with hard hands to beat me, I, the only child of my father's
second marriage — if it even was a marriage. What more
natural than for you to compare notes with me, and say,
'We are as one by age; at that same time I sat upon my
mother's lap in my father's carriage, rolling through the rich
English streets, all luxury surrounding me, all squalid poverty
kept far from me. Such is my earliest remembrance as
opposed to yours ! ' "

Mr. Obenreizer was a black-haired young man of a dark
complexion, through whose swarthy skin no red glow ever
shone. When colour would have come into another cheek, a
hardly discernible beat would come into his, as if the machinery
for bringing up the ardent blood were there, but the
machinery were dry. He was robustly made, well propor
tioned, and had handsome features. Many would have
perceived that some surface change in him would have set
them more at their ease with him, without being able to
define what change. If his lips could have been made much
thicker, and his neck much thinner, they would have found
their want supplied.

But the great Obenreizer peculiarity was, that a certain
nameless film would come over his eyes — apparently by the
action of his own will — which would impenetrably veil, not
only from those tellers of tales, but from his face at large,
every expression save one of attention. It by no means
followed that his attention should be wholly given to the
person with whom he spoke, or even wholly bestowed on
present sounds and objects. Rather, it was a comprehensive
watchfulness of everything he had in his own mind, and every
thing that he knew to be, or suspected to be, in the minds
of other men.

At this stage of the conversation, Mr. Obenreizer's film
came over him.

"The object of my present visit," said Vendale, "is, I need
hardly say, to assure you of the friendliness of Wilding and

MR. OBENREIZER'S NIECE. 245

Co., and of the goodness of your credit with us, and of our
desire to be of service to you. We hope shortly to offer you
our hospitality. Things are not quite in train with us yet,
for my partner, Mr. Wilding, is reorganising the domestic
part of our establishment, and is interrupted by some private
affairs. You don't know Mr. Wilding, I believe ? *

Mr. Obenreizer did not.

"You must come together soon. He will be glad to have
made your acquaintance, and I think I may predict that you
will be glad to have made his. You have not been long
established in London, I suppose, Mr. Obenreizer?"

" It is only now that I have undertaken this agency."

" Mademoiselle your niece — is — not married ? "

« Not married."

George Vendale glanced about him, as if for any tokens
of her.

"She has been in London?"

"She is in London."

"When, and where, might I have the honour of recalling
myself to her remembrance ? "

Mr. Obenreizer, discarding his film and touching his visitor's
elbows as before, said lightly : " Come up-stairs."

Fluttered enough by the suddenness with which the interview
he had sought was coming upon him after all, George Vendale
followed up-stairs. In a room over the chamber he had just
quitted — a room also Swiss-appointed — a young lady sat near
one of three windows, working at an embroidery-frame ; and
an older lady sat with her face turned close to another white-
tiled stove (though it was summer, and the stove was not
lighted), cleaning gloves. The young lady wore an unusual
quantity of fair bright hair, very prettily braided about a
rather rounder white forehead than the average English type,
and so her face might have been a shade — or say a light — -
rounder than the average English face, and her figure slightly
rounder than the figure of the average English girl at nineteen.
A remarkable indication of freedom and grace of limb, in

246 NO THOROUGHFARE.

her quiet attitude, and a wonderful purity and freshness of
colour in her dimpled face and bright gray eyes, seemed
fraught with mountain air. Switzerland too, though the
general fashion of her dress was English, peeped out of the
fanciful bodice she wore, and lurked in the curious clocked
red stocking, and in its little silver-buckled shoe. As to the
elder lady, sitting with her feet apart upon the lower brass
ledge of the stove, supporting a lap-full of gloves while she
cleaned one stretched on her left hand, she was a true Swiss
impersonation of another kind ; from the breadth of her cushion-
like back, and the ponderosity of her respectable legs (if the
word be admissible), to the black velvet band tied tightly
round her throat for the repression of a rising tendency to
goitre ; or, higher still, to her great copper-coloured gold ear
rings ; or, higher still, to her head-dress of black gauze
stretched on wire.

"Miss Marguerite," said Obenreizer to the young lady,
"do you recollect this gentleman?"

"I think," she answered, rising from her seat, surprised
and a little confused : " it is Mr. Vendale ? "

"I think it is," said Obenreizer, dryly. "Permit me, Mr.
Vendale. Madame Dor."

The elder lady by the stove, with the glove stretched on
her left hand, like a glover's sign, half got up, half looked
over her broad shoulder, and wholly plumped down again and
rubbed away.

" Madame Dor," said Obenreizer, smiling, " is so kind as to
keep me free from stain or tear. Madame Dor humours my
weakness for being always neat, and devotes her time to
removing every one of my specks and spots."

Madame Dor, with the stretched glove in the air, and her
eyes closely scrutinizing its palm, discovered a tough spot in
Mr. Obenreizer at that instant, and rubbed hard at him.
George Vendale took his seat by the embroidery-frame (having
first taken the fair right hand that his entrance had checked),
and glanced at the gold cross that dipped into the bodice,

MADAME DOR. 247

with something of the devotion of a pilgrim who had reached
his shrine at last. Obenreizer stood in the middle of the
room with his thumbs in his waistcoat-pockets, and became
filmy.

"He was saying down-stairs, Miss Obenreizer," observed
Vendale, "that the world is so small a place, that people
cannot escape one another. I have found it much too large
for me since I saw you last."

" Have you travelled so far, then ? " she inquired.

" Not so far, for I have only gone back to Switzerland each
year ; but I could have wished — and indeed I have wished very
often — that the little world did not afford such opportunities
for long escapes as it does. If it had been less, I might have
found my fellow-travellers sooner, you know."

The pretty Marguerite coloured, and very slightly glanced
in the direction of Madame Dor.

" You find us at length, Mr. Vendale. Perhaps you may
lose us again."

"I -trust not. The curious coincidence that has enabled
me to find you, encourages me to hope not."

" What is that coincidence, sir, if you please ? " A 'dainty
little native touch in this turn of speech, and in its tone,
made it perfectly captivating, thought George Vendale, when
again he noticed an instantaneous glance towards Madame
Dor. A caution seemed to be conveyed in it, rapid flash
though it was ; so he quietly took heed of Madame Dor from
that time forth.

" It is that I happen to have become a partner in a House
of business in London, to which Mr. Obenreizer happens this
very day to be expressly recommended : and that, too, by
another house of business in Switzerland, in which (as it turns
out) we both have a commercial interest. He has not told
you ? "

" Ah ! " cried Obenreizer, striking in, filmless. " No. I had
not told Miss Marguerite. The world is so small and so
monotonous that a surprise is worth having in such a little

248 NO THOROUGHFARE.

jog-trot place. It is as he tells you, Miss Marguerite. He,
of so fine a family, and so proudly bred, has condescended to
trade. To trade ! Like us poor peasants who have risen
from ditches ! "

A cloud crept over the fair brow, and she cast down her
eyes.

" Why, it is good for trade ! " pursued Obenreizer, enthusi
astically. " It ennobles trade ! It is the misfortune of trade,
it is its vulgarity, that any low people — for example, we
poor peasants — may take to it and climb by it. See you,
my dear Vendale ! " He spoke with great energy. " The
father of Miss Marguerite, my eldest half-brother, more than
two times your age or mine, if living now, wandered without
shoes, almost without rags, from that wretched Pass — wandered
— wandered — got to be fed with the mules and dogs at an
Inn in the main valley far away — got to be Boy there — got
to be Ostler — got to be Waiter — got to be Cook — got to be
Landlord. As Landlord, he took me (could he take the idiot,
beggar his brother, or the spinning monstrosity his sister?)
to put as pupil to the famous watchmaker, his neighbour and
friend. His wife dies when Miss Marguerite is born. What
is his will, and what are his words to me, when he dies, she
being between girl and woman ? ' All for Marguerite, except
so much by the year for you. You are young, but I make
her your ward, for you were of the obscurest and the poorest
peasantry, and so was I, and so was her mother; we were
abject peasants all, and you will remember it.' The thing-
is equally true of most of my countrymen, now in trade in
this your London quarter of Soho. Peasants once ; low-born
drudging Swiss Peasants. Then how good and great for
trade : " here, from having been warm, he became playfully
jubilant, and touched the young wine-merchant's elbows again
with his light embrace : " to be exalted by gentlemen."

u I do not think so," said Marguerite, with a flushed cheek,
and a look away from the visitor, that was almost defiant.
"I think it is as much exalted by us peasants."

TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION. 249

"Fie, fie, Miss Marguerite," said Obenreizer. "You speak
in proud England."

" I speak in proud earnest," she answered, quietly resuming
her work, "and I am not English, but a Swiss peasant's
daughter."

There was a dismissal of the subject in her words, which
Vendale could not contend against. He only said in an
earnest manner, "I most heartily agree with you, Miss
Obenreizer, and I have already said so, as Mr. Obenreizer
will bear witness," which he by no means did, "in this
house."

Now, Vendale^s eyes were quick eyes, and sharply watch
ing Madame Dor by times, noted something in the broad
back view of that lady. There was considerable pantomimic
expression in her glove-cleaning. It had been very softly
done when he spoke with Marguerite, or it had altogether
stopped, like the action of a listener. When Obenreizer's
peasant-speech came to an end, she rubbed most vigorously,
as if applauding it. And once or twice, as the glove (which
she always held before her a little above her face) turned in
the air, or as this finger went down, or that went up, he
even fancied that it made some telegraphic communication to
Obenreizer: whose back was certainly never turned upon it,
though he did not seem at all to heed it.

Vendale observed too, that in Marguerite's dismissal of the
subject twice forced upon him to his misrepresentation, there
was an indignant treatment of her guardian which she tried
to check : as though she would have flamed out against him,
but for the influence of fear. He also observed — though this
was not much — that he never advanced within the distance of
her at which he first placed himself: as though there were
limits fixed between them. Neither had he ever spoken of
her without the prefix "Miss," though whenever he uttered
it, it was with the faintest trace of an air of mockery. And
now it occurred to Vendale for the first time that something
curious in the man, which he had never before been able to

250 NO THOROUGHFARE.

define, was definable as a certain subtle essence of mockery
that eluded touch or analysis. He felt convinced that
Marguerite was in some sort a prisoner as to her free-will —
though she held her own against those two combined, by the
force of her character, which was nevertheless inadequate to
her release. To feel convinced of this, was not to feel less
disposed to love her than he had always been. In a word,
he was desperately in love with her, and thoroughly determined
to pursue the opportunity which had opened at last.

For the present, he merely touched upon the pleasure that
Wilding and Co. would soon have in entreating Miss Obenreizer
to honour their establishment with her presence — a curious
old place, though a bachelor house withal — and so did not
protract his visit beyond such a visit's ordinary length.
Going down- stairs, conducted by his host, he found the
Obenreizer counting-house at the back of the entrance-hall,
and several shabby men in outlandish garments hanging about,
whom Obenreizer put aside that he might pass, with a few
words in patois.

"Countrymen," he explained, as he attended Vendale to
the door. "Poor compatriots. Grateful and attached, like
dogs ! Good-bye. To meet again. So glad ! "

Two more light touches on his elbows dismissed him into
the street.

Sweet Marguerite at her frame, and Madame Dor's broad
back at her telegraph, floated before him to Cripple Corner.
On his arrival there, Wilding was closeted with Bintrey.
The cellar doors happening to be open, Vendale lighted a
candle in a cleft stick, and went down for a cellarous stroll.
Graceful Marguerite floated before him faithfully, but Madame
Dor's broad back remained outside.

The vaults were very spacious, and very old. There had
been a stone crypt down there, when bygones were not
bygones ; some said, part of a monkish refectory ; some
said, of a chapel ; some said, of a Pagan temple. It was
all one now. Let who would make what he liked of a

DOWN IN THE VAULTS. 251

crumbled pillar and a broken arch or so. Old Time had
made what he liked of it, and was quite indifferent to
contradiction.

The close air, the musty smell, and the thunderous rumbling
in the streets above, as being out of the routine of ordinary
life, went well enough with the picture of pretty Marguerite
holding her own against those two. So Vendale went on
until, at a turning in the vaults, he saw a light like the light
he carried.

" O ! You are here, are you, Joey ? "

" Oughtn't it rather to go, * O ! YOU\Q here, are you,
Master George ?' For it's my business to be here. But it
ain't yourn."

"Don't grumble, Joey."

"O ! / don't grumble," returned the Cellarman. "If any
thing grumbles, it's what I've took in through the pores ; it
ain't me. Have a care as something in you don't begin a
grumbling, Master George. Stop here long enough for the
wapours to work, and they'll be at it."

His present occupation consisted of poking his head into
the bins, making measurements and mental calculations, and
entering them in a rhinoceros-hide-looking note-book, like a
piece of himself.

"They'll be at it," he resumed, laying the wooden rod
that he measured with across two casks, entering his
last calculation, and straightening his back, " trust 'em !
And so you've regularly come into the business, Master
George ? "

"Regularly. -I hope you don't object, Joey?"

" / don't, bless you. But Wapours objects that you're too
young. YouVe both on you too young."

" We shall get over that objection day by day, Joey."

" Ay, Master George ; but I shall day by day get over the
objection that I'm too old, and so I shan't be capable of
seeing much improvement in you."

The retort so tickled Joey Ladle that he grunted forth a

252 NO THOROUGHFARE.

laugh and delivered it again, grunting forth another laugh
after the second edition of " improvement in you."

"But what's no laughing matter, Master George," he
resumed, straightening his back once more, "is, that young
Master Wilding has gone and changed the luck. Mark my
words. He has changed the luck, and hell find it out. /
ain't been down here all my life for nothing! / know by
what I notices down here, when it's a-going to rain, when
it's a-going to hold up, when it's a-going to blow, when it's
a-going to be calm. / know, by what I notices down here,
when the luck's changed, quite as well."

" Has this growth on the roof anything to do with your
divination?" asked Vendale, holding his light towards >a
gloomy ragged growth of dark fungus, pendent from the
arches with a very disagreeable and repellent effect. "We
are famous for this growth in this vault, aren't we?"

"We are, Master George," replied Joey Ladle, moving a
step or two away, " and if you'll be advised by me, you'll let
it alone."

Taking up the rod just now laid across the two casks, and
faintly moving the languid fungus with it, Vendale asked,
" Ay, indeed ? Why so ? "

" Why, not so much because it rises from the casks of wine,
and may leave you to judge what sort of stuff a Cellarman
takes into himself when he walks in the same all the days of
his life, nor yet so much because at a stage of its growth it's
maggots, and you'll fetch 'em down upon you," returned Joey
Ladle, still keeping away, "as for another reason, Master
George."

"What other reason?"

"(I wouldn't keep on touchin' it, if I was you, sir.) I'll
tell you if you'll come out of the place. First, take a look
at its colour, Master George."

"I am doing so."

"Done, sir. Now, come out of the place."

He moved away with his light, and Vendale followed with

A DISMAL SUPERSTITION. 253

his. When Vendale came up with him, and they were going
back together, Vendale, eyeing him as they walked through
the arches, said : " Well, Joey ? The colour."

"Is it like clotted blood, Master George?"

"Like enough, perhaps."

"More than enough, I think," muttered Joey Ladle,
shaking his head solemnly.

" Well, say it is like ; say it is exactly like. What then ? "

"Master George, they do say "

"Who?"

" How should I know who?" rejoined the Cellarman, appa
rently much exasperated by the unreasonable nature of the
question. " Them ! Them as says pretty well everything,
you know. How should I know who They are, if you don't ? "

"True. Goon."

"They do say that the man that gets by any accident a
piece of that dark growth right upon hk breast, will, for
sure and certain, die by murder."

As Vendale laughingly stopped to meet the Cellarman\s
eyes, which he had fastened on his light while dreamily
saying those words, he suddenly became conscious of being
struck upon his own breast by a heavy hand. Instantly
following with his eyes the action of the hand that struck
him — which was his companion's — he saw that it had beaten
off his breast a web or clot of the fungus even then floating
to the ground.

For a moment he turned upon the Cellarman almost as
scared a look as the Cellarman turned upon him. But in
another moment they had reached the daylight at the foot
of the cellar-steps, and before he cheerfully sprang up them,
he blew out his candle and the superstition together.

EXIT WILDING.

On the morning of the next day, Wilding went out alone,
after leaving a message with his clerk. "If Mr. Vendale

254 NO THOROUGHFARE.

should ask for me," he said, "or if Mr. Bintrey should call,
tell them I am gone to the Foundling." All that his partner
had said to him, all that his lawyer, following on the same
side, could urge, had left him persisting unshaken in his own
point of view. To find the lost man, whose place he had
usurped, was now the paramount interest of his life, and to
inquire at the Foundling was plainly to take the first step
in the direction of discovery. To the Foundling, accordingly,
the wine-merchant now went.

The once familiar aspect of the building was altered to
him, as the look of the portrait over the chimney-piece was
altered to him. His one dearest association with the place
which had sheltered his childhood had been broken away from
it for ever. A strange reluctance possessed him, when he
stated his business at the door. His heart ached as he sat
alone in the waiting-room while the Treasurer of the institution
was being sent for to see him. When the interview began,
it was only by a painful effort that he could compose himself
sufficiently to mention the nature of his errand.

The Treasurer listened with a face which promised all needful
attention, and promised nothing more.

"We are obliged to be cautious," he said, when it came
to his turn to speak, "about all inquiries which are made
by strangers."

"You can hardly consider me a stranger," answered
Wilding, simply. "I was one of your poor lost children
here, in the bygone time."

The Treasurer politely rejoined that this circumstance in^
spired him with a special interest in his visitor. But he pressed,
nevertheless, for that visitor's motive in making his inquiry.
Without further preface, Wilding told him his motive, sup
pressing nothing. The Treasurer rose, and led the way into
the room in which the registers of the institution were kept.
"All the information which our books can give is heartily
at your service," he said. "After the time that has elapsed
I am afraid it is the only information we have to offer you."

A JOURNEY OF INVESTIGATION. 255

The books were consulted, and the entry was found expressed
as follows : —

"3d March, 1836. Adopted, and removed from the
Foundling Hospital, a male infant, named Walter Wilding.
Name and condition of the person adopting the child —
Mrs. Jane Ann Miller, widow. Address — Lime-Tree Lodge,
Groombridge Wells. References — the Reverend John Barker,
Groombridge Wells; and Messrs. Giles, Jeremie, and Giles,
bankers, Lombard-street.""

"Is that all?" asked the wine-merchant. "Had you no
after-communication with Mrs. Miller?"

" None — or some reference to it must have appeared in this
book."

" May I take a copy of the entry ? "

" Certainly ! You are a little agitated. Let me make a
copy for you."

"My only chance, I suppose," said Wilding, looking sadly
at the copy, "is to inquire at Mrs. Miller's residence, and
to try if her references can help me ? "

"That is the only chance I see at present," answered the
Treasurer. " I heartily wish I could have been of some further
assistance to you."

With those farewell words to comfort him, Wilding set
forth on the journey of investigation which began from the
Foundling doors. The first stage to make for, was plainly
the house of business of the bankers in Lombard-street. Two
of the partners in the firm were inaccessible to chance-visitors
when he asked for them. The third, after raising certain
inevitable difficulties, consented to let a clerk examine the
Ledger marked with the initial letter "M." The account
of Mrs. Miller, widow, of Groombridge Wells, was found.
Two long lines, in faded ink, were drawn across it; and at
the bottom of the page there appeared this note : " Account
closed, September 30th, 1837."

So the first stage of the journey was reached — and so it
ended in No Thoroughfare ! After sending a note to Cripple

256 NO THOROUGHFARE.

Corner to inform his partner that his absence might be
prolonged for some hours, Wilding took his place in the train,
and started for the second stage on the journey — Mrs. Miller's
residence at Groombridge Wells.

Mothers and children travelled with him; mothers and
children met each other at the station ; mothers and children
were in the shops when he entered them to inquire for Lime-
Tree Lodge. Everywhere, the nearest and dearest of human
relations showed itself happily in the happy light of day.
Everywhere, he was reminded of the treasured delusion from
which he had been awakened so cruelly — of the lost memory
which had passed from him like a reflection from a glass.

Inquiring here, inquiring there, he could hear of no such
place as Lime-Tree Lodge. Passing a house-agent's office,
he went in wearily, and put the question for the last time.
The house-agent pointed across the street to a dreary mansion
of many windows, which might have been a manufactory,
but which was an hotel. "That's where Lime-Tree Lodge
stood, sir," said the man, "ten years ago."

The second stage reached, and No Thoroughfare again !

But one chance was left. The clerical reference, Mr.
Harker, still remained to be found. Customers coming in at
the moment to occupy the house-agent's attention, Wilding
went down the street, and entering a bookseller's shop, asked
if he could be informed of the Reverend John Harker's
present address.

The bookseller looked unaffectedly shocked and astonished,
and made no answer.

Wilding repeated his question.

The bookseller took up from his counter a prim little
volume in a binding of sober gray. He handed it to his
visitor, open at the title-page. Wilding read :

"The martyrdom of the Reverend John Harker in New
Zealand. Related by a former member of his flock."

Wilding put the book down on the counter. " I beg your
pardon," he said, thinking a little, perhaps, of his own present

THE RETURN JOURNEY. 257

martyrdom while he spoke. The silent bookseller acknowledged
the apology by a bow. Wilding went out.

Third and last stage, and No Thoroughfare for the third
and last time.

There was nothing more to be done ; there was absolutely
no choice but to go back to London, defeated at all points.
From time to time on the return journey, the wine-merchant
looked at his copy of the entry in the Foundling Register.
There is one among the many forms of despair — perhaps the
most pitiable of all — which persists in disguising itself as
Hope. Wilding checked himself in the act of throwing the
useless morsel of paper out of the carriage window. " It may
lead to something yet," he thought. " While I live, I won't
part with it. When I die, my executors shall find it sealed
up with my will."

Now, the mention of his will set the good wine-merchant
on a new track of thought, without diverting his mind from
its engrossing subject. He must make his will immediately.

The application of the phrase No Thoroughfare to the
case had originated with Mr. Bintrey. In their first long
conference following the discovery, that sagacious personage
had a hundred times repeated, with an obstructive shake of
the head, " No Thoroughfare, Sir, No Thoroughfare. My
belief is that there is no way out of this at this time of day,
and my advice is, make yourself comfortable where you are."

In the course of the protracted consultation, a magnum of
the forty-five year old port-wine had been produced for the
wetting of Mr. Bintrey's legal whistle ; but the more clearly
he saw his way through the wine, the more emphatically he
did not see his way through the case ; repeating as often as
he set his glass down empty, " Mr. Wilding, No Thoroughfare.
Rest and be thankful."

It is certain that the honest wine-merchant's anxiety to
make a will originated in profound conscientiousness ; though
it is possible (and quite consistent with his rectitude) that he
may unconsciously have derived some feeling of relief from

VOL. II. S

258 NO THOROUGHFARE.

the prospect of delegating his own difficulty to two other
men who were to come after him. Be that as it may, he
pursued his new track of thought with great ardour, and lost
no time in begging George Vendale and Mr. Bintrey to
meet him in Cripple Corner and share his confidence.

"Being all three assembled with closed doors," said Mr.
Bintrey, addressing the new partner on the occasion, " I wish
to observe, before our friend (and my client) entrusts us with
his further views, that I have endorsed what I understand from
him to have been your advice, Mr. Vendale, and what would
be the advice of every sensible man. I have told him that
he positively must keep his secret. I have spoken with Mrs.
Goldstraw, both in his presence and in his absence; and if
anybody is to be trusted (which is a very large IF), I think
she is to be trusted to that extent. I have pointed out to
our friend (and my client), that to set on foot random
inquiries would not only be to raise the Devil, in the likeness
of all the swindlers in the kingdom, but would also be to
waste the estate. Now, you see, Mr. Vendale, our friend
(and my client) does not desire to waste the estate, but, on
the contrary, desires to husband it for what he considers —
but I can't say I do — the rightful owner, if such rightful
owner should ever be found. I am very much mistaken if
he ever will be, but never mind that. Mr. Wilding and I are,
at least, agreed that the estate is not to be wasted. Now, I
have yielded to Mr. Wilding's desire to keep an advertisement
at intervals flowing through the newspapers, cautiously inviting
any person who may know anything about that adopted infant,
taken from the Foundling Hospital, to come to my office ; and
I have pledged myself that such advertisement shall regularly
appear. I have gathered from our friend (and my client) that
I meet you here to-day to take his instructions, not to give
him advice. I am prepared to receive his instructions, and to
respect his wishes ; but you will please observe that this does
not imply my approval of either as a matter of professional
opinion."

MR. WILDING MAKES HIS WILL. 259

Thus Mr. Bintrey ; talking quite as much at Wilding as
to Vendale. And yet, in spite of his care for his client, he
was so amused by his client's Quixotic conduct, as to eye him
from time to time with twinkling eyes, in the light of a
highly comical curiosity.

"Nothing," observed Wilding, "can be clearer. I only
wish my head were as clear as yours, Mr. Bintrey."

"If you feel that singing in it coming on," hinted the
lawyer, with an alarmed glance, "put it off. — I mean the
interview."

"Not at all, I thank you," said Wilding. "What was I
going; to "

O O

"Don't excite yourself, Mr. Wilding," urged the lawyer.

"No; I wasn't going to," said the wine-merchant. "Mr.
Bintrey and George Vendale, would you have any hesitation
or objection to become my joint trustees and executors, or
can you at once consent?"

"/ consent," replied George Vendale, readily.

"/ consent," said Bintrey, not so readily.

"Thank you both. Mr. Bintrey, my instructions for my
last will and testament are short and plain. Perhaps you will
now have the goodness to take them down. I leave the
whole of my real and personal estate, without any exception
or reservation whatsoever, to you two, my joint trustees and
executors, in trust to pay over the whole to the true Walter
Wilding, if he shall be found and identified within two years
after the day of my death. Failing that, in trust to you
two to pay over the whole as a benefaction and legacy to the
Foundling Hospital."

" Those are all your instructions, are they, Mr. Wilding ? "
demanded Bintrey, after a blank silence, during which nobody
had looked at anybody.

"The whole."

"And as to those instructions, you have absolutely made
up your mind, Mr. Wilding?"

"Absolutely, decidedly, finally."

260 NO THOROUGHFARE.

" It only remains,"" said the lawyer, with one shrug of his
shoulders, " to get them into technical and binding form, and
to execute and attest. Now, does that press? Is there any
hurry about it ? You are not going to die yet, sir/'

"Mr. Bintrey," answered Wilding, gravely, "when I am
going to die is within other knowledge than yours or mine.
I shall be glad to have this matter off my mind, if you please.1'

"We are lawyer and client again," rejoined Bintrey, who,
for the nonce, had become almost sympathetic. " If this day
week — here, at the same hour — will suit Mr. Vendale and
yourself, I will enter in my Diary that I attend you accordingly.1'

The appointment was made, and in due sequence kept.
The will was formally signed, sealed, delivered, and witnessed,
and was carried off by Mr. Bintrey for safe storage among
the papers of his clients, ranged in their respective iron boxes,
with their respective owners' names outside, on iron tiers
in his consulting-room, as if that legal sanctuary were a
condensed Family Vault of Clients.

With more heart than he had lately had for former subjects
of interest, Wilding then set about completing his patriarchal
establishment, being much assisted not only by Mrs. Goldstraw
but by Vendale too : who, perhaps, had in his mind the
giving of an Obenreizer dinner as soon as possible. Anyhow,
the establishment being reported in sound working order, the
Obenreizers, Guardian and Ward, were asked to dinner, and
Madame Dor was included in the invitation. If Vendale
had been over head and ears in love before — a phrase not to
be taken as implying the faintest doubt about it — this dinner
plunged him down in love ten thousand fathoms deep. Yet,
for the life of him, he could not get one word alone with
charming Marguerite. So surely as a blessed moment seemed
to come, Obenreizer, in his filmy state, would stand at
Vendale's elbow, or the broad back of Madame Dor would
appear before his eyes. That speechless matron was never
seen in a front view, from the moment of her arrival to that
of her departure — except at dinner. And from the instant

A PROPOSITION IN PHYSIOGNOMY. 261

of her retirement to the drawing-room, after a hearty
participation in that meal, she turned her face to the wall
again.

Yet, through four or five delightful though distracting
hours, Marguerite was to be seen, Marguerite was to be heard,
Marguerite was to be occasionally touched. When they made
the round of the old dark cellars, Vendale led her by the
hand ; when she sang to him in the lighted room at night,
Vendale, standing by her, held her relinquished gloves, and
would have bartered against them every drop of the forty-five
year old, though it had been forty-five times forty-five years
old, and its nett price forty-five times forty-five pounds per
dozen. And still, when she was gone, and a great gap of an
extinguisher was clapped on Cripple Corner, he tormented
himself by wondering, Did she think that he admired her!
Did she think that he adored her ! Did she suspect that she
had won him, heart and soul ! Did she care to think at all
about it! And so, Did she and Didn't she, up and down
the gamut, and above the line and below the line, dear,
dear ! Poor restless heart of humanity ! To think that the
men who were mummies thousands of years ago, did the
same, and ever found the secret how to be quiet after it !

" What do you think, George," Wilding asked him next
day, " of Mr. Obenreizer ? (I won't ask you what you think
of Miss Obenreizer. )"

"I don't know," said Vendale, "and I never did know,
what to think of him."

" He is well informed and clever," said Wilding.

"Certainly clever."

"A good musician." (He had played very well, and sung
very well, overnight.)

" Unquestionably a good musician."

"And talks well."

"Yes," said George Vendale, ruminating, "and talks well.
Do you know, Wilding, it oddly occurs to me, as I think
about him, that he doesn't keep silence well ! "

NO THOROUGHFARE.

" How do you mean ? He is not obtrusively talkative."

"No, and I don't mean that. But when he is silent, you
can hardly help vaguely, though perhaps most unjustly,
mistrusting him. Take people whom you know and like.
Take any one you know and like/1

"Soon done, my good fellow," said Wilding. "I take
you.""

" I didn't bargain for that, or foresee it," returned Vendale,
laughing. "However, take me. Reflect for a moment. Is
your approving knowledge of my interesting face mainly
founded (however various the momentary expressions it may
include) on my face when I am silent?"

" I think it is," said Wilding.

" I think so too. Now, you see, when Obenreizer speaks —
in other words, when he is allowed to explain himself away
— he comes out right enough ; but when he has not the
opportunity of explaining himself away, he comes out rather
wrong. Therefore it is, that I say he does not keep silence
well. And passing hastily in review such faces as I know,
and don't trust, I am inclined to think, now I give my mind
to it, that none of them keep silence well."

This proposition in Physiognomy being new to Wilding,
he was at first slow to admit it, until asking himself the
question whether Mi's. Goldstraw kept silence well, and
remembering that her face in repose decidedly invited
trustfulness, he was as glad as men usually are to believe
what they desire to believe.

But, as he was very slow to regain his spirits or his health,
his partner, as another means of setting him up — and
perhaps also with contingent Obenreizer views — reminded him
of those musical schemes of his in connection with his family,
and how a singing-class was to be formed in the house, and
a Choir in a neighbouring church. The class was established
speedily, and, two or three of the people having already some
musical knowledge, and singing tolerably, the Choir soon
followed. The latter was led, and chiefly taught, by Wilding

A POTENT SPELL. 263

himself: who had hopes of converting his dependents into so
many Foundlings, in respect of their capacity to sing sacred
choruses.

Now, the Obenreizers being skilled musicians, it was easily
brought to pass that they should be asked to join these
musical unions. Guardian and Ward consenting, or Guardian
consenting for both, it was necessarily brought to pass that
Vendale's life became a life of absolute thraldom and en
chantment. For, in the mouldy Christopher- Wren church
on Sundays, with its dearly beloved brethren assembled and
met together, five-and-twenty strong, was not that Her voice
that shot like light into the darkest places, thrilling the walls
and pillars as though they were pieces of his heart ! What
time, too, Madame Dor in a corner of the high pew, turning
her back upon everybody and everything, could not fail to
be Ritualistically right at some moment of the service; like
the man whom the doctors recommended to get drunk once
a month, and who, that he might not overlook it, got drunk
every day.

But, even those seraphic Sundays were surpassed by the
Wednesday concerts established for the patriarchal family. At
those concerts she would sit down to the piano and sing them,
in her own tongue, songs of her own land, songs calling from
the mountain-tops to Vendale, "Rise above the grovelling
level country ; come far away from the crowd ; pursue me as
I mount higher; higher, higher, melting into the azure
distance; rise to my supremest height of all, and love me
here ! " Then would the pretty bodice, the clocked stocking,
and the silver-buckled shoe be, like the broad forehead and
the bright eyes, fraught with the spring of a very chamois,
until the strain was over.

Not even over Vendale himself did these songs of hers cast
a more potent spell than over Joey Ladle in his different way.
Steadily refusing to muddle the harmony by taking any
share in it, and evincing the supremest contempt for scales
and such-like rudiments of music — which, indeed, seldom

264 NO THOROUGHFARE.

captivate mere listeners — Joey did at first give up the whole
business for a bad job, and the whole of the performers
for a set of howling Dervishes. But, descrying traces of
unmuddled harmony in a part-song one day, he gave his
two under cellarmen faint hopes of getting on towards
something in course of time. An anthem of Handel's led to
further encouragement from him : though he objected that
that great musician must have been down in some of them
foreign cellars pretty much, for to go and say the same thing
so many times over; which, took it in how you might, he
considered a certain sign of your having took it in somehow.
On a third occasion, the public appearance of Mr. Jarvis
with a flute, and of an odd man with a violin, and the per
formance of a duet by the two, did so astonish him that,
solely of his own impulse and motion, he became inspired
with the words, " Ann Koar ! " repeatedly pronouncing them
as if calling in a familiar manner for some lady who had
distinguished herself in the orchestra. But this was his
final testimony to the merits of his mates, for, the instrumental
duet being performed at the first Wednesday concert, and
being presently followed by the voice of Marguerite Obenreizer,
he sat with his mouth wide open, entranced, until she had
finished ; when, rising in his place with much solemnity, and
prefacing what he was about to say with a bow that specially
included Mr. Wilding in it, he delivered himself of the
gratifying sentiment : " Arter that, ye may all on ye get to
bed ! " And ever afterwards declined to render homage in
any other words to the musical powers of the family.

Thus began a separate personal acquaintance between
Marguerite Obenreizer and Joey Ladle. She laughed so
heartily at his compliment, and yet was so abashed by it,
that Joey made bold to say to her, after the concert was
over, he hoped he wasn't so muddled in his head as to have
took a liberty? She made him a gracious reply, and Joey
ducked in return.

"You'll change the luck time about, Miss," said Joey,

JOEY LADLE BESTOWS A COMPLIMENT. 265

ducking again. "It's such as you in the place that can
bring round the luck of the place.1'

" Can I ? Round the luck ? " she answered, in her pretty
English, and with a pretty wonder. " I fear I do not under
stand. I am so stupid."

"Young Master Wilding, Miss,1' Joey explained confi
dentially, though not much to her enlightenment, "changed
the luck, afore he took in young Master George. So I say,
and so they'll find. Lord ! Only come into the place and
sing over the luck a few times, Miss, and it won't be able
to help itself!"

With this, and with a whole brood of ducks, Joey backed
out of the presence. But Joey being a privileged person,
and even an involuntary conquest being pleasant to youth
and beauty, Marguerite merrily looked out for him next
time.

"Where is my Mr. Joey, please?" she asked Vendale.

So Joey was produced and shaken hands with, and that
became an Institution.

Another Institution arose in this wise. Joey was a little
hard of hearing. He himself said it was " Wapours," and
perhaps it might have been ; but whatever the cause of the
effect, there the effect was, upon him. On this first occasion
he had been seen to sidle along the wall, with his left hand
to his left ear, until he had sidled himself into a seat pretty
near the singer, in which place and position he had remained,
until addressing to his friends the amateurs the compliment
before mentioned. It was observed on the following Wednes
day that Joey's action as a Pecking Machine was impaired
at dinner, and it was rumoured about the table that this
was explainable by his high-strung expectations of Miss
Obenreizer's singing, and his fears of not getting a place
where he could hear every note and syllable. The rumour
reaching Wilding's ears, he in his good nature called Joey
to the front at night before Marguerite began. Thus the
Institution came into being that on succeeding nights,

266 NO THOROUGHFARE.

Marguerite, running her hands over the keys before singing,
always said to Vendale, "Where is my Mr. Joey, please?"
and that Vendale always brought him forth, and stationed
him near by. That he should then, when all eyes were upon
him, express in his face the utmost contempt for the exertions
of his friends and confidence in Marguerite alone, whom he
would stand contemplating, not unlike the rhinoceros out of
the spelling-book, tamed and on his hind legs, was a part of
the Institution. Also that when he remained after the sing
ing in his most ecstatic state, some bold spirit from the back
should say, " What do you think of it, Joey ? " and he should
be goaded to reply, as having that instant conceived the
retort, " Arter that, ye may all on ye get to bed ! " These
were other parts of the Institution.

But, the simple pleasures and small jests of Cripple Corner
were not destined to have a long life. Underlying them from
the first was a serious matter, which every member of the
patriarchal family knew of, but which, by tacit agreement, all
forbore to speak of. Mr. Wilding's health was in a bad way.

He might have overcome the shock he had sustained in
the one great affection of his life, or he might have overcome
his consciousness of being in the enjoyment of another man's
property ; but the two together were too much for him. A
man haunted by twin ghosts, he became deeply depressed.
The inseparable spectres sat at the board with him, ate from
his platter, drank from his cup, and stood by his bedside at
night. When he recalled his supposed mother's love, he felt
as though he had stolen it. When he rallied a little under
the respect and attachment of his dependants, he felt as
though he were even fraudulent in making them happy,
for that should have been the unknown man's duty and
gratification.

Gradually, under the pressure of his brooding mind, his
body stooped, his step lost its elasticity, his eyes were seldom
lifted from the ground. He knew he could not help the
deplorable mistake that had been made, but he knew he

WALTER WILDING TAKES TO HIS BED. 267

could not mend it ; for the days and weeks went by and no
one claimed his name or his possessions. And now there
began to creep over him a cloudy consciousness of often-
recurring confusion in his head. He would unaccountably
lose, sometimes whole hours, sometimes a whole day and
night. Once, his remembrance stopped as he sat at the head
of the dinner-table, and was blank until daybreak. Another
time, it stopped as he was beating time to their singing, and
went on again when he and his partner were walking in the
courtyard by the light of the moon, half the night later.
He asked Vendale (always full of consideration, work, and
help) how this was ? Vendale only replied, " You have not
been quite well; that's all." He looked for explanation into
the faces of his people. But they would put it oft* with,
"Glad to see you looking so much better, sir;1" or "Hope
you're doing nicely now, sir;" in which was no information
at all.

At length, when the partnership was but five months old,
Walter Wilding took to his bed, and his housekeeper became
his nurse.

" Lying here, perhaps you will not mind my calling you
Sally, Mrs. Goldstraw ? " said the poor wine-merchant.

" It sounds more natural to me, sir, than any other name,
and I like it better."

"Thank you, Sally. I think, Sally, I must of late have
been subject to fits. Is that so, Sally? Don't mind telling
me now."

"It has happened, sir."

" Ah ! That is the explanation !" he quietly remarked. " Mr.
Obenreizer, Sally, talks of the world being so small that it
is not strange how often the same people come together, and
come together at various places, and in various stages of life.
But it does seem strange, Sally, that I should, as I may say,
come round to the Foundling to die."

He extended his hand to her, and she gently took it.

"You are not going to die, dear Mr. Wilding."

268 NO THOROUGHFARE.

" So Mr. Bin trey said, but I think he was wrong. The old
child-feeling is coming back upon me, Sally. The old hush
and rest, as I used to fall asleep."

After an interval he said, in a placid voice, "Please kiss
me. Nurse," and, it was evident, believed himself to be lying
in the old Dormitory.

As she had been used to bend over the fatherless and
motherless children, Sally bent over the fatherless and mother
less man, and put her lips to his forehead, murmuring :

" God bless you ! "

" God bless you ! " he replied, in the same tone.

After another interval, he opened his eyes in his own
character, and said : " Don't move me, Sally, because of what
I am going to say; I lie quite easily. I think my time is
come. I don't know how it may appear to you, Sally,
but "

Insensibility fell upon him for a few minutes; he emerged
from it once more.

" — I don't know how it may appear to you, Sally, but so
it appears to me."

When he had thus conscientiously finished his favourite
sentence, his time came, and he died.

ACT II.

VENDALE MAKES LOVE.

THE summer and the autumn had passed. Christmas and the
New Year were at hand.

As executors honestly bent on performing their duty
towards the dead, Vendale and Bintrey had held more than
one anxious consultation on the subject of Wilding's will.
The lawyer had declared, from the first, that it was simply
impossible to take any useful action in the matter at all. The
only obvious inquiries to make, in relation to the lost man,
had been made already by Wilding himself; with this result,
that time and death together had not left a trace of him
discoverable. To advertise for the claimant to the property,
it would be necessary to mention particulars — a course of
proceeding which would invite half the impostors in England
to present themselves in the character of the true Walter
Wilding. " If we find a chance of tracing the lost man, we
will take it. If we don't, let us meet for another consulta
tion on the first anniversary of Wilding's death." So Bintrey
advised. And so, with the most earnest desire to fulfil his
dead friend's wishes, Vendale was fain to let the matter rest
for the present.

Turning from his interest in the past to his interest in the
future, Vendale still found himself confronting a doubtful
prospect. Months on months had passed since his first visit
to Soho-square — and through all that time, the one language

270 NO THOROUGHFARE.

in which he had told Marguerite that he loved her was the
language of the eyes, assisted, at convenient opportunities,
by the language of the hand.

What was the obstacle in his way? The one immovable
obstacle which had been in his way from the first. No
matter how fairly the opportunities looked, Vendale's efforts
to speak with Marguerite alone ended invariably in one and
the same result. Under the most accidental circumstances,
in the most innocent manner possible, Obenreizer was always
in the way.

With the last days of the old year came an unexpected
chance of spending an evening with Marguerite, which
Vendale resolved should be a chance of speaking privately to
her as well. A cordial note from Obenreizer invited him, on
New Year's Day, to a little family dinner in Soho-square.
" We shall be only four,11 the note said. " We shall be only
two,11 Vendale determined, " before the evening is out ! "

New Year's Day, among the English, is associated with the
giving and receiving of dinners, and with nothing more.
New Year's Day, among the foreigners, is the grand oppor
tunity of the year for the giving and receiving of presents.
It is occasionally possible to acclimatise a foreign custom.
In this instance Vendale felt no hesitation about making the
attempt. His one difficulty was to decide what his New
Year's gift to Marguerite should be. The defensive pride of
the peasant's daughter — morbidly sensitive to the inequality
between her social position and his — would be secretly roused
against him if he ventured on a rich offering. A gift, which
a poor man's purse might purchase, was the one gift that
could be trusted to find its way to her heart, for the giver's
sake. Stoutly resisting temptation, in the form of diamonds
and rubies, Vendale bought a brooch of the filigree- work of
Genoa — the simplest and most unpretending ornament that
he could find in the jeweller's shop.

He slipped his gift into Marguerite's hand as she held it
out to welcome him on the day of the dinner.

A NEW YEAR'S GIFT. 271

"This is your first New Year's Day in England," he said.
"Will you let me help to make it like a New Year's Day at
home?1'

She thanked him, a little constrainedly, as she looked at
the jeweller's box, uncertain what it might contain. Opening
the box, and discovering the studiously simple form under
which Vendale's little keepsake offered itself to her, she pene
trated his motive on the spot. Her face turned on him
brightly, with a look which said, "I ownvyou have pleased
and flattered me." Never had she been so charming, in
Vendale's eyes, as she was at that moment. Her winter
dress — a petticoat of dark silk, with a bodice of black velvet
rising to her neck, and enclosing it softly in a little circle of
swansdown — heightened, by all the force of contrast, the
dazzling fairness of her hair and her complexion. It was
only when she turned aside from him to the glass, and,
taking out the brooch that she wore, put his New Year's
gift in its place, that Vendale's attention wandered far
enough away from her to discover the presence of other
persons in the room. He now became conscious that the
hands of Obenreizer were affectionately in possession of his
elbows. He now heard the voice of Obenreizer thanking him
for his attention to Marguerite, with the faintest possible
ring of mockery in its tone. (" Such a simple present, dear
sir ! and showing such nice tact ! ") He now discovered, for
the first time, that there was one other guest, and but one,
besides himself, whom Obenreizer presented as a compatriot
and friend. The friend's face was mouldy, and the friend's
figure was fat. His age was suggestive of the autumnal period
of human life. In the course of the evening he developed
two extraordinary capacities. One was a capacity for silence ;
the other was a capacity for emptying bottles.

Madame Dor was not in the room. Neither was there
any visible place reserved for her when they sat down to
table. Obenreizer explained that it was "the good Dor's
simple habit to dine always in the middle of the day. She

272 NO THOROUGHFARE.

would make her excuses later in the evening." Vendale
wondered whether the good Dor had, on this occasion,
varied her domestic employment from cleaning Obenreizer's
gloves to cooking Obenreizer's dinner. This at least was
certain — the dishes served were, one and all, as achievements
in cookery, high above the reach of the rude elementary art
of England. The dinner was unobtrusively perfect. As for
the wine, the eyes of the speechless friend rolled over it, as
in solemn ecstasy. Sometimes he said " Good ! " when a bottle
came in full ; and sometimes he said " Ah ! " when a bottle
went out empty — and there his contributions to the gaiety of
the evening ended.

Silence is occasionally infectious. Oppressed by private
anxieties of their own, Marguerite and Vendale appeared
to feel the influence of the speechless friend. The whole
responsibility of keeping the talk going rested on Oben-
reizers shoulders, and manfully did Obenreizer sustain it. He
opened his heart in the character of an enlightened foreigner,
and sang the praises of England. When other topics ran
dry, he returned to this inexhaustible source, and always set
the stream running again as copiously as ever. Obenreizer
would have given an arm, an eye, or a leg to have been born
an Englishman. Out of England there was no such institu
tion as a home, no such thing as a fireside, no such object as
a beautiful woman. His dear Miss Marguerite would excuse
him, if he accounted for her attractions on the theory that
English blood must have mixed at some former time with
their obscure and unknown ancestry. Survey this English
nation, and behold a tall, clean, plump, and solid people!
Look at their cities ! What magnificence in their public
buildings ! What admirable order and propriety in their
streets ! Admire their laws, combining the eternal principle
of justice with the other eternal principle of pounds, shillings,
and pence ; and applying the product to all civil injuries, from
an injury to a man's honour, to an injury to a man's nose!
You have ruined my daughter — pounds, shillings, and pence !

A NOTE FOR MR. OBENREIZER. 278

You have knocked me down with a blow in my face —
pounds, shillings, and pence ! Where was the material pros
perity of such a country as that to stop? Obenreizer, pro
jecting himself into the future, failed to see the end of it.
Obenreizer's enthusiasm entreated permission to exhale itself,
English fashion, in a toast. Here is our modest little dinner
over, here is our frugal dessert on the table, and here is the
admirer of England conforming to national customs, and
making a speech ! A toast to your white cliffs of Albion, Mr.
Vendale ! to your national virtues, your charming climate, and
your fascinating women ! to your Hearths, to your Homes,
to your Habeas Corpus, and to all your other institutions !
In one word — to England ! Heep-heep-heep ! hooray !

Obenreizer's voice had barely chanted the last note of the
English cheer, the speechless friend had barely drained the
last drop out of his glass, when the festive proceedings were
interrupted by a modest tap at the door. A woman-servant
came in, and approached her master with a little note in her
hand. Obenreizer opened the note with a frown ; and, after
reading it with an expression of genuine annoyance, passed
it on to his compatriot and friend. Vendale's spirits rose as
he watched these proceedings. Had he found an ally in
the annoying little note? Was the long-looked-for chance
actually coming at last?

" 1 am afraid there is no help for it ? " said Obenreizer,
addressing his fellow-countryman. " I am afraid we must go."

The speechless friend handed back the letter, shrugged his
heavy shoulders, and poured himself out a last glass of wine.
His fat fingers lingered fondly round the neck of the bottle.
They pressed it with a little amatory squeeze at parting.
His globular eyes looked dimly, as through an intervening
haze, at Vendale and Marguerite. His heavy articulation
laboured, and brought forth a whole sentence at a birth. " I
think," he said, "I should have liked a little more wine."
His breath failed him after that effort; he gasped, and
walked to the door.

VOL. II. T

274 NO THOROUGHFARE.

Obenreizer addressed himself to Vendale with an appearance
of the deepest distress.

"I am so shocked, so confused, so distressed," he began.
" A misfortune has happened to one of my compatriots. He
is alone, he is ignorant of your language — I and my good
friend, here, have no choice but to go and help him. What
can I say in my excuse ? How can I describe my affliction
at depriving myself in this way of the honour of your
company ? "

He paused, evidently expecting to see Vendale take up his
hat and retire. Discerning his opportunity at last, Vendale
determined to do nothing of the kind. He met Obenreizer
dexterously, with Obenreizer's own weapons.

"Pray don't distress yourself," he said. "Til wait here
with the greatest pleasure till you come back."

Marguerite blushed deeply, and turned away to her
embroidery-frame in a corner by the window. The film
showed itself in Obenreizer's eyes, and the smile came some
thing sourly to Obenreizer's lips. To have told Vendale that
there was no reasonable prospect of his coming back in good
time, would have been to risk offending a man whose favour
able opinion was of solid commercial importance to him.
Accepting his defeat with the best possible grace, he declared
himself to be equally honoured and delighted by Vendale's
proposal. " So frank, so friendly, so English ! " He bustled
about, apparently looking for something he wanted, disap
peared for a moment through the folding-doors communicating
with the next room, came back with his hat and coat, and
protesting that he would return at the earliest possible
moment, embraced Vendale's elbows, and vanished from the
scene in company with the speechless friend.

Vendale turned to the corner by the window, in which
Marguerite had placed herself with her work. There, as if
she had dropped from the ceiling, or come up through the
floor — there, in the old attitude, with her face to the stove
— sat an Obstacle that had not been foreseen, in the person

GEORGE VENDALE AND MARGUERITE. 275

of Madame Dor ! She half got up, half looked over her
broad shoulder at Vendale, and plumped down again. Was
she at work? Yes. Cleaning Obenreizer's gloves, as before?
No ; darning Obenreizer's stockings.

The case was now desperate. Two serious considerations
presented themselves to Vendale. Was it possible to put
Madame Dor into the stove ? The stove wouldn't hold her.
Was it possible to treat Madame Dor, not as a living woman,
but as an article of furniture ? Could the mind be brought
to contemplate this respectable matron purely in the light of
a chest of drawers, with a black gauze head-dress accidentally
left on the top of it? Yes, the mind could be brought to
do that. With a comparatively trifling effort, Vendale's
mind did it. As he .took his place on the old-fashioned
window-seat, close by Marguerite and her embroidery, a
slight movement appeared in the chest of drawers, but no
remark issued from it. Let it be remembered that solid
furniture is not easy to move, and that it has this advantage
in consequence — there is no fear of upsetting it.

Unusually silent and unusually constrained — with the
bright colour fast fading from her face, with a feverish energy
possessing her fingers — the pretty Marguerite bent over her
embroidery, and worked as if her life depended on it. Hardly
less agitated himself, Vendale felt the importance of leading
her very gently to the avowal which he was eager to make —
to the other sweeter avowal still, which he was longing to
hear. A woman's love is never to be taken by storm ; it
yields insensibly to a system of gradual approach. It
ventures by the roundabout way, and listens to the low
voice. Vendale led her memory back to their past meetings
when they were travelling together in Switzerland. They
revived the impressions, they recalled the events, of the
happy bygone time. Little by little, Marguerite's constraint
vanished. She smiled, she was interested, she looked at
Vendale, she grew idle with her needle, she made false stitches
in her work. Their voices sank lower and lower; their faces

276 NO THOROUGHFARE.

bent nearer and nearer to each other as they spoke. And
Madame Dor? Madame Dor behaved like an angel. She
never looked round ; she never said a word ; she went on with
Obenreizer's stockings. Pulling each stocking up tight over
her left arm, and holding that arm aloft from time to time,
to catch the light on her work, there were moments — delicate
and indescribable moments — when Madame Dor appeared to
be sitting upside down, and contemplating one of her own
respectable legs, elevated in the air. As the minutes wore
on, these elevations followed each other at longer and longer
intervals. Now and again, the black gauze head-dress nodded,
dropped forward, recovered itself. A little heap of stockings
slid softly from Madame Dor's lap, and remained unnoticed
on the floor. A prodigious ball of worsted followed the
stockings, and rolled lazily under the table. The black gauze
head-dress nodded, dropped forward, recovered itself, nodded
again, dropped forward again, and recovered itself no more.
A composite sound, partly as of the purring of an immense
cat, partly as of the planing of a soft board, rose over the
hushed voices of the lovers, and hummed at regular intervals
througn the room. Nature and Madame Dor had combined
together in Vendale's interests. v The best of women was asleep.

Marguerite rose to stop — not the snoring — let us say, the
audible repose of Madame Dor. Vendale laid his hand on
her arm, and pressed her back gently into her chair.

" Don't disturb her," he whispered. " I have been waiting
to tell you a secret. Let me tell it now/'

Marguerite resumed her seat. She tried to resume her
needle. It was useless ; her eyes failed her ; her hand failed
her; she could find nothing.

"We have been talking," said Vendale, "of the happy
time when we first met, and first travelled together. I have
a confession to make. I have been concealing something.
When we spoke of my first visit to Switzerland, I told you
of all the impressions I had brought back with me to
England — except one. Can you guess what that one is ? "

GEORGE VENDALE TELLS HIS SECRET. 277

Her eyes looked steadfastly at the embroidery, and her
face turned a little away from him. Signs of disturbance
began to appear in her neat velvet bodice, round the region
of the brooch. She made no reply. Vendale pressed the
question without mercy.

" Can you guess what the one Swiss impression is, which I
have not told you yet ? "

Her face turned back towards him, and a faint smile
trembled on her lips.

" An impression of the mountains, perhaps ? "' she said slyly.

" No ; a much more precious impression than that."

« Of the lakes?"

"No. The lakes have not grown dearer and dearer in
remembrance to me every day. The lakes are not associated
with my happiness in the present, and my hopes in the
future. Marguerite ! all that makes life worth having hangs,
for me, on a word from your lips. Marguerite ! I love you ! "

Her head drooped as he took her hand. He drew her to
him, and looked at her. The tears escaped from her downcast
eyes, and fell slowly over her cheeks.

" O> Mr. Vendale," she said sadly, " it would have been
kinder to have kept your secret. Have you forgotten the
distance between us ? It can never, never be ! "

" There can be but one distance between us, Marguerite —
a distance of your making. My love, my darling, there is
no higher rank in goodness, there is no higher rank in beauty,
than yours ! Come ! whisper the one little word which tells
me you will be my wife ! "

She sighed bitterly. "Think of your family," she mur
mured ; " and think of mine ! "

Vendale drew her a little nearer to him.

" If you dwell on such an obstacle as that," he said, " I
shall think but one thought — I shall think I have offended
you."

She started, and looked up. "O, no!" she exclaimed
innocently. The instant the words passed her lips, she saw

278 NO THOROUGHFARE.

.the construction that might be placed on them. Her con
fession had escaped her in spite of herself. A lovely flush of
colour overspread her face. She made a momentary effort to
disengage herself from her lover's embrace. She looked up
at him entreatingly. She tried to speak. The words died
on her lips in the kiss that Vendale pressed on them. "Let
me go, Mr. Vendale ! " she said faintly.

" Call me George."

She laid her head on his bosom/ All her heart went out
to him at last. " George ! " she whispered.

" Say you love me ! "

Her arms twined themselves gently round his neck. Her
lips, timidly touching his cheek, murmured the delicious words
— " I love you ! "

In the moment of silence that followed, the sound of the
opening and closing of the house-door came clear to them
through the wintry stillness of the street.

Marguerite started to her .feet.

" Let me go ! " she said. " He has come back ! "

She hurried from the room, and touched Madame Dor's
shoulder in passing. Madame Dor woke up with a loud
snort, looked first over one shoulder and then over the other,
peered down into her lap, and discovered neither stockings,
worsted, nor darning-needle in it. At the same moment,
footsteps became audible ascending the stairs. " Mon Dieu ! "
said Madame Dor, addressing herself to the stove, and trem
bling violently. Vendale picked up the stockings and the
ball, and huddled them all back in a heap over her shoulder.
" Mon Dieu ! " said Madame Dor, for the second time, as
the avalanche of worsted poured into her capacious lap.

The door opened, and Obenreizer came in. His first
glance round the room showed him that Marguerite was
absent.

" What ! " he exclaimed, " my niece is away ? My niece is
not here to entertain you in my absence? This is unpar
donable. I shall bring her back instantly."

A WORD IN PRIVATE. 279

Vendale stopped him.

" I beg you will not disturb Miss Obenreizer," he said.
" You have returned, I see, without your friend ? "

"My friend remains, and consoles our afflicted compatriot.
A heart-rending scene, Mr. Vendale ! The household gods
at the pawnbroker's — the family immersed in tears. We all
embraced in silence. My admirable friend alone possessed his
composure. He sent out, on the spot, for a bottle of wine.11

" Can I say a word to you in private, Mr. Obenreizer ? "

" Assuredly." He turned to Madame Dor. " My good
creature, you are sinking for want of repose. Mr. Vendale
will excuse you.*"

Madame Dor rose, and set forth sideways on her journey
from the stove to bed. She dropped a stocking. Vendale
picked it up for her, and opened one of the folding-doors.
She advanced a step, and dropped three more stockings.
Vendale, stooping to recover them as before, Obenreizer
interfered with profuse apologies, and with a warning look at
Madame Dor. Madame Dor acknowledged the look by drop
ping the whole of the stockings in a heap, and then shuffling
away panic-stricken from the scene of disaster. Obenreizer
swept up the complete collection fiercely in both hands.
" Go ! " he cried, giving his prodigious handful a prepara
tory swing in the air. Madame Dor said, " Mon Dieu,"
and vanished into the next room, pursued by a shower of
stockings.

"What must you think, Mr. Vendale," said Obenreizer,
closing the door, "of this deplorable intrusion of domestic
details? For myself, I blush at it. We are beginning the
New Year as badly as possible ; everything has gone wrong
to-night. Be seated, pray — and say, what may I offer you?
Shall we pay our best respects to another of your noble
English institutions? It is my study to be, what you call,
jolly. I propose a grog."

Vendale declined the grog with all needful respect for that
noble institution.

280 NO THOROUGHFARE.

"I wish to speak to you on a subject in which I am
deeply interested," he said. " You must have observed, Mr.
Obenreizer, that I have, from the first, felt no ordinary
admiration for your charming niece ? "

"You are very good. In my niece's name, I thank you."

"Perhaps you may have noticed, latterly, that my admira
tion for Miss Obenreizer has grown into a tenderer and
deeper feeling ? "

" Shall we say friendship, Mr. Vendale ? "

"Say love — and we shall be nearer to the truth."

Obenreizer started out of his chair. The faintly discernible
beat, which was his nearest approach to a change of colour,
showed itself suddenly in his cheeks.

"You are Miss Obenreizer's guardian," pursued Vendale.
" I ask you to confer upon me the greatest of all favours — I
ask you to give me her hand in marriage."

Obenreizer dropped back into his chair. " Mr. Vendale,"
he said, "you petrify me."

"I will wait," rejoined Vendale, "until you have recovered
yourself."

" One word before I recover myself. You have said
nothing about this to my niece ? "

"I have opened my whole heart to your niece. And I
have reason to hope "

" What ! " interposed Obenreizer. " You have made a
proposal to my niece, without first asking for my authority
to pay your addresses to her?" He struck his hand on
the table, and lost his hold over himself for the first time
in Vendale's experience of him. " Sir ! " he exclaimed,
indignantly, "what sort of conduct is this? As a man
of honour, speaking to a man of honour, how can you
justify it?"

"I can only justify it as one of our English institutions,"
said Vendale quietly. " You admire our English institutions.
I can't honestly tell you, Mr. Obenreizer, that I regret what
I have done. I can only assure you that I have not acted in

MR. OBENREIZER OBJECTS. 281

the matter with any intentional disrespect towards yourself.
This said, may I ask you to tell me plainly what objection
you see to favouring my suit?"

"I see this immense objection," answered Obenreizer, " that
my niece and you are not on a social equality together.
My niece is the daughter of a poor peasant ; and you are
the son of a gentleman. You do us an honour," he added,
lowering himself again gradually to his customary polite level,
" which deserves, and has, our most grateful acknowledgments.
But the inequality is too glaring ; the sacrifice is too great.
You English are a proud people, Mr. Vendale. I have
observed enough of this country to see that such a marriage
as you propose would be a scandal here. Not a hand would
be held out to your peasant- wife ; and all your best friends
would desert you."

" One moment," said Vendale, interposing on his side. " I
may claim, without any great arrogance, to know more of
my country people in general, and of my own friends in
particular, than you do. In the estimation of everybody
whose opinion is worth having, my wife herself would be the
one sufficient justification of my marriage. If I did not feel
certain — observe, I say certain — that I am offering her a
position which she can accept without so much as the shadow
of a humiliation — I would never (cost me what it might) have
asked her to be my wife. Is there any other obstacle that
you see? Have you any personal objection to me?"

Obenreizer spread out both his hands in courteous protest.
"Personal objection!" he exclaimed. "Dear sir, the bare
question is painful to me."

"We are both men of business," pursued Vendale, "and
you naturally expect me to satisfy you that I have the means
of supporting a wife. I can explain my pecuniary position
in two words. I inherit from my parents a fortune of twenty
thousand pounds. In half of that sum I have only a life-
interest, to which, if I die, leaving a widow, my widow succeeds.
If I die, leaving children, the money itself is divided among

282 NO THOROUGHFARE.

them, as they come of age. The other half of my fortune is
at my own disposal, and is invested in the wine-business. I
see my way to greatly improving that business. As it stands
at present, I cannot state my return from my capital embarked
at more than twelve hundred a year. Add the yearly value
of my life-interest — and the total reaches a present annual
income of fifteen hundred pounds. I have the fairest prospect
of soon making it more. In the meantime, do you object to
me on pecuniary grounds?1'

Driven back to his last entrenchment, Obenreizer rose, and
took a turn backwards and forwards in the room. For the
moment, he was plainly at a loss what to say or do next.

" Before I answer that last question," he said, after a little
close consideration with himself, " I beg leave to revert for a
moment to Miss Marguerite. You said something just now
which seemed to imply that she returns the sentiment with
which you are pleased to regard her?""

"I have the inestimable happiness,1" said Vendale, "of
knowing that she loves me.1'

Obenreizer stood silent for a moment, with the film over his
eyes, and the faintly perceptible beat becoming visible again
in his cheeks.

" If you will excuse me for a few minutes," he said, with
ceremonious politeness, " I should like to have the opportunity
of speaking to my niece." With those words, he bowed, and
quitted the room.

Left by himself, Vendale's thoughts (as a necessary result
of the interview, thus far) turned instinctively to the con
sideration of Obenreizer's motives. He had put obstacles in
the way of the courtship ; he was now putting obstacles in
the way of the marriage — a marriage offering advantages
which even his ingenuity could not dispute. On the face of
it, his conduct was incomprehensible. What did it mean?

Seeking, under the surface, for the answer to that question
— and remembering that Obenreizer was a man of about his
own age; also, that Marguerite was, strictly speaking, his

A CHANGE IN MR. OBENREIZER'S MANNER. 283

half-niece only — Vendale asked himself, with a lover's ready
jealousy, whether he had a rival to fear, as well as a
guardian to conciliate. The thought just crossed his mind,
and no more. The sense of Marguerite's kiss still lingering
on his cheek reminded him gently that even the jealousy of a
moment was now a treason to her.

On reflection, it seemed most likely that a personal motive
of another kind might suggest the true explanation of
Obenreizer's conduct. Marguerite's grace and beauty were
precious ornaments in that little household. They gave it a
special social attraction and a special social importance. They
armed Obenreizer with a certain influence in reserve, which
he could always depend upon to make his house attractive,
and which he might always bring more or less to bear on the
forwarding of his own private ends. Was he the sort of
man to resign such advantages as were here implied, without
obtaining the fullest possible compensation for the loss ? A
connection by marriage with Vendale offered him solid advan
tages, beyond all doubt. But there were hundreds of men in
London with far greater power and far wider influence than
Vendale possessed. Was it possible that this man's ambition
secretly looked higher than the highest prospects that could
be offered to him by the alliance now proposed for his niece ?
As the question passed through Vendale's mind, the man
himself reappeared — to answer it, or not to answer it, as the
event might prove.

A marked change was visible in Obenreizer when he
resumed his place. His manner was less assured, and there
were plain traces about his mouth of recent agitation which
had not been successfully composed. Had he said something,
referring either to Vendale or to himself, which had raised
Marguerite's spirit, and which had placed him, for the first
time, face to face with a resolute assertion of his niece's will ?
It might or might not be. This only was certain — he looked
like a man who had met with a repulse.

" I have spoken to my niece," he began. " I find, Mr.

284 NO THOROUGHFARE.

Vendale, that even your influence has not entirely blinded
her to the social objections to your proposal.""

" May I ask," returned Vendale, " if that is the only result
of your interview with Miss Obenreizer ? "

A momentary flash leapt out through the Obenreizer film.
" You are master of the situation," he answered, in a tone
of sardonic submission. " If you insist on my admitting it, I
do admit it in those words. My niece's will and mine used
to be one, Mr. Vendale. You have come between us, and
her will is now yours. In my country, we know when we
are beaten, and we submit with our best grace. I submit,
with my best grace, on certain conditions. Let us revert to
the statement of your pecuniary position. I have an objection
to you, my dear sir — a most amazing, a most audacious
objection, from a man in my position to a man in yours."
"What is it?"

"You have honoured me by making a proposal for my
niece's hand. For the present (with best thanks and respects),
I beg to decline it."
"Why?"

"Because you are not rich enough."

The objection, as the speaker had foreseen, took Vendale
completely by surprise. For the moment he was speechless.
" Your income is fifteen hundred a year," pursued Obenreizer.
"In my miserable country I should fall on my knees before
your income, and say, * What a princely fortune ! ' In wealthy
England, I sit as I am, and say, * A modest independence, dear
sir ; nothing more. Enough, perhaps, for a wife in your own
rank of life, who has no social prejudices to conquer. Not
more than half enough for a wife who is a meanly born
foreigner, and who has all your social prejudices against her.'
Sir! if my niece is ever to marry you, she will have what
you call uphill work of it in taking her place at starting.
Yes, yes; this is not your view, but it remains, immovably
remains, my view for all that. For my niece's sake, I claim
that this uphill work shall be made as smooth as possible.

MR. OBENREIZER STATES HIS TERMS.

Whatever material advantages she can have to help her, ought,
in common justice, to be hers. Now, tell me, Mr. Vendale,
on your fifteen hundred a year can your wife have a house
in a fashionable quarter, a footman to open her door, a butler
to wait at her table, and a carriage and horses to drive about
in ? I see the answer in your face — your face says, No. Very
good. Tell me one more thing, and I have done. Take the
mass of your educated, accomplished, and lovely country-women,
is it, or is it not, the fact that a lady who has a house in a
fashionable quarter, a footman to open her door, a butler to
wait at her table, and a carriage and horses to drive about
in, is a lady who has gained four steps, in female estimation,
at starting ? Yes ? or No ? "

"Come to the point," said Vendale. "You view this
question as a question of terms. What are your terms ? "

"The lowest terms, dear sir, on which you can provide
your wife with those four steps at starting. Double your
present income — the most rigid economy cannot do it in
England on less. You said just now that you expected
greatly to increase the value of your business. To work —
and increase it ! I am a good devil after all ! On the day
when you satisfy me, by plain proofs, that your income has
risen to three thousand a year, ask me for my niece's hand,
and it is yours."

"May I inquire if you have mentioned this arrangement
to Miss Obenreizer?"

" Certainly. She has a last little morsel of regard still left
for me, Mr. Vendale, which is not yours yet ; and she accepts
my terms. In other words, she submits to be guided by her
guardian's regard for her welfare, and by her guardian's superior
knowledge of the world." He threw himself back in his chair,
in firm reliance on his position, and in full possession of his
excellent temper.

Any open assertion of his own interests, in the situation
in which Vendale was now placed, seemed to be (for the
present at least) hopeless. He found himself literally left

286

NO THOROUGHFARE.

with no ground to stand on. Whether Obenreizer's objections
were the genuine product of Obenreizer's own view of the
case, or whether he was simply delaying the marriage in the
hope of ultimately breaking it off altogether — in either of
these events, any present resistance on Vend ale's part would
be equally useless. There was no help for it but to yield,
making the best terms that he could on his own side.

"I protest against the conditions you impose on me,1' he
began.

" Naturally," said Obenreizer ; " I dare say I should protest,
myself, in your place."

"Say, however,"" pursued Vendale, "that I accept your
terms. In that case, I must be permitted to make two
stipulations on my part. In the first place, I shall expect
to be allowed to see your niece."

" Aha ! to see my niece ? and to make her in as great a
hurry to be married as you are yourself? Suppose I say, No ?
you would see her perhaps without my permission?"

"Decidedly!"

" How delightfully frank ! How exquisitely English ! You
shall see her, Mr. Vendale, on certain days, which we will
appoint together. What next?"

"Your objection to my income," proceeded Vendale, "has
taken me completely by surprise. I wish to be assured against
any repetition of that surprise. Your present views of my
qualification for marriage require me to have an income of
three thousand a year. Can I be certain, in the future, as
your experience of England enlarges, that your estimate will
rise no higher?"

"In plain English," said Obenreizer, "you doubt my
word ? "

"Do you purpose to take my word for it when I inform
you that I have doubled my income ? " asked Vendale. " If
my memory does not deceive me, you stipulated, a minute
since, for plain proofs ? "

"Well played, Mr. Vendale! You combine the foreign

A NEW INTEREST IN BUSINESS. 287

quickness with the English solidity. Accept my best con
gratulations. Accept, also, my written guarantee.1'

He rose ; seated himself at a writing-desk at a side-table,
wrote a few lines, and presented them to Vendale with a low
bow. The engagement was perfectly explicit, and was signed
and dated with scrupulous care.

"Are you satisfied with your guarantee?"

"lam satisfied."

"Charmed to hear it, I am sure. We have had our little
skirmish — we have really been wonderfully clever on both
sides. For the present our affairs are settled. I bear no
malice. You bear no malice. Come, Mr. Vendale, a good
English shake hands."

Vendale gave his hand, a little bewildered by Obenreizer's
sudden transitions from one humour to another.

" When may I expect to see Miss Obenreizer again ? " he
asked, as he rose to go.

"Honour me with a visit to-morrow," said Obenreizer,
" and we will settle it then. Do have a grog before you go !
No ? Well ! well ! we will reserve the grog till you have
your three thousand a year, and are ready to be married.
Aha! When will that be?"

"I made an estimate, some months since, of the capacities
of my business," said Vendale. " If that estimate is correct,
I shall double my present income "

" And be married ! " added Obenreizer.

" And be married," repeated Vendale, " within a year from
this time. Good night."

VENDALE MAKES MISCHIEF.

When Vendale entered his office the next morning, the
dull commercial routine at Cripple Corner met him with a
new face. Marguerite had an interest in it now ! The
whole machinery which Wilding's death had set in motion,
to realise the value of the business—the balancing of ledgers,

£83 NO THOROUGHFARE:.

the estimating of debts, the taking of stock, and the rest of
it — was now transformed into machinery which indicated the
chances for and against a speedy marriage. After looking
over results, as presented by his accountant, and checking
additions and subtractions, as rendered by the clerks, Vendale
turned his attention to the stock-taking department next,
and sent a message to the cellars, desiring to see the report.

The Cellarman's appearance, the moment he put his head
in at the door of his master's private room, suggested that
something very extraordinary must have happened that morn
ing. There was an approach to alacrity in Joey Ladle's
movements ! There was something which actually simulated
cheerfulness in Joey Ladle's face !

" What's the matter ? " asked Vendale. " Anything wrong ? "

"I should wish to mention one thing," answered Joey.
"Young Mr. Vendale, I have never set myself up for a
prophet."

" Who ever said you did ? "

" No prophet, as far as I've heard tell of that profession,"
proceeded Joey, "ever lived principally underground. No
prophet, whatever else he might take in at the pores, ever
took in wine from morning to night, for a number of years
together. When I said to Young Master Wilding, respecting
his changing the name of the firm, that one of these days he
might find he'd changed the luck of the firm — did I put
myself forward as a prophet? No, I didn't. Has what I
said to him come true ? Yes, it has. In the time of Pebble-
son Nephew, Young Mr. Vendale, no such thing was ever
known as a mistake made in a consignment delivered at these
doors. There's a mistake been made now. Please to remark
that it happened before Miss Margaret came here. For
which reason it don't go against what I've said respecting
Miss Margaret singing round the luck. Read that, sir," con
cluded Joey, pointing attention to a special passage in the
report, with a forefinger which appeared to be in process of
taking in through the pores nothing more remarkable than

JOEY LADLE'S PROPHECY REALISED. 289

dirt. "It's foreign to my nature to crow over the house I
serve, but I feel it a kind of a solemn duty to ask you to
read that."

Vendale read as follows : — " Note, respecting the Swiss
champagne. An irregularity has been discovered in the last
consignment received from the firm of Defresnier and Co."
Vendale stopped, and referred to a memorandum-book by his
side. "That was in Mr. Wilding's time," he said. "The
vintage was a particularly good one, and he took the whole
of it. The Swiss champagne has done very well, hasn't it ? "

" I don't say it's done badly," answered the Cellarman. " It
may have got sick in our customers' bins, or it may have bust
in our customers' hands. But I don't say it's done badly
with us"

Vendale resumed the reading of the note : " We find the
number of the cases to be quite correct by the books. But
six of them, which present a slight difference from the rest in
the brand, have been opened, and have been found to contain
a red wine instead of champagne. The similarity in the
brands, we suppose, caused a mistake to be made in sending
the consignment from Neuchatel. The error has not been
found to extend beyond six cases."

" Is that all ! " exclaimed Vendale, tossing the note away
from him.

Joey Ladle's eye followed the flying morsel of paper drearily.

" I'm glad to see you take it easy, sir," he said. " Whatever
happens, it will be always a comfort to you to remember
that you took it easy at first. Sometimes one mistake leads
to another. A man drops a bit of orange-peel on the pave
ment by mistake, and another man treads on it by mistake,
and there's a job at the hospital, and a party crippled for
life. I'm glad you take it easy, sir. In Pebbleson Nephew's
time we shouldn't have taken it easy till we had seen the end
of it. Without desiring to crow over the house, Young Mr.
Vendale, I wish you well through it. No offence, sir," said
the Cellarman, opening the door to go out, and looking in

VOL. II. rr

290 NO THOROUGHFARE.

again ominously before he shut it. "I'm muddled and
molloncolly, I grant you. But Fm an old servant of Pebbleson
Nephew, and I wish you well through them six cases of red
wine."

Left by himself, Vendale laughed, and took up his pen.
"I may as well send a line to Defresnier and Company," he
thought, "before I forget it." He wrote at once in these
terms :

"Dear Sirs. We are taking stock, and a trifling mistake
has been discovered in the last consignment of champagne
sent by your house to ours. Six of the cases contain red
wine — which we hereby return to you. The matter can easily
be set right, either by your sending us six cases of the
champagne, if they can be produced, or, if not, by your
crediting us with the value of six cases on the amount last
paid (five hundred pounds) by our firm to yours. Your
faithful servants,

"WILDING AND Co."

This letter despatched to the post, the subject dropped at
once out of Vendale's mind. He had other and far more
interesting matters to think of. Later in the day he paid
the visit to Obenreizer which had been agreed on between
them. Certain evenings in the week were set apart which
he was privileged to spend with Marguerite — always, however,
in the presence of a third person. On this stipulation Oben
reizer politely but positively insisted. The one concession
he made was to give Vendale his choice of who the third
person should be. Confiding in past experience, his choice
fell unhesitatingly upon the excellent woman who mended
Obenreizer's stockings. On hearing of the responsibility
entrusted to her, Madame Dor's intellectual nature burst
suddenly into a new stage of development. She waited till
Obenreizer's eye was off her — and then she looked at Vendale,
and dimly winked.

BAD NEWS. 291

The time passed — the happy evenings with Marguerite came
and went. It was the tenth morning since Vendale had
written to the Swiss firm, when the answer appeared on his
desk, with the other letters of the day :

"Dear Sirs. We beg to offer our excuses for the little
mistake which has happened. At the same tim^, we regret
to add that the statement of our error, with which you
have favoured us, has led to a very unexpected discovery.
The affair is a most serious one for you and for us. The
particulars are as follows :

"Having no more champagne of the vintage last sent to
you, we made arrangements to credit your firm with the value
of the six cases, as suggested by yourself. On taking this
step, certain forms observed in our mode of doing business
necessitated a reference to our bankers'* book, as well as to
our ledger. The result is a moral certainty that no such
remittance as you mention can have reached our house, and
a literal certainty that no such remittance has been paid to
our account at the bank.

" It is needless, at this stage of the proceedings, to trouble
you with details. The money has unquestionably been stolen in
the course of its transit from you to us. Certain peculiarities
which we observe, relating to the manner in which the fraud
has been perpetrated, lead us to conclude that the thief may
have calculated on being able to pay the missing sum to
our bankers, before an inevitable discovery followed the annual
striking of our balance. This would not have happened, in
the usual course, for another three months. During that
period, but for your letter, we might have remained perfectly
unconscious of the robbery that has been committed.

" We mention this last circumstance, as it may help to
show you that we have to do, in this case, with no ordinary
thief. Thus far we have not even a suspicion of who that
thief is. But we believe you will assist us in making some
advance towards discovery, by examining the receipt (forged,

NO THOROUGHFARE.

of course) which has no doubt purported to come to you
from our house. Be pleased to look and see whether it is a
receipt entirely in manuscript, or whether it is a numbered
and printed form which merely requires the filling in of the
amount. The settlement of this apparently trivial question
is, we assure you, a matter of vital importance. Anxiously
awaiting your reply, we remain, with high esteem and
consideration,

"DEFRESNIER & CIE<"

Vendale had the letter on his desk, and waited a moment
to steady his mind under the shock that had fallen on it.
At the time of all others when it was most important to
him to increase the value of his business, that business was
threatened with a loss of five hundred pounds. He thought
of Marguerite, as he took the key from his pocket and opened
the iron chamber in the wall in which the books and papers
of the firm were kept.

He was still in the chamber, searching for the forged receipt,
when he was startled by a voice speaking close behind him.

" A thousand pardons," said the voice ; " I am afraid I
disturb you."

He turned, and found himself face to face with Marguerite's
guardian.

" I have called," pursued Obenreizer, " to know if I can be
of any use. Business of my own takes me away for some days
to Manchester and Liverpool. Can I combine any business
of yours with it? I am entirely at your disposal, in the
character of commercial traveller for the firm of Wilding
and Co."

" Excuse me for one moment," said Vendale ; " I will speak
to you directly." He turned round again, and continued his
search among the papers. "You come at a time when
friendly offers are more than usually precious to me," he
resumed. "I have had very bad news this morning from
Neuchatel."

THE FORGED RECEIPT.

" Bad news ! " exclaimed Obenreizer. " From Defresnier and
Company ? "

"Yes. A remittance we sent to them has been stolen. I
am threatened with a loss of five hundred pounds. What's
that?"

Turning sharply, and looking into the room for the
second time, Vendale discovered his envelope-case overthrown
on the floor, and Obenreizer on his knees picking up the
contents.

"All my awkwardness," said Obenreizer. "This dreadful

news of yours startled me ; I stepped back " He became

too deeply interested in collecting the scattered envelopes to
finish the sentence.

"Don't trouble yourself," said Vendale. "The clerk will
pick the things up."

" This dreadful news ! " repeated Obenreizer, persisting in
collecting the envelopes. " This dreadful news ! "

" If you will read the letter," said Vendale, " you will find
I have exaggerated nothing. There it is, open on my desk."

He resumed his search, and in a moment more discovered
the forged receipt. It was on the numbered and printed
form, described by the Swiss firm. Vendale made a memo
randum of the number and the date. Having replaced the
receipt and locked up the iron chamber, he had leisure to
notice Obenreizer, reading the letter in the recess of a window
at the far end of the room.

"Come to the fire," said Vendale. "You look perished
with the cold out there. I will ring for some more coals."

Obenreizer rose, and came slowly back to the desk.
"Marguerite will be as sorry to hear of this as I am," he
said, kindly. "What do you mean to do?"

" I am in the hands of Defresnier and Company," answered
Vendale. " In my total ignorance of the circumstances, I can
only do what they recommend. The receipt which I have
just found, turns out to be the numbered and printed form.
They seem to attach some special importance to its discovery.

NO THOROUGHFARE.

You have had experience, when you were in the Swiss house,
of their way of doing business. Can you guess what object
they have in view?"

Obenreizer offered a suggestion.

" Suppose I examine the receipt ? " he said.

"Are you ill?"' asked Vendale, startled by the change in
his face, which now showed itself plainly for the first time.
"Pray go to the fire. You seem to be shivering — I hope
you are not going to be ill?"

" Not I ! " said Obenreizer. " Perhaps I have caught cold.
Your English climate might have spared an admirer of your
English institutions. Let me look at the receipt."

Vendale opened the iron chamber. Obenreizer took a chair,
and drew it close to the fire. He held both hands over the
flames. " Let me look at the receipt," he repeated, eagerly, as
Vendale reappeared with the paper in his hand. At the same
moment a porter entered the room with a fresh supply of
coals. Vendale told him to make a good fire. The man
obeyed the order with a disastrous alacrity. As he stepped
forward and raised the scuttle, his foot caught in a fold of
the rug, and he discharged his entire cargo of coals into the
grate. The result was an instant smothering of the flame,
and the production of a stream of yellow smoke, without a
visible morsel of fire to account for it.

" Imbecile ! " whispered Obenreizer to himself, with a look
at the man which the man remembered for many a long day
afterwards.

"Will you come into the clerks1 room?" asked Vendale.
"They have a stove there."

"No, no. No matter."

Vendale handed him the receipt. Obenreizer's interest in
examining it appeared to have been quenched as suddenly
and as effectually as the fire itself. He just glanced over
the document, and said, "No; I don't understand it! I
am sorry to be of no use."

" I will write to Neuchatel by to-night's post," said Vendale,

MORE BAD NEWS. 295

putting away the receipt for the second time. "We must
wait, and see what comes of it."

"By to-night's post," repeated Obenreizer. "Let me see.
You will get the answer in ejght or nine days' time. I shall
be back before that. If I can be of any service, as commercial
traveller, perhaps you will let me know between this and then.
You will send me written instructions ? My best thanks. I
shall be most anxious for your answer from Neuchatel. Who
knows? It may be a mistake, my dear friend, after all.
Courage ! courage ! courage ! " He had entered the room
with no appearance of being pressed for time. He now
snatched up his hat, and took his leave with the air of a man
who had not another moment to lose.

Left by himself, Vendale took a turn thoughtfully in the
room.

His previous impression of Obenreizer was shaken by what
he had heard and seen at the interview which had just taken
place. He was disposed, for the first time, to doubt whether,
in this case, he had not been a little hasty and hard in his
judgment on another man. Obenreizer's surprise and regret,
on hearing the news from Neuchatel, bore the plainest marks
of being honestly felt — not politely assumed for the occasion.
With troubles of his own to encounter, suffering, to all
appearance, from the first insidious attack of a serious illness,
he had looked arid spoken like a man who really deplored
the disaster that had fallen on his friend. Hitherto Vendale
had tried vainly to alter his first opinion of Marguerite's
guardian, for Marguerite's sake. All the generous instincts
in his nature now combined together and shook the evidence
which had seemed unanswerable up to this time. "Who
knows?" he thought. "I may have read that man's face
wrongly, after all."

The time passed — the happy evenings with Marguerite
came and went. It was again the tenth morning since
Vendale had written to the Swiss firm ; and again the answer
appeared on his desk with the other letters of the day :

296 NO THOROUGHFARE.

"Dear Sir. My senior partner, M. Defresnier, has been
called away, by urgent business, to Milan. In his absence
(and with his full concurrence and authority), I now write to
you again on the subject of the missing five hundred pounds.

"Your discovery that the forged receipt is executed upon
one of our numbered and printed forms has caused inex
pressible surprise and distress to my partner and to myself.
At the time when your remittance was stolen, but three
keys were in existence opening the strong-box in which our
receipt-forms are invariably kept. My partner had one key;
I had the other. The third was in the possession of a
gentleman who, at that period, occupied a position of trust
in our house. We should as soon have thought of suspect
ing one of ourselves as of suspecting this person. Suspicion
now points at him, nevertheless. I cannot prevail on myself
to inform you who the person is, so long as there is the
shadow of a chance that he may come innocently out of the
inquiry which must now be instituted. Forgive my silence;
the motive of it is good.

"The form our investigation must now take is simple
enough. The handwriting on your receipt must be compared,
by competent persons whom we have at our disposal, with
certain specimens of handwriting in our possession. I cannot
send you the specimens for business reasons, which, when you
hear them, you are sure to approve. I must beg you to send
me the receipt to Neuchatel — and, in making this request, I
must accompany it by a word of necessary warning.

" If the person, at whom suspicion now points, really proves
to be the person who has committed this forgery and theft, I
have reason to fear that circumstances may have already put
him on his guard. The only evidence against him is the
evidence in your hands, and he will move heaven and earth
to obtain and destroy it. I strongly urge you not to trust
the receipt to the post. Send it to me, without loss of time,
by a private hand, and choose nobody for your messenger but
a person long established in your own employment, accustomed

A TRUSTY MESSENGER WANTED.

to travelling, capable of speaking French ; a man of courage,
a man of honesty, and, above all things, a man who can be
trusted to let no stranger scrape acquaintance with him
on the route. Tell no one — absolutely no one — but your
messenger of the turn this matter has now taken. The safe
transit of the receipt may depend on your interpreting literally
the advice which I give you at the end of this letter.

" I have only to add that every possible saving of time is
now of the last importance. More than one of our receipt-
forms is missing — and it is impossible to say what new frauds
may not be committed, if we fail to lay our hands on the
thief.

" Your faithful servant, " ROLLAND,

"(Signing for Defresnier and Cie-)"

Who was the suspected man? In Vendale's position, it
seemed useless to inquire.

Who was to be sent to Neuchatel with the receipt ? Men
of courage and men of honesty were to be had at Cripple
Corner for the asking. But where was the man who was
accustomed to foreign travelling, who could speak the French
language, and who could be really relied on to let no stranger
scrape acquaintance with him on his route? There was but
one man at hand who combined all those requisites in his
own person, and that man was Vendale himself.

It was a sacrifice to leave his business; it was a greater
sacrifice to leave Marguerite. But a matter of five hundred
pounds was involved in the pending inquiry; and a literal
interpretation of M. RollancTs advice was insisted on in
terms which there was no trifling with. The more Vendale
thought of it, the more plainly the necessity faced him, and
said, " Go ! "

As he locked up the letter with the receipt, the association
of ideas reminded him of Obenreizer. A guess at the identity
of the suspected man looked more possible now. Obenreizer
might know.

298 NO THOROUGHFARE.

The thought had barely passed through his mind, when
the door opened, and Obenreizer entered the room.

"They told me at Soho-square you were expected back
last night,"" said Vendale, greeting him. "Have you done
well in the country ? Are you better ? "

A thousand thanks. Obenreizer had done admirably well ;
Obenreizer was infinitely better. And now, what news?
Any letter from Neuchatel ?

"A very strange letter," answered Vendale. "The matter
has taken a new turn, and the letter insists — without excepting
anybody — on my keeping our next proceedings a profound
secret."

"Without excepting anybody?" repeated Obenreizer. As
he said the words, he walked away again, thoughtfully, to
the window at the other end of the room, looked out for a
moment, and suddenly came back to Vendale. " Surely they
must have forgotten?" he resumed, "or they would have
excepted me?"

" It is Monsieur Rolland who writes," said Vendale. " And,
as you say, he must certainly have forgotten. That view of
the matter quite escaped me. I was just wishing I had you
to consult, when you came into the room. And here I am
tied by a formal prohibition, which cannot possibly have
been intended to include you. How very annoying ! "

Obenreizer's filmy eyes fixed on Vendale attentively.

" Perhaps it is more than annoying ! " he said. " I came
this morning not only to hear the news, but to offer myself
as messenger, negotiator — what you will. Would you believe
it? I have letters which oblige me to go to Switzerland
immediately. Messages, documents, anything — I could have
taken them all to Defresnier and Rolland for you."

"You are the very man I wanted," returned Vendale. "I
had decided, most unwillingly, on going to Neuchatel myself,
not five minutes since, because I could find no one here
capable of taking my place. Let me look at the letter again."

He opened the strong room to get at the letter. Obenreizer,

ACTING IN THE DARK. 299

after first glancing round him to make sure that they were
alone, followed a step or two and waited, measuring Vendale
with his eye. Vendale was the tallest man, and unmistakably
the strongest man also of the two. Obenreizer turned away,
and warmed himself at the fire.

Meanwhile, Vendale read the last paragraph in the letter
for the third time. There was the plain warning — there was
the closing sentence, which insisted on a literal interpretation
of it. The hand, which was leading Vendale in the dark, led
him on that condition only. A large sum was at stake : a
terrible suspicion remained to be verified. If he acted on
his own responsibility, and if anything happened to defeat
the object in view, who would be blamed? As a man of
business, Vendale had but one course to follow. He locked
the letter up again.

"It is most annoying," he said to Obenreizer — "it is a
piece of forgetfulness on Monsieur Holland's part which puts
me to serious inconvenience, and places me in an absurdly
false position towards you. What am I to do ? I am acting
in a very serious matter, and acting entirely in the dark. I
have no choice but to be guided, not by the spirit, but by
the letter of my instructions. You understand me, I am sure ?
You know, if I had not been fettered in this way, how gladly
I should have accepted your services ? "

"Say no more!1' returned Obenreizer. "In your place
I should have done the same. My good friend, I take no
offence. I thank you for your compliment. We shall be
travelling companions, at any rate," added Obenreizer. " You
go, as I go, at once?"

" At once. I must speak to Marguerite first, of course ! "

" Surely ! surely ! Speak to her this evening. Come, and
pick me up on the way to the station. We go together by
the mail train to-night?"

"By the mail train to-night."

It was later than Vendale had anticipated when he drove

300 NO THOROUGHFARE.

up to the house in Soho-square. Business difficulties, occa
sioned by his sudden departure, had presented themselves by
dozens. A cruelly large share of the time which he had
hoped to devote to Marguerite had been claimed by duties
at his office which it was impossible to neglect.

To his surprise and delight, she was alone in the drawing-
room when he entered it.

"We have only a few minutes, George," she said. "But
Madame Dor has been good to me — and we can have those
few minutes alone."" She threw her arms round his neck, and
whispered eagerly, "Have you done anything to offend Mr.
Obenreizer ?"

" I ! " exclaimed Vendale, in amazement.

" Hush ! " she said, " I want to whisper it. You know the
little photograph I have got of you. This afternoon it
happened to be on the chimney-piece. He took it up and
looked at it — and I saw his face in the glass. I know you
have offended him ! He is merciless ; he is revengeful ; he
is as secret as the grave. Don't go with him, George — don't
go with him ! "

"My own love," returned Vendale, "you are letting your
fancy frighten you! Obenreizer and I were never better
friends than we are at this moment."

Before a word more could be said, the sudden movement
of some ponderous body shook the floor of the next room.
The shock was followed by the appearance of Madame Dor.
" Obenreizer ! " exclaimed this excellent person in a whisper,
and plumped down instantly in her regular place by the stove.

Obenreizer came in with a courier's bag strapped over his
shoulder.

"Are you ready?" he asked, addressing Vendale. "Can I
take anything for you ? You have no travelling-bag. I have
got one. Here is the compartment for papers, open at your
service."

"Thank you," said Vendale. "I have only one paper of
importance with me; and that paper I am bound to take

GEORGE VENDALE RECEIVES A CAUTION. 301

charge of myself. Here it is," he added, touching the breast
pocket of his coat, " and here it must remain till we get to
Neuchatel."

As he said those words, Marguerite's hand caught his, and
pressed it significantly. She was looking towards Obenreizer.
Before Vendale could look, in his turn, Obenreizer had wheeled
round, and was taking leave of Madame Dor.

"Adieu, my charming niece!1' he said, turning to Mar
guerite next. " En route, my friend, for Neuchatel ! " He
tapped Vendale lightly over the breast-pocket of his coat, and
led the way to the door.

Vendale's last look was for Marguerite. Marguerite's last
words to him were, " Don't go ! "

ACT III.

IN THE VALLEY.

IT was about the middle of the month of February when
Vendale and Obenreizer set forth on their expedition. The
winter being a hard one, the time was bad for travellers.
So bad was it that these two travellers, coming to Strasbourg,
found its great inns almost empty. And even the few people
they did encounter in that city, who had started from
England or from Paris on business journeys towards the
interior of Switzerland, were turning back.

Many of the railroads in Switzerland that tourists pass
easily enough now, were almost or quite impracticable then.
Some were not begun ; more were not completed. On such
as were open, there were still large gaps of old road where
communication in the winter season was often stopped; on
others, there were weak points where the new work was not
safe, either under conditions of severe frost, or of rapid thaw.
The running of trains on this last class was not to be counted
on in the worst time of the year, was contingent upon
weather, or was wholly abandoned through the months con
sidered the most dangerous.

At Strasbourg there were more travellers' stories afloat,
respecting the difficulties of the way further on, than there
were travellers to relate them. Many of these tales were as
wild as usual ; but the more modestly marvellous did derive
some colour from the circumstance that people were indis
putably turning back. However, as the road to Basle was

FELLOW-TRAVELLERS. 303

open, Vendale's resolution to push on was in no wise disturbed.
Obenreizer's resolution was necessarily Vendale's, seeing that
he stood at bay thus desperately : He must be ruined, or
must destroy the evidence that Vendale carried about him,
even if he destroyed Vendale with it.

The state of mind of each of these two fellow-travellers
towards the other was this. Obenreizer, encircled by impend
ing ruin through Vendale's quickness of action, and seeing the
circle narrowed every hour by Vendale's energy, hated him
with the animosity of a fierce cunning lower animal. He had
always had instinctive movements in his breast against him;
perhaps, because of that old sore of gentleman and peasant ;
perhaps, because of the openness of his nature; perhaps,
because of his better looks ; perhaps, because of his success
with Marguerite ; perhaps, on all those grounds, the two last
not the least. And now he saw in him, besides, the hunter
who was tracking him down. Vendale, on the other hand,
always contending generously against his first vague mistrust,
now felt bound to contend against it more than ever:
reminding himself, "He is Marguerite's guardian. We are
on perfectly friendly terms ; he is my companion of his own
proposal, and can have no interested motive in sharing this
undesirable journey."" To which pleas in behalf of Obenreizer,
chance added one consideration more, when they came to Basle
after a journey of more than twice the average duration.

They had had a late dinner, and were alone in an inn room
there, overhanging the Rhine : at that place rapid and deep,
swollen and loud. Vendale lounged upon a couch, and
Obenreizer walked to and fro : now, stopping at the window,
looking at the crooked reflection of the town lights in the
dark water (and peradventure thinking, " If I could fling him
into it!1'); now, resuming his walk with his eyes upon the
floor.

" Where shall I rob him, if I can ? Where shall I murder
him, if I must ? " So, as he paced the room, ran the river,
ran the river, ran the river.

304, NO THOROUGHFARE.

The burden seemed to him, at last, to be growing so plain,
that he stopped; thinking it as well to suggest another
burden to his companion.

"The Rhine sounds to-night,"" he said with a smile, "like
the old waterfall at home. That waterfall which my mother
showed to travellers (I told you of it once). The sound of
it changed with the weather, as does the sound of all falling
waters and flowing waters. When I was pupil of the
watchmaker, I remembered it as sometimes saying to me
for whole days, ' Who are you, my little wretch ? Who are
you, my little wretch?1 I remembered it as saying, other
times, when its sound was hollow, and storm was coming up
the Pass: 'Boom, boom, boom. Beat him, beat him, beat
him.1 Like my mother enraged — if she was my mother."

" If she was ? " said Vendale, gradually changing his atti
tude to a sitting one. " If she was ? Why do you say ' if ' ? "

" What do I know ? " replied the other negligently, throwing
up his hands and letting them fall as they would. " What
would you have? I am so obscurely born, that how can I
say ? I was very young, and all the rest of the family were
men and women, and my so-called parents were old. Any
thing is possible of a case like that."

" Did you ever doubt ? rt

" I told you once, I doubt the marriage of those two," he
replied, throwing up his hands again, as if he were throwing
the unprofitable subject away. " But here I am in Creation.
/ come of no fine family. What does it matter ? "

"At least you are Swiss," said Vendale, after following
him with his eyes to and fro.

"How do I know?" he retorted abruptly, and stopping
to look back over his shoulder. " I say to you, at least you
are English. How do you know ? "

"By what I have been told from infancy."

" Ah ! I know of myself that way."

"And," added Vendale, pursuing the thought that he
could not drive back, " by my earliest recollections."

THE BURDEN OF THE RHINE. 305

" I also. I know of myself that way — if that way satisfies."

" Does it not satisfy you ? "

"It must. There is nothing like 'it must' in this little
world. It must. Two short words those, but stronger than
long proof or reasoning."

"You and poor Wilding were born in the same year.
You were nearly of an age," said Vendale, again thoughtfully
looking after him as he resumed his pacing up and down.

"Yes. Very nearly."

Could Obenreizer be the missing man? In the unknown
associations of things, was there a subtler meaning than he
himself thought, in that theory so often on his lips about
the smallness of the world ? Had the Swiss letter presenting
him followed so close on Mrs. Goldstraw's revelation con
cerning the infant who had been taken away to Switzerland,
because he was that infant grown a man ? In a world where
so many depths lie unsounded, it might be. The chances,
or the laws — call them either — that had wrought out the
revival of Vendale's own acquaintance with Obenreizer, and
had ripened it into intimacy, and had brought them here
together this present winter night, were hardly less curious ;
while read by such a light, they were seen to cohere towards
the furtherance of a continuous and an intelligible purpose.

Vendale's awakened thoughts ran high while his eyes
musingly followed Obenreizer pacing up and down the room,
the river ever running to the tune : " Where shall I rob
him, if I can? Where shall I murder him, if I must?"
The secret of his dead friend was in no hazard from Vendale's
lips; but just as his friend had died of its weight, so did he
in his lighter succession feel the burden of the trust, and
the obligation to follow any clue, however obscure. He
rapidly asked himself, would he like this man to be the real
Wilding? No. Argue down his mistrust as he might, he
was unwilling to put such a substitute in the place of his
late guileless, outspoken, childlike partner. He rapidly asked
himself, would he like this man to be rich? No. He had

VOL. n. x

306 NO THOROUGHFARE.

more power than enough over Marguerite as it was, and
wealth might invest him with more. Would he like this man
to be Marguerite's Guardian, and yet proved to stand in no
degree of relationship towards her, however disconnected
and distant? No. But these were not considerations to
come between him and fidelity to the dead. Let him see
to it that they passed him with no other notice than the
knowledge that they had passed him, and left him bent on
the discharge of a solemn duty. And he did see to it, so
soon that he followed his companion with ungrudging eyes,
while he still paced the room ; that companion, whom he
supposed to be moodily reflecting on his own birth, and not
on another man's — least of all what man's — violent Death.

The road in advance from Basle to Neuchatel was better
than had been represented. The latest weather had done it
good. Drivers, both of horses and mules, had come in that
evening after dark, and had reported nothing more difficult
to be overcome than trials of patience, harness, wheels, axles,
and whipcord. A bargain was soon struck for a carriage
and horses, to take them on in the morning, and to start
before daylight.

"Do you lock your door at night when travelling?" asked
Obenreizer, standing warming his hands by the wood fire in
Vendale's chamber, before going to his own.

" Not I. I sleep too soundly."

"You are so sound a sleeper?" he retorted, with an
admiring look. " What a blessing ! "

"Anything but a blessing to the rest of the house,"
rejoined Vendale, "if I had to be knocked up in the morning
from the outside of my bedroom door."

" I, too," said Obenreizer, " leave open my room. But let
me advise you, as a Swiss who knows : always, when you
travel in my country, put your papers — and, of course, your
money — under your pillow. Always the same place."

"You are not complimentary to your countrymen,"
laughed Vendale.

SITTING BY THE FIRE. 307

"My countrymen," said Obenreizer, with that light touch
of his friend's elbows by way of Good Night and benediction,
"I suppose are like the majority of men. And the majority
of men will take what they can get. Adieu ! At four in the
morning."

"Adieu! At four."1'

Left to himself, Vendale raked the logs together, sprinkled
over them the white wood-ashes lying on the hearth, and sat
down to compose his thoughts. But they still ran high on
their latest theme, and the running of the river tended to
agitate rather than to quiet them. As he sat thinking, what
little disposition he had had to sleep departed. He felt
it hopeless to lie down yet, and sat dressed by the fire.
Marguerite, Wilding, Obenreizer, the business he was then
upon, and a thousand hopes and doubts that had nothing to
do with it, occupied his mind at once. Everything seemed
to have power over him but slumber. The departed dis
position to sleep kept far away.

He had sat for a long time. thinking, on the hearth, when
his candle burned down and its light went out. It was of
little moment; there was light enough in the fire. He
changed his attitude, and, leaning his arm on the chair-back,
and his chin upon that hand, sat thinking still.

But he sat between the fire and the bed, and, as the fire
flickered in the play of air from the fast-flowing river, his
enlarged shadow fluttered on the white wall by the bedside.
His attitude gave it an air, half of mourning and half of
bending over the bed imploring. His eyes were observant of
it, when he became troubled by the disagreeable fancy that
it was like Wilding's shadow, and not his own.

A slight change of place would cause it to disappear. He
made the change, and the apparition of his disturbed fancy
vanished. He now sat in the shade of a little nook beside
the fire, and the door of the room was before him.

It had a long cumbrous iron latch. He saw the latch
slowly and softly rise. The door opened a very little, and

308 NO THOROUGHFARE.

came to again, as though only the air had moved it. But
he saw that the latch was out of the hasp.

The door opened again very slowly, until it opened wide
enough to admit some one. It afterwards remained still for
a while, as though cautiously held open on the other side.
The figure of a man then entered, with its face turned
towards the bed, and stood quiet just within the door. Until
it said, in a low half-whisper, at the same time taking one
step forward : " Vendale ! "

" What now ? " he answered, springing from his seat ;
"who is it?"

It was Obenreizer, and he uttered a cry of surprise as
Vendale came upon him from that unexpected direction.
" Not in bed ? " he said, catching him by both shoulders with
an instinctive tendency to a struggle. "Then something is
wrong ! "

"What do you mean?" said Vendale, releasing himself.

" First tell me ; you are not ill ? "

"111? No."

" I have had a bad dream about you. How is it that I
see you up and dressed?"

" My good fellow, I may as well ask you how it is that I
see you up and undressed ? "

"I have told you why. I have had a bad dream about
you. I tried to rest after it, but it was impossible. I could
not make up my mind to stay where I was without knowing
you were safe ; and yet I could not make up my mind to
come in here. I have been minutes hesitating at the door.
It is so easy to laugh at a dream that you have not dreamed.
Where is your candle ? "

"Burnt out."

"I have a whole one in my room. Shall I fetch it?"

" Do so."

His room was very near, and he was absent for but a few
seconds. Coming back with the candle in his hand, he
kneeled down on the hearth and lighted it. As he blew with

MR. OBENREIZER HAS A BAD DREAM. 309

his breath a charred billet into flame for the purpose, Vendale,
looking down at him, saw that his lips were white and not
easy of control.

" Yes ! " said Obenreizer, setting the lighted candle on the
table, " it was a bad dream. Only look at me ! "

His feet were bare ; his red-flannel shirt was thrown back
at the throat, and its sleeves were rolled above the elbows ;
his only other garment, a pair of under pantaloons or drawers,
reaching to the ankles, fitted him close and tight. A certain
lithe and savage appearance was on his figure, and his eyes
were very bright.

" If there had been a wrestle with a robber, as I dreamed,"
said Obenreizer, " you see, I was stripped for it."

" And armed too," said Vendale, glancing at his girdle.

"A traveller's dagger, that I always carry on the road,"
he answered carelessly, half drawing it from its sheath with
his left hand, and putting it back again. " Do you carry no
such thing?"

" Nothing of the kind."

"No pistols?" said Obenreizer, glancing at the table, and
from it to the untouched pillow.

" Nothing of the sort."

" You Englishmen are so confident ! You wish to sleep ? "

" I have wished to sleep this long time, but I can't do it."

"I neither, after the bad dream. My fire has gone the
way of your candle. May I come and sit by yours ? Two
o'clock ! It will so soon be four, that it is not worth the
trouble to go to bed again."

"I shall not take the trouble to go to bed at all, now,"
said Vendale ; " sit here and keep me company, and welcome."

Going back to his room to arrange his dress, Obenreizer
soon returned in a loose cloak and slippers, and they sat
down on opposite sides of the hearth. In the interval Ven
dale had replenished the fire from the wood-basket in his
room, and Obenreizer had put upon the table a flask and
cup from his.

310

NO THOROUGHFARE.

" Common cabaret brandy, I am afraid," he said, pouring
out ; " bought upon the road, and not like yours from Cripple
Corner. But yours is exhausted; so much the worse. A
cold night, a cold time of night, a cold country, and a cold
house. This may be better than nothing; try it."

Vendale took the cup, and did so.

"How do you find it?"

"It has a coarse after-flavour," said Vendale, giving back
the cup with a slight shudder, " and I don't like it."

"You are right," said Obenreizer, tasting, and smacking
his lips; "it has a coarse after-flavour, and / don't like it.
Booh ! It burns, though ! " He had flung what remained
in the cup upon the fire.

Each of them leaned an elbow on the table, reclined his
head upon his hand, and sat looking at the flaring logs.
Obenreizer remained watchful and still; but Vendale, after
certain nervous twitches and starts, in one of which he rose
to his feet and looked wildly about him, fell into the
strangest confusion of dreams. He carried his papers in a
leather case or pocket-book, in an inner breast-pocket of his
buttoned travelling-coat ; and whatever he dreamed of, in the
lethargy that got possession of him, something importunate
in these papers called him out of that dream, though he
could not wake from it. He was belated on the steppes of
Russia (some shadowy person gave that name to the place)
with Marguerite; and yet the sensation of a hand at his
breast, softly feeling the outline of the pocket-book as he
lay asleep before the fire, was present to him. He was ship
wrecked in an open boat at sea, and having lost his clothes,
had no other covering than an old sail ; and yet a creeping
hand, tracing outside all the other pockets of the dress he
actually wore, for papers, and finding none answer its touch,
warned him to rouse himself. He was in the ancient vault
at Cripple Corner, to which was transferred the very bed
substantial and present in that very room at Basle; and
Wilding (not dead, as he had supposed, and yet he did not

VENDALE SHAKES OFF HIS STUPOR. 311

wonder much) shook him, and whispered, "Look at that
man ! Don't you see he has risen, and is turning the pillow ?
Why should he turn the pillow, if not to seek those papers
that are in your breast ? Awake ! " And yet he slept, and
wandered off* into other dreams.

Watchful and still, with his elbow on the table, and his
head upon that hand, his companion at length said:
" Vendale ! We are called. Past Four ! " Then, opening
his eyes, he saw, turned sideways on him, the filmy face of
Obenreizer.

" You have been in a heavy sleep," he said. " The fatigue
of constant travelling and the cold ! "

" I am broad awake now," cried Vendale, springing up, but
with an unsteady footing. " Haven't you slept at all ? "

" I may have dozed, but I seem to have been patiently
looking at the fire. Whether or no, we must wash, and
breakfast, and turn out. Past four, Vendale ; past four ! "

It was said in a tone to rouse him, for already he was half
asleep again. In his preparation for the day, too, and at
his breakfast, he was often virtually asleep while in mechanical
action. It was not until the cold dark day was closing in,
that he had any distincter impressions of the ride than
jingling bells, bitter weather, slipping horses, frowning hill
sides, bleak woods, and a stoppage at some wayside house of
entertainment, where they had passed through a cowhouse to
reach the travellers1 room above. He had been conscious of
little more, except of Obenreizer sitting thoughtful at his
side all day, and eyeing him much.

But when he shook off his stupor, Obenreizer was not at
his side. The carriage was stopping to bait at another way
side house ; and a line of long narrow carts, laden with casks
of wine, and drawn by horses with a quantity of blue collar
and head-gear, were baiting too. These came from the
direction in which the travellers were going, and Obenreizer
(not thoughtful now, but cheerful and alert) was talking
with the foremost driver. As Vendale stretched his limbs.

NO THOROUGHFARE.

circulated his blood, and cleared off the lees of his lethargy,
with a sharp run to and fro in the bracing air, the line of
carts moved on : the drivers all saluting Obenreizer as they
passed him.

" Who are those ? " asked Vendale.

" They are our carriers — Defresnier and Company's," replied
Obenreizer. " Those are our casks of wine." He was singing
to himself, and lighting a cigar.

"I have been drearily dull company to-day," said Vendale.
"I don't know what has been the matter with me."

"You had no sleep last night; and a kind of brain-
congestion frequently comes, at first, of such cold," said
Obenreizer. " I have seen it often. After all, we shall have
our journey for nothing, it seems."

" How for nothing ? "

"The House is at Milan. You know, we are a Wine
House at Neuchatel, and a Silk House at Milan? Well,
Silk happening to press of a sudden, more than Wine,
Defresnier was summoned to Milan. Rolland, the other
partner, has been taken ill since his departure, and the
doctors will allow him to see no one. A letter awaits you
at Neuchatel to tell you so. I have it from our chief carrier
whom you saw me talking with. He was surprised to see me,
and said he had that word for you if he met you. What do
you do? Go back?"

" Go on," said Vendale.

"On?"

"On? Yes. Across the Alps, and down to Milan."

Obenreizer stopped in his smoking to look at Vendale, and
then smoked heavily, looked up the road, looked down the
road, looked down at the stones in the road at his feet.

"I have a very serious matter in charge," said Vendale;
"more of these missing forms may be turned to as bad
account, or worse; I am urged to lose no time in helping
the House to take the thief; and nothing shall turn me
back."

THE JOURNEY RESOLUTELY PURSUED. 313

"No?11 cried Obenreizer, taking out his cigar to smile,
and giving his hand to his fellow-traveller. "Then nothing
shall turn me back. Ho, driver ! Despatch. Quick there !
Let us push on ! "

They travelled through the night. There had been snow,
and there was a partial thaw, and they mostly travelled at a
foot-pace, and always with many stoppages to breathe the
splashed and floundering horses. After an hour's broad day
light, they drew rein at the inn-door at Neuchatel, having
been some eight-and-twenty hours in conquering some eighty
English miles.

When they had hurriedly refreshed and changed, they
went together to the house of business of Defresnier and
Company. There they found the letter which the wine-carrier
had described, enclosing the tests and comparisons of hand
writing essential to the discovery of the Forger. Vendale's
determination to press forward, without resting, being already
taken, the only question to delay them was by what Pass could
they cross the Alps ? Respecting the state of the two Passes
of the St. Gotthard and the Simplon, the guides and mule-
drivers differed greatly ; and both passes were still far enough
off, to prevent the travellers from having the benefit of any
recent experience of either. Besides which, they well know
that a fall of snow might altogether change the described
conditions in a single hour, even if they were correctly stated.
But, on the whole, the Simplon appearing to be the hope-
fuller route, Vendale decided to take it. Obenreizer bore
little or no part in the discussion, and scarcely spoke.

To Geneva, to Lausanne, along the level margin of the
lake to Vevay, so into the winding valley between the spurs
of the mountains, and into the valley of the Rhone. The
sound of the carriage-wheels, as they rattled on, through the
day, through the night, became as the wheels of a great clock,
recording the hours. No change of weather varied the
journey, after it had hardened into a sullen frost. In a
sombre-yellow sky, they saw the Alpine ranges ; and they saw

314 NO THOROUGHFARE.

enough of snow on nearer and much lower hill-tops and hill
sides, to sully, by contrast, the purity of lake, torrent, and
waterfall, and make the villages look discoloured and dirty.
But no snow fell, nor was there any snow-drift on the
road. The stalking along the valley of more or less of white
mist, changing on their hair and dress into icicles, was the
only variety between them and the gloomy sky. And still
by day, and still by night, the wheels. And still they rolled,
in the hearing of one of them, to the burden, altered from
the burden of the Rhine : " The time is gone for robbing
him alive, and I must murder him."

They came, at length, to the poor little town of Brieg, at
the foot of the Simplon. They came there after dark, but
yet could see how dwarfed men^s works and men became
with the immense mountains towering over them. Here they
must lie for the night; and here was warmth of fire, and
lamp, and dinner, and wine, and after-conference resounding,
with guides and drivers. No human creature had come
across the Pass for four days. The snow above the snow-line
was too soft for wheeled carriage, and not hard enough for
sledge. There was snow in the sky. There had been snow
in the sky for days past, and the marvel was that it had not
fallen, and the certainty was that it must fall. No vehicle
could cross. The journey might be tried on mules, or it
might be tried on foot; but the best guides must be paid
danger-price in either case, and that, too, whether they
succeeded in taking the two travellers across, or turned for
safety and brought them back.

In this discussion, Obenreizer bore no part whatever. He
sat silently smoking by the fire until the room was cleared
and Vendale referred to him.

" Bah ! I am weary of these poor devils and their trade,*
he said, in reply. "Always the same story. It is the story
of their trade to-day, as it was the story of their trade when
I was a ragged boy. What do you and I want ? We want
a knapsack each, and a mountain-staff each. We want no

ASCENDING THE SIMPLON. 315

guide ; we should guide him ; he would not guide us. We
leave our portmanteaus here, and we cross together. We
have been on the mountains together before now, and I am
mountain-born, and I know this Pass — Pass ! — rather High
Road ! — by heart. We will leave these poor devils, in pity,
to trade with others ; but they must not delay us to make
a pretence of earning money. Which is all they mean.""

Vendale, glad to be quit of the dispute, and to cut the
knot: active, adventurous, bent on getting forward, and
therefore very susceptible to the last hint: readily assented.
Within two hours, they had purchased what they wanted for
the expedition, had packed their knapsacks, and lay down to
sleep.

At break of day, they found half the town collected in the
narrow street to see them depart. The people talked together
in groups ; the guides and drivers whispered apart, and looked
up at the sky ; no one wished them a good journey.

As they began the ascent, a gleam of sun shone from the
otherwise unaltered sky, and for a moment turned the tin
spires of the town to silver.

" A good omen ! " said Vendale (though it died out while
he spoke). " Perhaps our example will open the Pass on this
side."

"No; we shall not be followed," returned Obenreizer,
looking up at the sky and back at the valley. "We shall
be alone up yonder."

ON THE MOUNTAIN.

The road was fair enough for stout walkers, and the air
grew lighter and easier to breathe as the two ascended. But
the settled gloom remained as it had remained for days back.
Nature seemed to have come to a pause. The sense of
hearing, no less than the sense of sight, was troubled by
having to wait so long for the change, whatever it might be,
that impended. The silence was as palpable and heavy as

316 NO THOROUGHFARE.

the lowering clouds — or rather cloud, for there seemed to be
but one in all the sky, and that one covering the whole of it.

Although the light was thus dismally shrouded, the
prospect was not obscured. Down in the valley of the Rhone
behind them, the stream could be traced through all its many
windings, oppressively sombre and solemn in its one leaden
hue, a colourless waste. Far and high above them, glaciers
and suspended avalanches overhung the spots where they
must pass, by and by; deep and dark below them on their
right, were awful precipice and roaring torrent ; tremendous
mountains arose in every vista. The gigantic landscape,
uncheered by a touch of changing light or a solitary ray of
sun, was yet terribly distinct in its ferocity. The hearts of
two lonely men might shrink a little, if they had to win their
way for miles and hours among a legion of silent and motion
less men — mere men like themselves — all looking at them
with fixed and frowning front. But how much more, when
the legion is of Nature's mightiest works, and the frown may
turn to fury in an instant !

As they ascended, the road became gradually more rugged
and difficult. But the spirits of Vendale rose as they mounted
higher, leaving so much more of the road behind them
conquered. Obenreizer spoke little, and held on with a
determined purpose. Both, in respect of agility and endurance,
were well qualified for the expedition. Whatever the born
mountaineer read in the weather-tokens that was illegible to
the other, he kept to himself.

"Shall we get across to-day?" asked Vendale.

"No," replied the other. "You see how much deeper the
snow lies here than it lay half a league lower. The higher
we mount the deeper the snow will lie. Walking is half
wading even now. And the days are so short ! If we get
as high as the fifth Refuge, and lie to-night at the Hospice,
we shall do well."

"Is there no danger of the weather rising in the night,"
asked Vendale, anxiously, " and snowing us up ? "

DANGERS THICKEN. 317

"There is danger enough about us,1' said Obenreizer, with
a cautious glance onward and upward, " to render silence our
best policy. You have heard of the Bridge of the Ganther ? "

"I have crossed it once."

"In the summer?"

" Yes ; in the travelling season."

"Yes; but it is another thing at this season;" with a
sneer, as though he were out of temper. " This is not a time
of year, or a state of things, on an Alpine Pass, that you
gentlemen holiday-travellers know much about."

"You are my Guide," said Vendale, good humouredly.
"I trust to you."

"I am your Guide," said Obenreizer, "and I will guide
you to your journey's end. There is the Bridge before us."

They had made a turn into a desolate and dismal ravine,
where the snow lay deep below them, deep above them, deep
on every side. While speaking, Obenreizer stood pointing at
the Bridge, and observing Vendale's face, with a very singular
expression on his own.

" If I, as Guide, had sent you over there, in advance, and
encouraged you to give a shout or two, you might have
brought down upon yourself tons and tons and tons of snow,
that would not only have struck you dead, but buried you
deep, at a blow."

"No doubt," said Vendale.

" No doubt. But that is not what I have to do, as Guide.
So pass silently. Or, going as we go, our indiscretion might
else crush and bury me. Let us get on ! "

There was a great accumulation of snow on the Bridge;
and such enormous accumulations of snow overhung them
from projecting masses of rock, that they might have been
making their way through a stormy sky of white clouds.
Using his staff skilfully, sounding as he went, and looking
upward, with bent shoulders, as it were to resist the mere
idea of a fall from above, Obenreizer softly led. Vendale
closely followed. They were yet in the midst of their

318 NO THOROUGHFARE.

dangerous way, when there came a mighty rush, followed by
a sound as of thunder. Obenreizer clapped his hand on
Vendale's mouth and pointed to the track behind them. Its
aspect had been wholly changed in a moment. An avalanche
had swept over it, and plunged into the torrent at the bottom
of the gulf below.

Their appearance at the solitary Inn not far beyond this
terrible Bridge, elicited many expressions of astonishment
from the people shut up in the house. "We stay but to
rest," said Obenreizer, shaking the snow from his dress at
the fire. "This gentleman has very pressing occasion to get
across; tell them, Vendale."

"Assuredly, I have very pressing occasion. I must cross/'

" You hear, all of you. My friend has very pressing occasion
to get across, and we want no advice and no help. I am as
good a guide, my fellow-countrymen, as any of you. Now,
give us to eat and drink."

In exactly the same way, and in nearly the same words,
when it was coming on dark and they had struggled through
the greatly increased difficulties of the road, and had at last
reached their destination for the night, Obenreizer said to
the astonished people of the Hospice, gathering about them
at the fire, while they were yet in the act of getting their
wet shoes off, and shaking the snow from their clothes :

"It is well to understand one another, friends all. This
gentleman "

" — Has," said Vendale, readily taking him up with a
smile, "very pressing occasion to get across. Must cross."

"You hear?— has very pressing occasion to get across,
must cross. We want no advice and no help. I am
mountain-born, and act as Guide. Do not worry us by
talking about it, but let us have supper, and wine, and bed."

All through the intense cold of the night, the same awful
stillness. Again at sunrise, no sunny tinge to gild or redden
the snow. The same interminable waste of deathly white ; the
same immovable air ; the same monotonous gloom in the sky.

THE TOURMENTE. 319

"Travellers!" a friendly voice called to them from the
door, after they were afoot, knapsack on back and staff in
hand, as yesterday; "recollect! There are five places of
shelter, near together, on the dangerous road before you ; and
there is the wooden cross, and there is the next Hospice.
Do not stray from the track. If the Tourmente comes on,
take shelter instantly ! "

" The trade of these poor devils ! " said Obenreizer to his
friend, with a contemptuous backward wave of his hand
towards the voice. " How they stick to their trade ! You
Englishmen say we Swiss are mercenary. Truly, it does
look like it."

They had divided between the two knapsacks such refresh
ments as they had been able to obtain that morning, and as
they deemed it prudent to take. Obenreizer carried the
wine as his share of the burden ; Vendale, the bread and meat
and cheese, and the flask of brandy.

They had for some time laboured upward and onward
through the snow — which was now above their knees' in the
track, and of unknown depth elsewhere — and they were still
labouring upward and onward through the most frightful part
of that tremendous desolation, when snow began to fall.
At first, but a few flakes descended slowly and steadily.
After a little while the fall grew much denser, and suddenly
it began without apparent cause to whirl itself into spiral
shapes. Instantly ensuing upon this last change, an icy blast
came roaring at them, and every sound and force imprisoned
until now was let loose.

One of the dismal galleries through which the road is
carried at that perilous point, a cave eked out by arches of
great strength, was near at hand. They struggled into it,
and the storm raged wildly. The noise of the wind, the
noise of the water, the thundering down of displaced masses
of rock and snow, the awful voices with which not only that
gorge but every gorge in the whole monstrous range seemed
to be suddenly endowed, the darkness as of -night, the violent

320 NO THOROUGHFARE.

revolving of the snow which beat and broke it into spray and
•blinded them, the madness of everything around insatiate for
destruction, the rapid substitution of furious violence for
unnatural calm, and hosts of appalling sounds for silence :
these were things, on the edge of a deep abyss, to chill the
blood, though the fierce wind, made actually solid by ice and
snow, had failed to chill it.

Obenreizer, walking to and fro in the gallery without
ceasing, signed to Vendale to help him unbuckle his knap
sack. They could see each other, but could not have heard
each other speak. ; Vendale complying, Obenreizer produced
his bottle of wine, and poured some out, motioning Vendale
to take that for warmth's sake, and not brandy. Vendale
again complying, Obenreizer seemed to drink after him, and
the two walked backwards and forwards side by side ; both
well knowing that to rest or sleep would be to die.

The snow came driving heavily into the gallery by the
upper end at which they would pass out of it, if they ever
passed out; for greater dangers lay on the road behind them
than before. The snow soon began to choke the arch. An
hour more, and it lay so high as to block out half the
returning daylight. But it froze hard now, as it fell, and
could be clambered through or over. The violence of the
mountain storm was gradually yielding to a steady snowfall.
The wind still raged at intervals, but not incessantly; and
when it paused, the snow fell in heavy flakes.

They might have been two hours in their frightful prison,
when Obenreizer, now crunching into the mound, now creeping
over it with his head bowed down and his body touching the
top of the arch, made his way out. Vendale followed close
upon him, but followed without clear motive or calculation.
For the lethargy of Basle was creeping over him again, and
mastering his senses.

How far he had followed out of the gallery, or with what
obstacles he had since contended, he knew not. He became
roused to the knowledge that Obenreizer had set upon him,

A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 321

and that they were struggling desperately in the snow. He
became roused to the remembrance of what his assailant
carried in a girdle. He felt for it, drew it, struck at him,
struggled again, struck at him again, cast him off, and stood
face to face with him.

"I promised to guide you to your journey's end," said
Obenreizer, "and I have kept my promise. The journey of
your life ends here. Nothing can prolong it. You are
sleeping as you stand."

" You are a villain. What have you done to me ? "

" You are a fool. I have drugged you. You are doubly
a fool, for I drugged you once before upon the journey, to
try you. You are trebly a fool, for I am the thief and forger,
and in a few moments I shall take those proofs against the
thief and forger from your insensible body."

The entrapped man tried to throw off the lethargy, but
its fatal hold upon him was so sure that, even while he heard
those words, he stupidly wondered which of them had been
wounded, and whose blood it was that he saw sprinkled on
the snow.

" What have I done to you,11 he asked, heavily and thickly,
" that you should be^-so base — a murderer ? "
• "Done to me? You would have destroyed me, but that
you have come to your journey's end. Your cursed activity
interposed between me, and the time I had counted on in
which I might have replaced the money. Done to me ? You
have come in my way — not once, not twice, but again and
again and again. Did I try to shake you off in the beginning,
or no ? You were not to be shaken off. Therefore you die
here."

Vendale tried to think coherently, tried to speak coherently,
tried to pick up the iron-shod staff he had let fall ; failing
to touch it, tried to stagger on without its aid. All in vain,
all in vain! He stumbled, and fell heavily forward on the
brink of the deep chasm.

Stupefied, dozing, unable to stand upon his feet, a veil

VOL. n. Y

NO THOROUGHFARE.

before his eyes, his sense of hearing deadened, he made such a
vigorous rally that, supporting himself on his hands, he saw
his enemy standing calmly over him, and heard him speak.

"You call me murderer,*" said Obenreizer, with a grim
laugh. " The name matters very little. But at least I have
set my life against yours, for I am surrounded by dangers,
and may never make my way out of this place. The
Tourmente is rising again. The snow is on the whirl. I
must have the papers now. Every moment has my life in it."

" Stop ! " cried Vendale, in a terrible voice, staggering up
with a last flash of fire breaking out of him, and clutching
the thievish hands at his breast, in both of his. " Stop !
Stand away from me ! God bless my Marguerite ! Happily
she will never know how I died. Stand off from me, and let
me look at your murderous face. Let it remind me — of
something — left to say."

The sight of him fighting so hard for his senses, and the
doubt whether he might not for the instant be possessed by
the strength of a dozen men, kept his opponent still. Wildly
glaring at him, Vendale faltered out the broken words :

" It shall not be — the trust — of the dead — betrayed by me
— reputed parents — misinherited fortune — see to it ! "

As his head dropped on his breast, and he stumbled on the
brink of the chasm as before, the thievish hands went once
more, quick and busy, to his breast. He made a convulsive
attempt to cry " No ! " desperately rolled himself over into
the gulf; and sank away from his enemy's touch, like a
phantom in a dreadful dream.

The mountain storm raged again, and passed again. The
awful mountain- voices died away, the moon rose, and the
soft and silent snow fell.

Two men and two large dogs came out at the door of the
Hospice. The men looked carefully around them, and up at
the sky. The dogs rolled in the snow, and took it into
their mouths, and cast it up with their paws.

'

IN SEARCH OF THE TRAVELLERS.

One of the men said to the other : " We may venture now.
We may find them in one of the five Refuges." Each
fastened on his back a basket ; each took in his hand a strong
spiked pole; each girded under his arms a looped end of a
stout rope, so that they were tied together.

Suddenly the dogs desisted from their gambols in the
snow, stood looking down the ascent, put their noses up,
put their noses down, became greatly excited, and broke
into a deep loud bay together.

The two men looked in the faces of the two dogs. The
two dogs looked, with at least equal intelligence, in the faces
of the two men.

"Au secours, then! Help! To the rescue!" cried the
two men. The two dogs, with a glad, deep, generous bark,
bounded away.

" Two more mad ones ! " said the men, stricken motionless,
and looking away in the moonlight. "Is it possible in such
weather ! And one of them a woman ! "

Each of the dogs had the corner of a woman's dress in its
mouth, and drew her along. She fondled their heads as she
came up, and she came up through the snow with an accus
tomed tread. Not so the large man with her, who was spent
and winded.

" Dear guides, dear friends of travellers ! I am of your
country. We seek two gentlemen crossing the Pass, who
should have reached the Hospice this evening."

"They have reached it, ma'amselle."

" Thank Heaven ! O thank Heaven ! "

"But, unhappily, they have gone on again. We are set
ting forth to seek them even now. We had to wait until the
Tourmente passed. It has been fearful up here."

" Dear guides, dear friends of travellers ! Let me go with
you. Let me go with you for the love of GOD ! One of
those gentlemen is to be my husband. I love him, O, so
dearly. O so dearly ! You see I am not faint, you see I
am not tired. I am born a peasant girl. I will show you

NO THOROUGHFARE.

that I know well how to fasten myself to your ropes. I will
do it with my own hands. I will swear to be brave and
good. But let me go with you, let me go with you ! If
any mischance should have befallen him, my love would find
him, when nothing else could. On my knees, dear friends
of travellers ! By the love your dear mothers had for your
fathers!"

The good rough fellows were moved. "After all," they
murmured to one another, "she speaks but the truth. She
knows the ways of the mountains. See how marvellously she
has come here. But as to Monsieur there, ma'amselle ? "

"Dear Mr. Joey,*" said Marguerite, addressing him in his
own tongue, " you will remain at the house, and wait for me ;
will you not?"

" If I know'd which o' you two recommended it," growled
Joey Ladle, eyeing the two men with great indignation, "I'd
fight you for sixpence, and give you half-a-crown towards
your expenses. No, Miss. I'll stick by you as long as
there's any sticking left in me, and I'll die for you when I
can't do better."

The state of the moon rendering it highly important that
no time should be lost, and the dogs showing signs of great
uneasiness, the two men quickly took their resolution. The
rope that yoked them together was exchanged for a longer
one; the party were secured, Marguerite second, and the
Cellarman last; and they set out for the Refuges. The
actual distance of those places was nothing; the whole five,
and the next Hospice to boot, being within two miles ; but
the ghastly way was whitened out and sheeted over.

They made no miss in reaching the Gallery where the two
had taken shelter. The second storm of wind and snow
had so wildly swept over it since, that their tracks were
gone. But the dogs went to and fro with their noses down,
and were confident. The party stopping, however, at the
further arch, where the second storm had been especially
furious, and where the drift was deep, the dogs became

A BRAVE WOMAN. 325

troubled, and went about and about, in quest of a lost
purpose.

The great abyss being known to lie on the right, they
wandered too much to the left, and had to regain the way
with infinite labour through a deep field of snow. The
leader of the line had stopped it, and was taking note of the
landmarks, when one of the dogs fell to tearing up the
snow a little before them. Advancing and stooping to look
at it, thinking that some one might be overwhelmed there,
they saw that it was stained, and that the stain was red.

The other dog was now seen to look over the brink of the
gulf, with his fore legs straightened out, lest he should fall
into it, and to tremble in every limb. Then the dog who
had found the stained snow joined him, and then they ran
to and fro, distressed and whining. Finally, they both
stopped on the brink together, and setting up their heads,
howled dolefully.

"There is some one lying below," said Marguerite.

" I think so,11 said the foremost man. " Stand well inward,
the two last, and let us look over."

The last man kindled two torches from his basket, and
handed them forward. The leader taking one, and Marguerite
the other, they looked down ; now shading the torches, now
moving them to the right or left, now raising them, now
depressing them, as moonlight far below contended with
black shadows. A piercing cry from Marguerite broke a
long silence.

"My God! On a projecting point, where a wall of ice
stretches forward over the torrent, I see a human form ! "

"Where, ma'amselle, where?"

" See, there ! On the shelf of ice below the dogs ! "

The leader, with a sickened aspect, drew inward, and they
were all silent. But they were not all inactive, for
Marguerite, with swift and skilful fingers, had detached both
herself and him from the rope in a few seconds.

"Show me the baskets. These two are the only ropes?"

326 NO THOROUGHFARE.

"The only ropes here, ma'am selle ; but at the Hospice "

"If he is alive — I know it is my lover — he will be dead
before you can return. Dear Guides ! Blessed friends of
travellers ! Look at me. Watch my hands. If they falter
or go wrong, make me your prisoner by force. If they are
steady and go right, help me to save him ! "

She girded herself with a cord under the breast and arms,
she formed it into a kind of jacket, she drew it into knots,
she laid its end side by side with the end of the other
cord, she twisted and twined the two together, she knotted
them together, she set her foot upon the knots, she strained
them, she held them for the two men to strain at.

"She is inspired," they said to one another.

" By the Almighty's mercy ! " she exclaimed. " You both
know that I am by far the lightest here. Give me the
brandy and the wine, and lower me down to him. Then go
for assistance and a stronger rope. You see that when it is
lowered to me — look at this about me now — I can make it
fast and safe to his body. Alive or dead, I will bring him
up, or die with him. I love him passionately. Can I say
more ? "

They turned to her companion, but he was lying senseless
on the snow.

" Lower me down to him," she said, taking two little kegs
they had brought, and hanging them about her, " or I will
dash myself to pieces ! I am a peasant, and I know no
giddiness or fear; and this is nothing to me, and I passion
ately love him. Lower me down ! "

" Ma'amselle, ma'amselle, he must be dying or dead."

" Dying or dead, my husband's head shall lie upon my
breast, or I will dash myself to pieces."

They yielded, overborne. With such precautions as their
skill and the circumstances admitted, they let her slip from
the summit, guiding herself down the precipitous icy wall
with her hand, and they lowered down, and lowered down,
and lowered down, until the cry came up : " Enough ! "

HELP COMING. 327

"Is it really he, and is he dead?" they called down,
looking over.

The cry came up : " He is insensible ; but his heart beats.
It beats against mine."

" How does he lie ? "

The cry came up : " Upon a ledge of ice. It has thawed
beneath him, and it will thaw beneath me. Hasten. If we
die, I am content."

One of the two men hurried off with the dogs at such top
most speed as he could make; the other set up the lighted
torches in the snow, and applied himself to recovering the
Englishman. Much snow-chafing and some brandy got him
on his legs, but delirious and quite unconscious where he was.

The watch remained upon the brink, and his cry went down
continually : " Courage ! They will soon be here. How goes
it ? " And the cry came up : " His heart still beats against
mine. I warm him in my arms. I have cast off the rope,
for the ice melts under us, and the rope would separate me
from him ; but I am not afraid."

The moon went down behind the mountain tops, and all
the abyss lay in darkness. The cry went down : " How goes
it ? " The cry came up : " We are sinking lower, but his
heart still beats against mine."

O

At length the eager barking of the dogs, and a flare of
light upon the snow, proclaimed that help was coming on.
Twenty or thirty men, lamps, torches, litters, ropes, blankets,
wood to kindle a great fire, restoratives and stimulants, came
in fast. The dogs ran from one man to another, and from
this thing to that, and ran to the edge of the abyss, dumbly
entreating Speed, speed, speed !

The cry went down : " Thanks to God, all is ready. How
goes it?"

The cry came up : " We are sinking still, and we are deadly
cold. His heart no longer beats against mine. Let no one
come down, to add to our weight. Lower the rope only."

The fire was kindled high, a great glare of torches lighted

328 NO THOROUGHFARE.

the sides of the precipice, lamps were lowered, a strong rope
was lowered. She could be seen passing it round him, and
making it secure.

The cry came up into a deathly silence : " Raise ! Softly ! "
They could see her diminished figure shrink, as he was swung
into the air.

They gave no shout when some of them laid him on a
litter, and others lowered another strong rope. The cry again
came up into a deathly silence: "Raise! Softly!" But
when they caught her at the brink, then they shouted, then
they wept, then they gave thanks to Heaven, then they kissed
her feet, then they kissed her dress, then the dogs caressed
her, licked her icy hands, and with their honest faces warmed
her frozen bosom !

She broke from them all, and sank over him on his litter,
with both her loving hands upon the heart that stood still.

ACT IV.

THE CLOCK-LOCK.

THE pleasant scene was Neuchatel; the pleasant month was
April ; the pleasant place was a notary's office ; the pleasant
person in it was the notary : a rosy, hearty, handsome old
man, chief notary of Neuchatel, known far and wide in the
canton as Maitre Voigt. Professionally and personally, the
notary was a popular citizen. His innumerable kindnesses and
his innumerable oddities had for years made him one of the
recognised public characters of the pleasant Swiss town. His
long brown frock-coat and his black skull-cap, were among
the institutions of the place : and he carried a snuff-box which,
in point of size, was popularly believed to be without a
parallel in Europe.

There was another person in the notary's office, not so
pleasant as the notary. This was Obenreizer.

An oddly pastoral kind of office it was, and one that
would never have answered in England. It stood in a neat
back yard, fenced off from a pretty flower-garden. Goats
browsed in the doorway, and a cow was within half-a-dozen
feet of keeping company with the clerk. Maitre Voigt's room
was a bright and varnished little room, with panelled walls,
like a toy-chamber. According to the seasons of the year,
roses, sunflowers, hollyhocks, peeped in at the windows.
Maitre Voigfs bees hummed through the office all the summer,
in at this window and out at that, taking it frequently in
their day's work, as if honey were to be made from Maitre

330 NO THOROUGHFARE.

Voigt's sweet disposition. A large musical box on the
chimney-piece often trilled away at the Overture to Fra
Diavolo, or a Selection from William Tell, with a chirruping
liveliness that had to be stopped by force on the entrance of
a client, and irrepressibly broke out again the moment his
back was turned.

" Courage, courage, my good fellow ! " said Maitre Voigt,
patting Obenreizer on the knee, in a fatherly and comforting
way. " You will begin a new life to-morrow morning in my
office here."

Obenreizer — dressed in mourning, and subdued in manner
— lifted his hand, with a white handkerchief in it, to the
region of his heart. " The gratitude is here," he said. " But
the words to express it are not here."

"Ta-ta-ta! Don't talk to me about gratitude!" said
Maitre Voigt. "I hate to see a man oppressed. I see you
oppressed, and I hold out my hand to you by instinct.
Besides, I am not too old yet, to remember my young days.
Your father sent me my first client. (It was on a question
of half an acre of vineyard that seldom bore any grapes.)
Do I owe nothing to your father's son ? I owe him a debt
of friendly obligation, and I pay it to you. That's rather
neatly expressed, I think," added Maitre Voigt, in high good
humour with himself. " Permit me to reward my own merit
with a pinch of snuff!"

Obenreizer dropped his eyes to the ground, as though he
were not even worthy to see the notary take snuff.

"Do me one last favour, sir," he said, when he raised his
eyes. "Do not act on impulse. Thus far, you have only a
general knowledge of my position. Hear the case for and
against me, in its details, before you take me into your office.
Let my claim on your benevolence be recognised by your
sound reason as well as by your excellent heart. In that case,
I may hold up my head against the bitterest of my enemies,
and build myself a new reputation on the ruins of the
character I have lost."

MR. OBENREIZER EXPLAINS. 331

"As you will,'1 said Maitre Voigt. "You speak well, my
son. You will be a fine lawyer one of these days."

"The details are not many," pursued Obenreizer. "My
troubles begin with the accidental death of my late travelling
companion, my lost dear friend Mr. Vendale."

"Mr. Vendale," repeated the notary. "Just so. I have
heard and read of the name, several times within these two
months. The name of the unfortunate English gentleman
who was killed on the Simplon. When you got that scar
upon your cheek and neck."

" — From my own knife," said Obenreizer, touching what
must have been an ugly gash at the time of its infliction.

" From your own knife," assented the notary, " and in trying
to save him. Good, good, good. That was very good.
Vendale. Yes. I have several times, lately, thought it droll
that I should once have had a client of that name,"

" But the world, sir," returned Obenreizer, " is so small ! "
Nevertheless he made a mental note that the notary had once
had a client of that name.

"As I was saying, sir, the death of that dear travelling
comrade begins my troubles. What follows ? I save myself
I go down to Milan. I am received with coldness by
Defresnier and Company. Shortly afterwards, I am discharged
by Defresnier and Company. Why? They give no reason
why. I ask, do they assail my honour? No answer. I ask,
what is the imputation against me? No answer. I ask,
where are their proofs against me ? No answer. 1 ask, what
am I to think ? The reply is, ' M. Obenreizer is free to think
what he will. What M. Obenreizer thinks, is of no impor
tance to Defresnier and Company.1 And that is all."

"Perfectly. That is all," assented the notary, taking a
large pinch of snuff.

"But is that enough, sir?"

"That is not enough," said Maitre Voigt. "The House
of Defresnier are my fellow-townsmen — much respected, much
esteemed — but the House of Defresnier must not silently

332 NO THOROUGHFARE.

destroy a man's character. You can rebut assertion. But
how can you rebut silence?"

"Your sense of justice, my dear patron," answered
Obenreizer, " states in a word the cruelty of the case. Does
it stop there ? No. For, what follows upon that ? "

"True, my poor boy," said the notary, with a comforting
nod or two ; " your ward rebels upon that."

"Rebels is too soft a word," retorted Obenreizer. "My
ward revolts from me with horror. My ward defies me.
My ward withdraws herself from my authority, and takes
shelter (Madame Dor with her) in the house of that English
lawyer, Mr. Bintrey, who replies to your summons to her to
submit herself to my authority, that she will not do so."

" — And who afterwards writes," said the notary, moving
his large snuff-box to look among the papers underneath it
for the letter, "that he is coming to confer with me."

"Indeed?" replied Obenreizer, rather checked. "Well,
sir. Have I no legal rights ? "

" Assuredly, my poor boy," returned the notary. " All but
felons have their legal rights."

" And who calls me felon ? " said Obenreizer, fiercely.

" No one. Be calm under your wrongs. If the House of
Defresnier would call you felon, indeed, we should know how
to deal with them."

While saying these words, he had handed Bintrey's very
short letter to Obenreizer, who now read it and gave it back.

"In saying," observed Obenreizer, with recovered composure,
"that he is coming to confer with you, this English lawyer
means that he is coming to deny my authority over my ward."

"You think so?"

"I am sure of it. I know him. He is obstinate and
contentious. You will tell me, my dear sir, whether my
authority is unassailable, until my ward is of age ? "

" Absolutely unassailable."

"I will enforce it. I will make her submit herself to it.
For," said Obenreizer, changing his angry tone to one of

MR. OBENREIZER MEDITATES. 833

grateful submission, "I owe it to you, sir; to you, who have
so confidingly taken an injured man under your protection,
and into your employment."

"Make your mind easy,1' said Maitre Voigt. "No more
of this now, and no thanks ! Be here to-morrow morning,
before the other clerk comes — between seven and eight. You
will find me in this room ; and I will myself initiate you in
your work. Go away ! go away ! I have letters to write. I
won't hear a word more."

Dismissed with this generous abruptness, and satisfied with
the favourable impression he had left on the old man's mind,
Obenreizer was at leisure to revert to the mental note he had
made that Maitre Voigt once had a client whose name was
Vendale.

" I ought to know England well enough by this time ; " so
his meditations ran, as he sat on a bench in the yard ; " and
it is not a name I ever encountered there, except" — he
looked involuntarily over his shoulder — "as his name. Is
the world so small that I cannot get away from him, even
now when he is dead ? He confessed at the last that he had
betrayed the trust of the dead, and misinherited a fortune.
And I was to see to it. And I was to stand off, that my
face might remind him of it. Why my face, unless it
concerned me? I am sure of his words, for they have been
in my ears ever since. Can there be anything bearing on
them, in the keeping of this old idiot ? Anything to repair
my fortunes, and blacken his memory ? He dwelt upon my
earliest remembrances, that night at Basle. Why, unless he
had a purpose in it?"

Maitre Voigt's two largest he-goats were butting at him to
butt him out of the place, as if for that disrespectful mention
of their master. So he got up and left the place. But he
walked alone for a long time on the border of the lake, with
his head drooped in deep thought.

Between seven and eight next morning, he presented himself
again at the office. He found the notary ready for him, at

334 NO THOROUGHFARE.

work on some papers which had come in on the previous
evening. In a few clear words, Maitre Voigt explained the
routine of the office, and the duties Obenreizer would be
expected to perform. It still wanted five minutes to eight,
when the preliminary instructions were declared to be complete.

"I will show you over the house and the offices," said
Maitre Voigt, "but I must put away these papers first.
They come from the municipal authorities, and they must be
taken special care of."

Obenreizer saw his chance, here, of finding out the repository
in which his employer's private papers were kept.

"Can't I save you the trouble, sir?" he asked. "Can't I
put those documents away under your directions?"

Maitre Voigt laughed softly to himself; closed the portfolio
in which the papers had been sent to him ; handed it to
Obenreizer.

" Suppose you try," he said, " All my papers of importance
are kept yonder."

He pointed to a heavy oaken door, thickly studded with nails,
at the lower end of the room. Approaching the door, with
the portfolio, Obenreizer discovered, to his astonishment, that
there were no means whatever of opening it from the outside.
There was no handle, no bolt, no key, and (climax of passive
obstruction !) no keyhole.

"There is a second door to this room?" said Obenreizer,
appealing to the notary.

" No," said Maitre Voigt. " Guess again."

" There is a window ? "

"Nothing of the sort. The window has been bricked up.
The only way in, is the way by that door. Do you give it
up ? " cried Maitre Voigt, in high triumph. " Listen, my good
fellow, and tell me if you hear nothing inside ? "

Obenreizer listened for a moment, and started back from
the door.

" I know ! " he exclaimed. " I heard of this when I was
apprenticed here at the watchmaker's. Perrin Brothers have

HOW MAITRE VOIGT DEFIED THIEVES. 335

finished their famous clock-lock at last — and you have
got it?"

"Bravo!" said Maitre Voigt. "The clock-lock it is!
There, my son ! There you have one more of what the good
people of this town call, 'Daddy Voigt's follies.' With all
my heart ! Let those laugh who win. No thief can steal my
keys. No burglar can pick my lock. No power on earth,
short of a battering-ram or a barrel of gunpowder, can move
that door, till my little sentinel inside — my worthy friend
who goes ' Tick, Tick,' as I tell him— says < Open ! ' The big
door obeys the little Tick, Tick, and the little Tick, Tick,
obeys me. That ! " cried Daddy Voigt, snapping his fingers,
" for all the thieves in Christendom ! "

"May I see it in action?" asked Obenreizer. "Pardon
my curiosity, dear sir ! You know that I was once a tolerable
worker in the clock trade."

"Certainly you shall see it in action," said Maitre Voigt.
" What is the time now ? One minute to eight. Watch,
and in one minute you will see the door open of itself."

In one minute, smoothly and slowly and silently, as if
invisible hands had set it free, the heavy door opened inward,
and disclosed a dark chamber beyond. On three sides, shelves
filled the walls, from floor to ceiling. Arranged on the shelves,
were rows upon rows of boxes made in the pretty inlaid wood
work of Switzerland, and bearing inscribed on their fronts (for
the most part in fanciful coloured letters) the names of the
notary's clients.

Maitre Voigt lighted a taper, and led the way into the room.

" You shall see the clock," he said proudly. " I possess the
greatest curiosity in Europe. It is only a privileged few
whose eyes can look at it. I give the privilege to your good
father's son — you shall be one of the favoured few who enter
the room with me. See! here it is, on the right-hand wall
at the side of the door."

" An ordinary clock," exclaimed Obenreizer. " No ! Not
an ordinary clock. It has only one hand."

336 NO THOROUGHFARE.

" Aha ! " said Maitre Voigt. " Not an ordinary clock, my
friend. No, no. That one hand goes round the dial. As I
put it, so it regulates the hour at which the door shall open.
See ! The hand points to eight. At eight the door opened,
as you saw for yourself.*"

"Does it open more than once in the four-and-twenty
hours ? " asked Obenreizer.

" More than once ? " repeated the notary, with great scorn.
" You don't know, my good friend, Tick-Tick ! He will open
the door as often as I ask him. All he wants is his directions,
and he gets them here. Look below the dial. Here is a
half-circle of steel let into the wall, and here is a hand (called
the regulator) that travels round it, just as my hand chooses.
Notice, if you please, that there are figures to guide me on
the half-circle of steel. Figure I. means : Open once in the
four-and-twenty hours. Figure II. means : Open twice ; and
so on to the end. I set the regulator every morning, after I
have read my letters, and when I know what my day's work
is to be. Would you like to see me set it now ? What is
to-day ? Wednesday. Good ! This is the day of our rifle-
club; there is little business to do; I grant a half-holiday.
No work here to-day, after three o'clock. Let us first put
away this portfolio of municipal papers. There ! No need
to trouble Tick-Tick to open the door until eight to-morrow.
Good ! I leave the dial-hand at eight ; I put back the
regulator to I. ; I close the door ; and closed the door
remains, past all opening by anybody, till to-morrow morning
at eight."

Obenreizer's quickness instantly saw the means by which
he might make the clock-lock betray its master's confidence,
and place its master's papers at his disposal.

"Stop, sir!" he cried, at the moment when the notary
was closing the door. " Don't I see something moving among
the boxes — on the floor there?"

(Maitre Voigt turned his back for a moment to look. In
that moment, Obenreizer's ready hand put the regulator on,

A LONELY WATCH. 337

from the figure "I." to the figure "II." Unless the notary
looked again at the half-circle of steel, the door would open
at eight that evening, as well as at eight next morning, and
nobody but Obenreizer would know it.)

"There is nothing!" said Maitre Voigt. "Your troubles
have shaken your nerves, my son. Some shadow thrown by
my taper; or some poor little beetle, who lives among the
old lawyer's secrets, running away from the light. Hark ! I
hear your fellow-clerk in the office. To work ! to work ! and
build to-day the first step that leads to your new fortunes ! "

He good-humouredly pushed Obenreizer out before him;
extinguished the taper, with a last fond glance at his clock
which passed harmlessly over the regulator beneath; and
closed the oaken door.

At three, the office was shut up. The notary and everybody
in the notary's employment, with one exception, went to see
the rifle-shooting. Obenreizer had pleaded that he was not in
spirits for a public festival. Nobody knew what had become
of him. It was believed that he had slipped away for a
solitary walk.

The house and offices had been closed but a few minutes,
when the door of a shining wardrobe in the notary's shining
room opened, and Obenreizer stepped out. He walked to a
window, unclosed the shutters, satisfied himself that he could
escape unseen by way of the garden, turned back into the
room, and took his place in the notary's easy chair. He was
locked up in the house, and there were five hours to wait
before eight o'clock came.

He wore his way through the five hours : sometimes reading
the books and newspapers that lay on the table: sometimes
thinking: sometimes walking to and fro. Sunset came on.
He closed the window-shutters before he kindled a light.
The candle lighted, and the time drawing nearer and nearer,
he sat, watch in hand, with his eyes on the oaken door.

At eight, smoothly and softly and silently the door opened.

One after another, he read the names on the outer rows of

VOL. II. 7.

NO THOROUGHFARE.

boxes. No such name as Vendale ! He removed the outer
row, and looked at the row behind. These were older boxes,
and shabbier boxes. The four first that he examined, were
inscribed with French and German names. The fifth bore a
name which was almost illegible. He brought it out into
the room, and examined it closely. There, covered thickly
with time-stains and dust, was the name : " Vendale."

The key hung to the box by a string. He unlocked the
box, took out four loose papers that were in it, spread them
open on the table, and began to read them. He had not so
occupied a minute, when his face fell from its expression of
eagerness and avidity, to one of haggard astonishment and
disappointment. But, after a little consideration, he copied
the papers. He then replaced the papers, replaced the box,
closed the door, extinguished the candle, and stole away.

As his murderous and thievish footfall passed out of the
garden, the steps of the notary and some one accompanying
him stopped at the front door of the house. The lamps were
lighted in the little street, and the notary had his door-key
in his hand.

" Pray do not pass my house, Mr. Bintrey," he said. " Do
me the honour to come in. It is one of our town half-
holidays — our Tir — but my people will be back directly. It
is droll that you should ask your way to the Hotel of me.
Let us eat and drink before you go there.*"

" Thank you ; not to-night, " said Bin trey. " Shall I come
to you at ten to-morrow ? "

" I shall be enchanted, sir, to take so early an opportunity
of redressing the wrongs of my injured client," returned the
good notary.

"Yes," retorted Bintrey; "your injured client is all very
well — but — a word in your ear."

He whispered to the notary and walked off. When the
notary's housekeeper came home, she found him standing at
his door motionless, with the key still in his hand, and the
door unopened.

AN INFRACTION OF THE LAW. 339

The scene shifts again — to the foot of the Simplon, on the
Swiss side.

In one of the dreary rooms of the dreary little inn at
Brieg, Mr. Bintrey and Maitre Voigt sat together at a
professional council of two. Mr. Bintrey was searching in
his despatch-box. Maitre Voigt was looking towards a closed
door, painted brown to imitate mahogany, and communicating
with an inner room.

" Isn't it time he was here ? " asked the notary, shifting his
position, and glancing at a second door at the other end of
the room, painted yellow to imitate deal.

"He is here," answered Bintrey, after listening for a
moment.

The yellow door was opened by a waiter, and Obenreizer
walked in.

After greeting Maitre Voigt with a cordiality which appeared
to cause the notary no little embarrassment, Obenreizer
bowed with grave and distant politeness to Bintrey. "For
what reason have I been brought from Neuchatel to the
foot of the mountain?" he inquired, taking the seat which
the English lawyer had indicated to him.

"You shall be quite satisfied on that head before our
interview is over," returned Bintrey. "For the present,
permit me to suggest proceeding at once to business. There
has been a correspondence, Mr. Obenreizer, between you and
your niece. I am here to represent your niece."

"In other words, you, a lawyer, are here to represent an
infraction of the law."

" Admirably put ! " said Bintrey. " If all the people I
have to deal with were only like you, what an easy profession
mine would be ! I am here to represent an infraction of the
law — that is your point of view. I am here to make a
compromise between you and your niece — that is my point
of view."

340 NO THOROUGHFARE.

"There must be two parties to a compromise," rejoined
Obenreizer. "I decline, in this case, to be one of them.
The law gives me authority to control my niece's actions,
until she comes of age. She is not yet of age ; and I claim
my authority."

At this point Maitre Voigt attempted to speak. Bintrey
silenced him with a compassionate indulgence of tone and
manner, as if he was silencing a favourite child.

" No, my worthy friend, not a word. Don't excite yourself
unnecessarily; leave it to me." He turned, and addressed
himself again to Obenreizer. "I can think of nothing
comparable to you, Mr. Obenreizer, but granite — and even
that wears out in course of time. In the interests of peace
and quietness — for the sake of your own dignity — relax a
little. If you will only delegate your authority to another
person whom I know of, that person may be trusted never
to lose sight of your niece, night or day ! "

" You are wasting your time and mine," returned Obenreizer.
" If my niece is not rendered up to my authority within one
week from this day, I invoke the law. If you resist the law,
I take her by force."

He rose to his feet as he said the last word. Maitre Voigt
looked round again towards the brown door which led into
the inner room.

"Have some pity on the poor girl," pleaded Bintrey.
" Remember how lately she lost her lover by a dreadful death !
Will nothing move you ? "

"Nothing."

Bintrey, in his turn, rose to his feet, and looked at Maitre
Voigt. Maitre Voigt's hand, resting on the table, began to
tremble. Maitre Voigt's eyes remained fixed, as if by
irresistible fascination, on the brown door. Obenreizer,
suspiciously observing him, looked that way too.

" There is somebody listening in there ! " he exclaimed,
with a sharp backward glance at Bintrey.

" There are two people listening," answered Bintrey.

RISEN FROM THE DEAD. 341

"Who are they?"

" You shall see.1'

With that answer, he raised his voice and spoke the next
words — the two common words which are on everybody's lips,
at every hour of the day : " Come in ! "

The brown door opened. Supported on Marguerite's arm
— his sunburnt colour gone, his right arm bandaged and slung
over his breast — Vendale stood before the murderer, a man
risen from the dead.

In the moment of silence that followed, the singing of a
caged bird in the courtyard outside was the one sound
stirring in the room. Maitre Voigt touched Bintrey, and
pointed to Obenreizer. " Look at him ! " said the notary, in
a whisper.

The shock had paralyzed every movement in the villain's
body, but the movement of the blood. His face was like
the face of a corpse. The one vestige of colour left in it
was a livid purple streak which marked the course of the
scar where his victim had wounded him on the cheek and
neck. Speechless, breathless, motionless alike in eye and limb,
it seemed as if, at the sight of Vendale, the death to which
he had doomed Vendale had struck him where he stood.

"Somebody ought to speak to him," said Maitre Voigt.
"Shall I?"

Even at that moment Bintrey persisted in silencing the
notary, and in keeping the lead in the proceedings to himself.
Checking Maitre Voigt by a gesture, he dismissed Marguerite
and Vendale in these words : — "The object of your appearance
here is answered," he said. "If you will withdraw for the
present, it may help Mr. Obenreizer to recover himself."

It did help him. As the two passed through the door and
closed it behind them, he drew a deep breath of relief. He
looked round him for the chair from which he had risen, and
dropped into it.

" Give him time ! " pleaded Maitre Voigt.

"No," said Bintrey. "I don't know what use he may make

NO THOROUGHFARE.

of it if I do." He turned once more to Obenreizer, and
went on. " I owe it to myself,1' he said — " I don't admit,
mind, that I owe it to you — to account for my appearance
in these proceedings, and to state what has been done under
my advice, and on my sole responsibility. Can you listen
to me?"

"I can listen to you."

"Recall the time when you started for Switzerland with
Mr. Vendale," Bintrey began. "You had not left England
four-and-twenty hours before your niece committed an act
of imprudence which not even your penetration could foresee.
She followed her promised husband on his journey, without
asking anybody's advice or permission, and without any better
companion to protect her than a Cellarman in Mr. Vendale's
employment."

" Why did she follow me on the journey ? and how came
the Cellarman to be the person who accompanied her?"

"She followed you on the journey," answered Bintrey,
"because she suspected there had been some serious collision
between you and Mr. Vendale, which had been kept secret
from her ; and because she rightly believed you to be capable
of serving your interests, or of satisfying your enmity, at the
price of a crime. As for the Cellarmen, he was one, among
the other people in Mr. Vendale's establishment, to whom
she had applied (the moment your back was turned) to know
if anything had happened between their master and you.
The Cellarman alone had something to tell her. A senseless
superstition, and a common accident which had happened to
his master, in his master's cellar, had connected Mr. Vendale
in this man's mind with the idea of danger by murder. Your
niece surprised him into a confession, which aggravated ten
fold the terrors that possessed her. Aroused to a sense of
the mischief he had done, the man, of his own accord, made
the one atonement in his power. ' If my master is in danger,
miss,' he said, * it's my duty to follow him, too ; and it's more
than my duty to take care of you? The two set forth

MR. BINTREY'S ACCOUNT. 343

together — and, for once, a superstition has had its use. It
decided your niece on taking the journey; and it led the
way to saving a man's life. Do you understand me, so far ? "

"I understand you, so far."

"My first knowledge of the crime that you had committed,"
pursued Bintrey, "came to me in the form of a letter from
your niece. All you need know is that her love and her
courage recovered the body of your victim, and aided the
after-efforts which brought him back to life. While he lay
helpless at Brieg, under her care, she wrote to me to come
out to him. Before starting, I informed Madame Dor that
I knew Miss Obenreizer to be safe, and knew where she was.
Madame Dor informed me, in return, that a letter had come
for your niece, which she knew to be in your handwriting.
I took possession of it, and arranged for the forwarding of
any other letters which might follow. Arrived at Brieg, I
found Mr. Vendale out of danger, and at once devoted myself
to hastening the day of reckoning with you. Defresnier and
Company turned you off on suspicion ; acting on information
privately supplied by me. Having stripped you of your false
character, the next thing to do was to strip you of your
authority over your niece. To reach this end, I not only
had no scruple in digging the pitfall under your feet in the
dark — I felt a certain professional pleasure in fighting you
with your own weapons. By my advice the truth has been
carefully concealed from you up to this day. By my advice
the trap into which you have walked was set for you (you
know why, now, as well as I do) in this place. There was
but one certain way of shaking the devilish self-control which
has hitherto made you a formidable man. That way has
been tried, and (look at me as you may) that way has suc
ceeded. The last thing that remains to be done," concluded
Bintrey, producing two little slips of manuscript from his
despatch-box, " is to set your niece free. You have attempted
murder, and you have committed forgery and theft. We
have the evidence ready against you in both cases. If you

844 NO THOROUGHFARE.

are convicted as a felon, you know as well as I do what
becomes of your authority over your niece. Personally, I
should have preferred taking that way out of it. But con
siderations are pressed on me which I am not able to resist,
and this interview must end, as I have told you already, in a
compromise. Sign those lines, resigning all authority over
Miss Obenreizer, and pledging yourself never to be seen in
England or in Switzerland again ; and I will sign an indemnity
which secures you against further proceedings on our part."

Obenreizer took the pen, in silence, and signed his niece's
release. On receiving the indemnity in return, he rose, but
made no movement to leave the room. He stood looking at
Maitre Voigt with a strange smile gathering at his lips, and
a strange light flashing in his filmy eyes.

" What are you waiting for ? " asked Bintrey.

Obenreizer pointed to the brown door. " Call them back,"
he answered. "I have something to say in their presence
before I go."

. " Say it in my presence," retorted Bintrey. " I decline to
call them back."

Obenreizer turned to Maitre Voigt. "Do you remember
telling me that you once had an English client named
Vendale ? " he asked.

"Well," answered the notary. "And what of that?"

" Maitre Voigt, your clock-lock has betrayed you."

" What do you mean ? "

"I have read the letters and certificates in your client's
box. I have taken copies of them. I have got the copies
here. Is there, or is there not, a reason for calling them
back?"

For a moment the notary looked to and fro, between
Obenreizer and Bintrey, in helpless astonishment. Recovering
himself, he drew his brother-lawyer aside, and hurriedly
spoke a few words close at his ear. The face of Bintrey —
after first faithfully reflecting the astonishment on the face
of Maitre Voigt — suddenly altered its expression. He sprang,

MR. OBENREIZER PLAYS HIS LAST MOVE. 345

with the activity of a young man, to the door of the inner
room, entered it, remained inside for a minute, and returned
followed by Marguerite and Vendale. " Now, Mr. Obenreizer,"
said Bintrey, " the last move in the game is yours. Play it."

" Before I resign my position as that young lady's guardian,'1
said Obenreizer, "I have a secret to reveal in which she is
interested. In making my disclosure, I am not claiming her
attention for a narrative which she, or any other person
present, is expected to take on trust. I am possessed of
•written proofs, copies of originals, the authenticity of which
Maitre Voigt himself can attest. Bear that in mind, and
permit me to refer you, at starting, to a date long past — the
month of February, in the year one thousand eight hundred
and thirty-six."

"Mark the date, Mr. Vendale," said Bintrey.

"My first proof,". said Obenreizer, taking a paper from his
pocket-book. " Copy of a letter, written by an English lady
(married) to her sister, a widow. The name of the person
writing the letter I shall keep suppressed until I have done.
The name of the person to whom the letter is written I am
willing to reveal. It is addressed to ' Mrs. Jane Anne Miller,
of Groombridge- wells, England.' "

Vendale started, and opened his lips to speak. Bintrey
instantly stopped him, as he had stopped Maitre Voigt.
"No," said the pertinacious lawyer. "Leave it to me."

Obenreizer went on :

"It is needless to trouble you with the first half of the
letter," he said. "I can give the substance of it in two
words. The writer's position at the time is this. She has
been long living in Switzerland with her husband — obliged
to live there for the sake of her husband's health. They are
about to move to a new residence on the Lake of Neuchatel
in a week, and they will be ready to receive Mrs. Miller as
visitor in a fortnight from that time. This said, the writer
next enters into an important domestic detail. She has been
childless for years — she and her husband have now no hope

346 NO THOROUGHFARE.

of children ; they are lonely ; they want an interest in life ;
they have decided on adopting a child. Here the important
part of the letter begins ; and here, therefore, I read it to
you word for word.""

He folded back the first page of the letter and read as
follows :

" * * * Will you help us, my dear sister, to realise
our new project? As English people, we wish to adopt
an English child. This may be done, I believe, at the
Foundling: my husband's lawyers in London will tell you
how. I leave the choice to you, with only these conditions
attached to it — that the child is to be an infant under a
year old, and is to be a boy. Will you pardon the trouble
I am giving you, for my sake; and will you bring our
adopted child to us, with your own children, when you come
to Neuchatel?

"I must add a word as to my husband's wishes in this
matter. He is resolved to spare the child whom we make our
own any future mortification and loss of self-respect which
might be caused by a discovery of his true origin. He will
bear my husband's name, and he will be brought up in the
belief that he is really our son. His inheritance of what we
have to leave will be secured to him — not only according to
the laws of England in such cases, but according to the laws
of Switzerland also ; for we have lived so long in this country,
that there is a doubt whether we may not be considered as
'domiciled' in Switzerland. The one precaution left to take
is to prevent any after-discovery at the Foundling. Now,
our name is a very uncommon one ; and if we appear on the
Register of the Institution as the persons adopting the child,
there is just a chance that something might result from it.
Your name, my dear, is the name of thousands of other
people ; and if you will consent to appear on the Register,
there need be no fear of any discoveries in that quarter. We
are moving, by the doctor's orders, to a part of Switzerland

THE MYSTERY SOLVED. 347

in which our circumstances are quite unknown; and you, as
I understand, are about to engage a new nurse for the journey
when you come to see us. Under these circumstances, the
child may appear as my child, brought back to me under my
sister's care. The only servant we take with us from our old
home is my own maid, who can be safely trusted. As for
the lawyers in England and in Switzerland, it is their pro
fession to keep secrets — and we may feel quite easy in that
direction. So there you have our harmless little conspiracy !
Write by return of post, my love, and tell me you will join
it." * * *

"Do you still conceal the name of the writer of that
letter?" asked Vendale.

"I keep the name of the writer till the last," answered
Obenreizer, "and I proceed to my second proof — a mere slip
of paper this time, as you see. Memorandum given to the
Swiss lawyer, who drew the documents referred to in the
letter I have just read, expressed as follows: — ' Adopted from
the Foundling Hospital of England, 3d March, 1836, a male
infant, called, in the Institution, Walter Wilding. Person
appearing on the register, as adopting the child, Mrs. Jane
Anne Miller, widow, acting in this matter for her married
sister, domiciled in Switzerland.' Patience ! " resumed Oben
reizer, as Vendale, breaking loose from Bintrey, started to
his feet. " I shall not keep the name concealed much longer.
Two more little slips of paper, and I have done. Third
proof! Certificate of Doctor Ganz, still living in practice at
Neuchatel, dated July, 1838. The doctor certifies (you shall
read it for yourselves directly), first, that he attended the
adopted child in its infant maladies; second, that, three
months before the date of the certificate, the gentleman
adopting the child as his son died; third, that on the date
of the certificate, his widow and her maid, taking the adopted
child with them, left Neuchatel on their return to England.
One more link now added to this, and my chain of evidence

B48 NO THOROUGHFARE.

is complete. The maid remained with her mistress till heu
mistress's death, only a few years since. The maid can swear
to the identity of the adopted infant, from his childhood to
his youth — from his youth to his manhood, as he is now.
There is her address in England — and there, Mr. Vendale,
is the fourth, and final proof!11

" Why do you address yourself to me ? " said Vendale, as
Obenreizer threw the written address on the table.

Obenreizer turned on him, in a sudden frenzy of triumph.

"Because you are the man! If my niece marries you, she
marries a bastard, brought up by public charity. If my niece
marries you, she marries an impostor, without name or
lineage, disguised in the character of a gentleman of rank
and family."

" Bravo ! " cried Bintrey. " Admirably put, Mr. Obenreizer !
It only wants one word more to complete it. She marries —
thanks entirely to your exertions — a man who inherits a
handsome fortune, and a man whose origin will make him
prouder than ever of his peasant- wife. George Vendale, as
brother-executors, let us congratulate each other ! Our dear
dead friend's last wish on earth is accomplished. We have
found the lost Walter Wilding. As Mr. Obenreizer said just
now — you are the man ! "

The words passed by Vendale unheeded. For the moment
he was conscious of but one sensation; he heard but one
voice. Marguerite's hand was clasping his. Marguerite's
voice was whispering to him : " I never loved you, George,
as I love you now ! "

THE CURTAIN FALLS.

May-day. There is merry-making in Cripple Corner, the
chimneys smoke, the patriarchal dining-hall is hung with
garlands, and Mrs. Goldstraw, the respected housekeeper, is
very busy. For, on this bright morning the young master
of Cripple Corner is married to its young mistress, far away :

THE WEDDING MORNING.

to wit, in the little town of Brieg, in Switzerland, lying at
the foot of the Simplon Pass where she saved his life.

The bells ring gaily in the little town of Brieg, and flags
are stretched across the street, and rifle shots are heard, and
sounding music from brass instruments. Streamer-decorated
casks of wine have been rolled out under a gay awning in
the public way before the Inn, and there will be free feasting
and revelry. What with bells and banners, draperies hanging
from windows, explosion of gunpowder, and reverberation of
brass music, the little town of Brieg is all in a flutter, like
the hearts of its simple people.

It was a stormy night last night, and the mountains are
covered with snow. But the sun is bright to-day, the sweet
air is fresh, the tin spires of the little town of Brieg are
burnished silver, and the Alps are ranges of far-off white
cloud in a deep blue sky.

The primitive people of the little town of Brieg have built
a greenwood arch across the street, under which the newly
married pair shall pass in triumph from the church. It is
inscribed, on that side, "HONOUR AND LOVE TO MARGUERITE
VENDALE ! " for the people are proud of her to enthusiasm.
This greeting of the bride under her new name is affection
ately meant as a surprise, and therefore the arrangement has
been made that she, unconscious why, shall be taken to the
church by a tortuous back way. A scheme not difficult to
carry into execution in the crooked little town of Brieg.

So, all things are in readiness, and they are to go and
come on foot. Assembled in the Inn's best chamber, festively
adorned, are the bride and bridegroom, the Neuchatel notary,
the London lawyer, Madame Dor, and a certain large
mysterious Englishman, popularly known as Monsieur Zhoe"-
Ladelle. And behold Madame Dor, arrayed in a spotless
pair of gloves of her own, with no hand in the air, but both
hands clasped round the neck of the bride ; to embrace whom
Madame Dor has turned her broad back on the company,
consistent to the last.

350 NO THOROUGHFARE.

" Forgive me, my beautiful," pleads Madame Dor, " for that
I ever was his she-cat ! "

"She-cat, Madame Dor?"

"Engaged to sit watching my so charming mouse,"' are
the explanatory words of Madame Dor, delivered with a
penitential sob.

" Why, you were our best friend ! George, dearest, tell
Madame Dor. Was she not our best friend?""

" Undoubtedly, darling. What should we have done with*
out her?11

" You are both so generous," cries Madame Dor, accepting
consolation, and immediately relapsing. "But I commenced
as a she-cat."

" Ah ! But like the cat in the fairy-story, good Madame
Dor," says Vendale, saluting her cheek, "you were a true
woman. And, being a true woman, the sympathy of your
heart was with true love."

"I don't wish to deprive Madame Dor of her share in the
embraces that are going on," Mr. Bintrey puts in, watch in
hand, "and I don't presume to offer any objection to your
having got yourselves mixed together, in the corner there,
like the three Graces. I merely remark that I think it's
time we were moving. What are your sentiments on that
subject, Mr. Ladle?"

" Clear, sir," replies Joey, with a gracious grin. " I'm
clearer altogether, sir, for having lived so many weeks upon
the surface. I never was half so long upon the surface afore,
and it's done me a power of good. At Cripple Corner, I
was too much below it. Atop of the Simpleton, I was a deal
too high above it. I've found the medium here, sir. And if
ever I take it in convivial, in all the rest of my days, I mean
to do it this day, to the toast of 'Bless 'em both.'"

" I, too ! " says Bintrey. " And now, Monsieur Voigt, let
you and me be two men of Marseilles, and aliens, marchons,
arm-in-arm ! "

They go down to the door, where others are waiting for

THE LAST OF MR. OBENREIZER. 351

them, and they go quietly to the church, and the happy
marriage takes place. While the ceremony is yet in pro
gress, the notary is called out. When it is finished, he has
returned, is standing behind Vendale, and touches him on
the shoulder.

"Go to the side door, one moment, Monsieur Vendale.
Alone. Leave Madame to me."

At the side door of the church, are the same two men
from the Hospice. They are snow-stained and travel-worn.
They wish him joy, and then each lays his broad hand upon
Vendale's breast, and one says in a low voice, while the other
steadfastly regards him :

" It is here, Monsieur. Your litter. The very same."

« My litter is here ? Why ? "

"Hush! For the sake of Madame. Your companion of

that day "

"What of him?"

The man looks at his comrade, and his comrade takes him
up. Each keeps his hand laid earnestly on Vendale's breast.
"He had been living at the first Refuge, monsieur, for
some days. The weather was now good, now bad."
"Yes?"

" He arrived at our Hospice the day before yesterday, and,
having refreshed himself with sleep on the floor before the
fire, wrapped in his cloak, was resolute to go on, before
dark, to the next Hospice. He had a great fear of that part
of the way, and thought it would be worse to-morrow."
"Yes?"

" He went on alone. He had passed the gallery when an
avalanche — like that which fell behind you near the Bridge

of the Ganther "

"Killed him?"

" We dug him out, suffocated and broken all to pieces !
But, monsieur, as to Madame. We have brought him here
on the litter, to be buried. We must ascend the street
outside. Madame must not see. It would be an accursed

NO THOROUGHFARE.

thing to bring the litter through the arch across the street,
until Madame has passed through. As you descend, we who
accompany the litter will set it down on the stones of the
street the second to the right, and will stand before it. But
do not let Madame turn her head towards the street the
second to the right. There is no time to lose. Madame will
be alarmed by your absence. Adieu ! "

Vendale returns to his bride, and draws her hand through
his unmaimed arm. A pretty procession awaits them at the
main door of the church. They take their station in it, and
descend the street amidst the ringing of the bells, the firing
of the guns, the waving of the flags, the playing of the
music, the shouts, the smiles, and tears, of the excited town.
Heads are uncovered as she passes, hands are kissed to her,
all the people bless her. "Heaven's benediction on the dear
girl ! See where she goes in her youth and beauty ; she
who so nobly saved his life ! "

Near the corner of the street the second to the right, he
speaks to her, and calls her attention to the windows on the
opposite side. The corner well passed, he says : " Do not
look round, my darling, for a reason that I have,*" and turns
his head. Then, looking back along the street, he sees the
litter and its bearers passing up alone under the arch, as he
and she and their marriage train go down towards the shining
valley.

THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE
APPRENTICES

VOL. II.

THE LAZY TOUR

OF

TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

CHAPTER I.

IN the autumn month of September, eighteen hundred and
fifty-seven, wherein these presents bear date, two idle appren
tices, exhausted by the long, hot summer, and the long, hot
work it had brought with it, ran away from their employer.
They were bound to a highly meritorious lady (named
Literature), of fair credit and repute, though, it must be
acknowledged, not quite so highly esteemed in the City as
she might be. This is the more remarkable, as there is
nothing against the respectable lady in that quarter, but
quite the contrary; her family having rendered eminent
service to many famous citizens of London. It may be
sufficient to name Sir William Walworth, Lord Mayor under
King Richard II., at the time of Wat Tyler's insurrection,
and Sir Richard Whittington : which latter distinguished
man and magistrate was doubtless indebted to the lady's
family for the gift of his celebrated cat. There is also strong
reason to suppose that they rang the Highgate bells for him
with their own hands.

The misguided young men who thus shirked their duty to
the mistress from whom they had received many favours,
were actuated by the low idea of making a perfectly idle trip,

356 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

in any direction. They had no intention of going anywhere
in particular; they wanted to see nothing, they wanted to
know nothing, they wanted to learn nothing, they wanted
to do nothing. They wanted only to be idle. They took to
themselves (after HOGARTH), the names of Mr. Thomas Idle
and Mr. Francis Goodchild ; but there was not a moral pin
to choose between them, and they were both idle in the last
degree.

Between Francis and Thomas, however, there was this
difference of character: Goodchild was laboriously idle, and
would take upon himself any amount of pains and labour
to assure himself that he was idle; in short, had no better
idea of idleness than that it was useless industry. Thomas
Idle, on the other hand, was an idler of the unmixed Irish
or Neapolitan type ; a passive idler, a born-and-bred idler, a
consistent idler, who practised what he would have preached
if he had not been too idle to preach ; a one entire and
perfect chrysolite of idleness.

The two idle apprentices found themselves, within a few
hours of their escape, walking down into the North of England,
that is to say, Thomas was lying in a meadow, looking at the
railway trains as they passed over a distant viaduct — which
was his idea of walking down into the North ; while Francis
was walking a mile due South against time — which was his
idea of walking down into the North. In the meantime the
day waned, and the milestones remained unconquered.

" Tom," said Goodchild, " the sun is getting low. Up, and
let us go forward ! "

" Nay," quoth Thomas Idle, " I have not done with Annie
Laurie yet." And he proceeded with that idle but popular
ballad, to the effect that for the bonnie young person of that
name he would "lay him doon and dee" — equivalent, in
prose, to lay him down and die.

" What an ass that fellow was ! " cried Goodchild, with the
bitter emphasis of contempt.

"Which fellow?" asked Thomas Idle.

A HEAVY SIGH. S57

" The fellow in your song. Lay him doon and dee ! Finely
he'd show off before the girl by doing that. A sniveller ! Why
couldn't he get up, and punch somebody's head ! "

"Whose?" asked Thomas Idle.

" Anybody's. Everybody's would be better than nobody's !
If I fell into that state of mind about a girl, do you think I'd
lay me doon and dee ? No, sir," proceeded Goodchild, with a
disparaging assumption of the Scottish accent, " I'd get me
oop and peetch into somebody. Wouldn't you?"

" I wouldn't have anything to do with her," yawned
Thomas Idle. " Why should I take the trouble ? "

"It's no trouble, Tom, to fall in love," said Goodchild,
shaking his head.

"It's trouble enough to fall out of it, once you're in it,"
retorted Tom. " So I keep out of it altogether. It would
be better for you, if you did the same."

Mr. Goodchild, who is always in love with somebody, and
not unfrequently with several objects at once, made no reply.
He heaved a sigh of the kind which is termed by the lower
orders " a bellowser," and then, heaving Mr. Idle on his feet
(who was not half so heavy as the sigh), urged him north
ward.

These two had sent their personal baggage on by train :
only retaining each a knapsack. Idle now applied himself to
constantly regretting the train, to tracking it through the
intricacies of Bradshaw's Guide, and finding out where it is
now — and where now — and where now — and to asking what
was the use of walking, when you could ride at such a pace
as that. Was it to see the country ? If that was the object,
look at it out of the carriage windows. There was a great
deal more of it to be seen there than here. Besides, who
wanted to see the country ? Nobody. And again, whoever
did walk ? Nobody. Fellows set off to walk, but they never
did it. They came back and said they did, but they didn't.
Then why should he walk ? He wouldn't walk. He swore it
by this milestone!

358 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

It was the fifth from London, so far had they penetrated
into the North. Submitting to the powerful chain of argu
ment, Goodchild proposed a return to the Metropolis, and a
falling back upon Euston Square Terminus. Thomas assented
with alacrity, and so they walked down into the North by
the next morning's express, and carried their knapsacks in
the luggage-van.

It was like all other expresses, as every express is and must
be. It bore through the harvest country a smell like a large
washing-day, and a sharp issue of steam as from a huge
brazen tea-urn. The greatest power in nature and art com
bined, it yet glided over dangerous heights in the sight of
people looking up from fields and roads, as smoothly and
unreally as a light miniature plaything. Now, the engine
shrieked in hysterics of such intensity, that it seemed desir
able that the men who had her in charge should hold her
feet, slap her hands, and bring her to ; now, burrowed into
tunnels with a stubborn and undemonstrative energy so con
fusing that the train seemed to be flying back into leagues of
darkness. Here, were station after station, swallowed up by
the express without stopping ; here, stations where it fired
itself in like a volley of cannon-balls, swooped away four
country-people with nosegays, and three men of business with
portmanteaus, and fired itself off again, bang, bang, bang !
At long intervals were uncomfortable refreshment-rooms, made
more uncomfortable by the scorn of Beauty towards Beast,
the public (but to whom she never relented, as Beauty did
in the story, towards the other Beast), and where sensitive
stomachs were fed, with a contemptuous sharpness occasion
ing indigestion. Here, again, were stations with nothing
going but a bell, and wonderful wooden razors set aloft on
great posts, shaving the air. In these fields, the horses,
sheep, and cattle were well used to the thundering meteor,
and didn't mind; in those, they were all set scampering to
gether, and a herd of pigs scoured after them. The pastoral
country darkened, became coaly, became smoky, became

ARRIVAL AT CARLISLE. 359

infernal, got better, got worse, improved again, grew rugged,
turned romantic ; was a wood, a stream, a chain of hills, a
gorge, a moor, a cathedral town, a fortified place, a waste.
Now, miserable black dwellings, a black canal, and sick black
towers of chimneys ; now, a trim garden, where the flowers
were bright and fair ; now, a wilderness of hideous altars all
a-blaze ; now, the water meadows with their fairy rings ; now,
the mangy patch of unlet building ground outside the stag
nant town, with the larger ring where the Circus was last
week. The temperature changed, the dialect changed, the
people changed, faces got sharper, manner got shorter, eyes
got shrewder and harder ; yet all so quickly, that the spruce
guard in the London uniform and silver lace, had not yet
rumpled his shirt-collar, delivered half the dispatches in his
shiny little pouch, or read his newspaper.

Carlisle ! Idle and Goodchild had got to Carlisle. It
looked congenially and delightfully idle. Something in the
way of public amusement had happened last month, and
something else was going to happen before Christmas ; and,
in the meantime there was a lecture on India for those who
liked it — which Idle and Goodchild did not. Likewise, by
those who liked them, there were impressions to be bought
of all the vapid prints, going and gone, and of nearly all the
vapid books. For those who wanted to put anything in
missionary boxes, here were the boxes. For those who wanted
the Reverend Mr. Podgers (artist's proofs, thirty shillings),
here was Mr. Podgers to any amount. Not less gracious and
abundant, Mr. Codgers also of the vineyard, but opposed to
Mr. Podgers, brotherly tooth and nail. Here, were guide
books to the neighbouring antiquities, and eke the Lake
country, in several dry and husky sorts ; here, many physically
and morally impossible heads of both sexes, for young ladies
to copy, in the exercise of the art of drawing ; here, further,
a large impression of MR. SPURGEON, solid as to the flesh, not
to say even something gross. The working young men of
Carlisle were drawn up, with their hands in their pockets,

360 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

across the pavements, four and six abreast, and appeared
(much to the satisfaction of Mr. Idle) to have nothing else
to do. The working and growing young women of Carlisle,
from the age of twelve upwards, promenaded the streets in
the cool of the evening, and rallied the said young men.
Sometimes the young men rallied the young women, as in
the case of a group gathered round an accordion-player, from
among whom a young man advanced behind a young woman
for whom he appeared to have a tenderness, and hinted to
her that he was there and playful, by giving her (he wore
clogs) a kick.

On market morning, Carlisle woke up amazingly, and
became (to the two Idle Apprentices) disagreeably and
reproachfully busy. There were its cattle market, its sheep
market, and its pig market down by the river, with raw-
boned and shock-headed Rob Roys hiding their Lowland
dresses beneath heavy plaids, prowling in and out among the
animals, and flavouring the air with fumes of whiskey. There
was its corn market down the main street, with hum of
chaffering over open sacks. There was its general market in
the street too, with heather brooms on which the purple
flower still flourished, and heather baskets primitive and
fresh to behold. With women trying on clogs and caps at
open stalls, and "Bible stalls" adjoining. With "Doctor
Mantle's Dispensary for the cure of all Human Maladies and
no charge for advice," and with Doctor Mantlets " Laboratory
of Medical, Chemical, and Botanical Science " — both healing
institutions established on one pair of trestles, one board, and
one sun-blind. With the renowned phrenologist from London,
begging to be favoured (at sixpence each) with the company
of clients of both sexes, to whom, on examination of their
heads, he would make revelations "enabling him or her to
know themselves." Through all these bargains and blessings,
the recruiting-sergeant watchfully elbowed his way, a thread
of War in the peaceful skein. Likewise on the walls were
printed hints that the Oxford Blues might not be indisposed

CARROCK FELL. 361

to hear of a few fine active young men; and that whereas
the standard of that distinguished corps is full six feet,
" growing lads of five feet eleven " need not absolutely despair
of being accepted.

Scenting the morning air more pleasantly than the buried
majesty of Denmark did, Messrs. Idle and Goodchild rode
away from Carlisle at eight o^clock one forenoon, bound for
the village of Hesket, Newmarket, some fourteen miles distant.
Goodchild (who had already begun to doubt whether he was
idle : as his way always is when he has nothing to do) had
read of a certain black old Cumberland hill or mountain,
called Carrock, or Carrock Fell ; and had arrived at the con
clusion that it would be the culminating triumph of Idleness
to ascend the same. Thomas Idle, dwelling on the pains in
separable from that achievement, had expressed the strongest
doubts of the expediency, and even of the sanity, of the
enterprise; but Goodchild had carried his point, and they
rode away.

Up hill and down hill, and twisting to the right, and
twisting to the left, and with old Skiddaw (who has vaunted
himself a great deal more than his merits deserve; but that
is rather the way of the Lake country), dodging the
apprentices in a picturesque and pleasant manner. Good,
weather-proof, warm, pleasant houses, well white-limed,
scantily dotting the road. Clean children coming out to
look, carrying other clean children as big as themselves.
Harvest still lying out and much rained upon ; here and
there, harvest still unreaped. Well - cultivated gardens
attached to the cottages, with plenty of produce forced out
of their hard soil. Lonely nooks, and wild ; but people can
be born, and married, and buried in such nooks, and can
live and love, and be loved, there as elsewhere, thank God !
(Mr. Goodchild's remark.) By-and-by, the village. Black,
coarse-stoned, rough-windowed houses; some with outer
staircases, like Swiss houses ; a sinuous and stony gutter
winding up hill and round the corner, by way of street. All

362 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

the children running out directly. Women pausing in wash
ing, to peep from doorways and very little windows. Such
were the observations of Messrs. Idle and Goodchild, as their
conveyance stopped at the village shoemaker's. Old Carrock
gloomed down upon it all in a very ill-tempered state; and
rain was beginning.

The village shoemaker declined to have anything to do
with Carrock. No visitors went up Carrock. No visitors
came there at all. Aa' the world ganged awa' yon. The
driver appealed to the Innkeeper. The Innkeeper had two
men working in the fields, and one of them should be called
in, to go up Carrock as guide. Messrs. Idle and Goodchild,
highly approving, entered the Innkeeper's house, to drink
whiskey and eat oatcake.

The Innkeeper was not idle enough — was not idle at all,
which was a great fault in him — but was a fine specimen of
a north-country man, or any kind of man. He had a ruddy
cheek, a bright eye, a well-knit frame, an immense hand,
a cheery outspeaking voice, and a straight, bright, broad
look. He had a drawing-room, too, upstairs, which was
worth a visit to the Cumberland Fells. (This was Mr.
Francis Goodchild's opinion, in which Mr. Thomas Idle did
not concur.)

The ceiling of this drawing-room was so crossed and re-
crossed by beams of unequal lengths, radiating from a centre,
in a corner, that it looked like a broken star-fish. The room
was comfortably and solidly furnished with good mahogany
and horsehair. It had a snug fireside, and a couple of well-
curtained windows, looking out upon the wild country behind
the house. What it most developed was, an unexpected taste
for little ornaments and nick-nacks, of which it contained a
most surprising number. They were not very various, con
sisting in great part of waxen babies with their limbs more
or less mutilated, appealing on one leg to the parental
affections from under little cupping glasses ; but, Uncle Tom
was there, in crockery, receiving theological instructions from

A CURIOUS ROOM. 363

Miss Eva, who grew out of his side like a wen, in an ex
ceedingly rough state of profile propagandism. Engravings
of Mr. Hunt's country boy, before and after his pie, were on
the wall, divided by a highly-coloured nautical piece, the
subject of which had all her colours (and more) flying, and
was making great way through a sea of a regular pattern,
like a lady's collar. A benevolent, elderly gentleman of the
last century, with a powdered head, kept guard, in oil and
varnish, over a most perplexing piece of furniture on a table ;.
in appearance between a driving seat and an angular knife-
box, but, when opened, a musical instrument of tinkling wires,
exactly like David's harp packed for travelling. Everything
became a nick-nack in this curious room. The copper tea
kettle, burnished up to the highest point of glory, took his
station on a stand of his own at the greatest possible distance
from the fireplace, and said: "By your leave, not a kittle,
but a bijou.'1 The Stafford shire- ware butter-dish with the
cover on, got upon a little round occasional table in a window,
with a worked top, and announced itself to the two chairs
accidentally placed there, as an aid to polite conversation, a
graceful trifle in china to be chatted over by callers, as they
airily trifled away the visiting moments of a butterfly exist
ence, in that rugged old village on the Cumberland Fells.
The very footstool could not keep the floor, but got upon a
sofa, and therefrom proclaimed itself, in high relief of white
and liver-coloured wool, a favourite spaniel coiled up for
repose. Though, truly, in spite of its bright glass eyes, the
spaniel was the least successful assumption in the collection :
being perfectly flat, and dismally suggestive of a recent mis
take in sitting down on the part of some corpulent member
of the family.

There were books, too, in this room; books on the table,
books on the chimney-piece, books in an open press in the
corner. Fielding was there, and Smollett was there, and
Steele and Addison were there, in dispersed volumes; and
there were tales of those who go down to the sea in ships,

LAZY TOUR OP TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

for windy nights; and there was really a choice of good
books for rainy days or fine. It was so very pleasant to see
these things in such a lonesome by-place — so very agreeable
to find these evidences of a taste, however homely, that went
beyond the beautiful cleanliness and trimness of the house — so
fanciful to imagine what a wonder a room must be to the
little children born in the gloomy village — what grand im
pressions of it those of them who became wanderers over
the earth would carry away ; and how, at distant ends of the
world, some old voyagers would die, cherishing the belief that
the finest apartment known to men was once in the Hesket-
Newmarket Inn, in rare old Cumberland — it was such a charm
ingly lazy pursuit to entertain these rambling thoughts over
the choice oatcake and the genial whiskey, that Mr. Idle and
Mr. Goodchild never asked themselves how it came to pass
that the men in the fields were never heard of more, how
the stalwart landlord replaced them without explanation, how
his dog-cart came to be waiting at the door, and how every
thing was arranged without the least arrangement for climbing
to old Carrock's shoulders, and standing on his head.

Without a word of inquiry, therefore, the Two Idle Ap
prentices drifted out resignedly into a fine, soft, close, drowsy,
penetrating rain ; got into the landlord's light dog-cart, and
rattled off through the village for the foot of Carrock. The
journey at the outset was not remarkable. The Cumberland
road went up and down like all other roads ; the Cumberland
curs burst out from backs of cottages and barked like other
curs, and the Cumberland peasantry stared after the dog-cart
amazedly, as long as it was in sight, like the rest of their
race. The approach to the foot of the mountain resembled
the approaches to the feet of most other mountains all over
the world. The cultivation gradually ceased, the trees grew
gradually rare, the road became gradually rougher, and the
sides of the mountain looked gradually more and more lofty,
and more and more difficult to get up. The dog-cart was
left at a lonely farm-house. The landlord borrowed a large

AT THE FOOT OF THE MOUNTAIN. 365

umbrella, and, assuming in an instant the character of the
most cheerful and adventurous of guides, led the way to
the ascent. Mr. Goodchild looked eagerly at the top of the
mountain, and, feeling apparently that he was now going to
be very lazy indeed, shone all over wonderfully to the eye,
under the influence of the contentment within and the
moisture without. Only in the bosom of Mr. Thomas Idle
did Despondency now hold her gloomy state. He kept it a
secret; but he would have given a very handsome sum, when
the ascent began, to have been back again at the inn. The
sides of Carrock looked fearfully steep, and the top of
Carrock was hidden in mist. The rain was falling faster
and faster. The knees of Mr. Idle — always weak on walking
excursions — shivered and shook with fear and damp. The
wet was already penetrating through the young man's outer
coat to a brand-new shooting-jacket, for which he had
reluctantly paid the large sum of two guineas on leaving
town ; he had no stimulating refreshment about him but a
small packet of clammy gingerbread nuts ; he had nobody to
give him an arm, nobody to push him gently behind, nobody
to pull him up tenderly in front, nobody to speak to who
really felt the difficulties of the ascent, the dampness of the
rain, the denseness of the mist, and the unutterable folly of
climbing, undriven, up any steep place in the world, when
there is level ground within reach to walk on instead. Was
it for this that Thomas had left London ? • London, where
there are nice short walks in level public gardens, with benches
of repose set up at convenient distances for weary travellers
— London, where rugged stone is humanely pounded into little
lumps for the road, and intelligently shaped into smooth slabs
for the pavement ! No ! it was not for the laborious ascent
of the crags of Carrock that Idle had left his native city,
and travelled to Cumberland. Never did he feel more
disastrously convinced that he had committed a very grave
error in judgment than when he found himself standing in
the rain at the bottom of a steep mountain, and knew that

366 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

the responsibility rested on his weak shoulders of actually
getting to the top of it.

The honest landlord went first, the beaming Goodchild
followed, the mournful Idle brought up the rear. From time
to time, the two foremost members of the expedition changed
places in the order of march ; but the rearguard never altered
his position. Up the mountain or down the mountain, in
the water or out of it, over the rocks, through the bogs,
skirting the heather, Mr. Thomas Idle was always the last,
and was always the man who had to be looked after and
waited for. At first the ascent was delusively easy, the sides
of the mountain sloped gradually, and the material of which
they were composed was a soft spongy turf, very tender and
pleasant to walk upon. After a hundred yards or so, how
ever, the verdant scene and the easy slope disappeared, and
the rocks began. Not noble, massive rocks, standing upright,
keeping a certain regularity in their positions, and possessing,
now and then, flat tops to sit upon, but little irritating, com
fortless rocks, littered about anyhow by Nature ; treacherous,
disheartening rocks of all sorts of small shapes and small
sizes, bruisers of tender toes and trippers-up of wavering feet.
When these impediments were passed, heather and slough
followed. Here the steepness of the ascent was slightly
mitigated; and here the exploring party of three turned
round to look at the view below them. The scene of the
moorland and the fields was like a feeble water-colour drawing
half sponged out. The mist was darkening, the rain was
thickening, the trees were dotted about like spots of faint
shadow, the division-lines which mapped out the fields were
all getting blurred together, and the lonely farm-house where
the dog-cart had been left, loomed spectral in the grey light
like the last human dwelling at the end of the habitable
world. Was this a sight worth climbing to see? Surely —
surely not !

Up again — for the top of Carrock is not reached yet. The
landlord, j ust as good-tempered and obliging as he was at the

THE ASCENT. 367

bottom of the mountain. Mr. Goodchild brighter in the eyes
and rosier in the face than ever; full of cheerful remarks
and apt quotations; and walking with a springiness of step
wonderful to behold. Mr. Idle, farther and farther in the
rear, with the water squeaking in the toes of his boots, with
his two-guinea shooting-jacket clinging damply to his aching
sides, with his overcoat so full of rain, and standing out so
pyramidically stiff, in consequence, from his shoulders down
wards, that he felt as if he was walking in a gigantic ex
tinguisher — the despairing spirit within him representing but
too aptly the candle that had just been put out. Up and
up and up again, till a ridge is reached and the outer edge
of the mist on the summit of Carrock is darkly and drizzingly
near. Is this the top ? No, nothing like the top. It is an
aggravating peculiarity of all mountains, that, although they
have only one top when they are seen (as they ought always
to be seen) from below, they turn out to have a perfect
eruption of false tops whenever the traveller is sufficiently
ill-advised to go out of his way for the purpose of ascending
them. Carrock is but a trumpery little mountain of fifteen
hundred feet, and it presumes to have false tops, and even
precipices, as if it were Mont Blanc. No matter; Goodchild
enjoys it, and will go on; and Idle, who is afraid of being
left behind by himself, must follow. On entering the edge
of the mist, the landlord stops, and says he hopes that it
will not get any thicker. It is twenty years since he last
ascended Carrock, and it is barely possible, if the mist in
creases, that the party may be lost on the mountain. Good-
child hears this dreadful intimation, and is not in the least
impressed by it. He marches for the top that is never to be
found, as if he was the Wandering Jew, bound to go on for
ever, in defiance of everything. The landlord faithfully accom
panies him. The two, to the dim eye of Idle, far below, look
in the exaggerative mist, like a pair of friendly giants, mount
ing the steps of some invisible castle together. Up and
up, and then down a little, and then up, and then along a

368 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

strip of level ground, and then up again. The wind, a wind
unknown in the happy valley, blows keen and strong; the
rain-mist gets impenetrable; a dreary little cairn of stones
appears. The landlord adds one to the heap, first walking
all round the cairn as if he were about to perform an incanta
tion, then dropping the stone on to the top of the heap with
the gesture of a magician adding an ingredient to a cauldron
in full bubble. Goodchild sits down by the cairn as if it was
his study-table at home ; Idle, drenched and panting, stands
up with his back to the wind, ascertains distinctly that this
is the top at last, looks round with all the little curiosity
that is left in him, and gets, in return, a magnificent view of
— Nothing !

The effect of this sublime spectacle on the minds of the
exploring party is a little injured by the nature of the direct
conclusion to which the sight of it points — the said conclusion
being that the mountain mist has actually gathered round
them, as the landlord feared it would. It now becomes
imperatively necessary to settle the exact situation of the
farm-house in the valley at which the dog- cart has been left,
before the travellers attempt to descend. While the landlord
is endeavouring to make this discovery in his own way, Mr.
Goodchild plunges his hand under his wet coat, draws out a
little red morocco-case, opens it, and displays to the view
of his companions a neat pocket-compass. The north is
found, the point at which the farm-house is situated is settled,
and the descent begins. After a little downward walking,
Idle (behind as usual) sees his fellow-travellers turn aside
sharply — tries to follow them — loses them in the mist — is
shouted after, waited for, recovered — and then finds that a
halt has been ordered, partly on his account, partly for the
purpose of again consulting the compass.

The point in debate is settled as before between Goodchild
and the landlord, and the expedition moves on, not down the
mountain, but marching straight forward round the slope of
it. The difficulty of following this new route is acutely felt

THE DESCENT. 369

by Thomas Idle. He finds the hardship of walking at all
greatly increased by the fatigue of moving his feet straight
forward along the side of a slope, when their natural tendency,
at every step, is to turn off at a right angle, and go straight
down the declivity. Let the reader imagine himself to be
walking along the roof of a barn, instead of up or down it,
and he will have an exact idea of the pedestrian difficulty
in which the travellers had now involved themselves. In ten
minutes more Idle was lost in the distance again, was shouted
for, waited for, recovered as before ; found Goodchild re
peating his observation of the compass, and remonstrated
warmly against the side way route that his companions per
sisted in following. It appeared to the uninstructed mind
of Thomas that when three men want to get to the bottom
of a mountain, their business is to walk down it ; and he put
this view of the case, not only with emphasis, but even with
some irritability. He was answered from the scientific emi
nence of the compass on which his companions were mounted,
that there was a frightful chasm somewhere near the foot
of Carrock, called The Black Arches, into which the travellers
were sure to march in the mist, if they risked continuing
the descent from the place where they had now halted. Idle
received this answer with the silent respect which was due
to the commanders of the expedition, and followed along
the roof of the barn, or rather the side of the mountain,
reflecting upon the assurance which he received on starting
again, that the object of the party was only to gain " a certain
point,"" and, this haven attained, to continue the descent
afterwards until the foot of Carrock was reached. Though
quite unexceptionable as an abstract form of expression, the
phrase "a certain point" has the disadvantage of sounding
rather vaguely when it is pronounced on unknown ground,
under a canopy of mist much thicker than a London fog.
Nevertheless, after the compass, this phrase was all the clue
the party had to hold by, and Idle clung to the extreme end
of it as hopefully as he could.

VOL. ii. 2 B

370 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

More sidevvay walking, thicker and thicker mist, all sorts
of points reached except the "certain point;" third loss of
Idle, third shouts for him, third recovery of him, third
consultation of compass. Mr. Goodchild draws it tenderly
from his pocket, and prepares to adjust it on a stone.
Something falls on the turf — it is the glass. Something else
drops immediately after — it is the needle. The compass is
broken, and the exploring party is lost !

It is the practice of the English portion of the human
race to receive all great disasters in dead silence. Mr.
Goodchild restored the useless compass to his pocket without
saying a word, Mr. Idle looked at the landlord, and the
landlord looked at Mr. Idle. There was nothing for it now
but to go on blindfold, and trust to the chapter of chances.
Accordingly, the lost travellers moved forward, still walking
round the slope of the mountain, still desperately resolved
to avoid the Black Arches, and to succeed in reaching the
"certain point/1

A quarter of an hour brought them to the brink of a
ravine, at the bottom of which there flowed a muddy little
stream. Here another halt was called, and another consulta
tion took place. The landlord, still clinging pertinaciously
to the idea of reaching the "point," voted for crossing the
ravine, and going on round the slope of the mountain. Mr.
Goodchild, to the great relief of his fellow-traveller, took
another view of the case, and backed Mr. Idle's proposal to
descend Carrock at once, at any hazard — the rather as the
running stream was a sure guide to follow from the mountain
to the valley. Accordingly, the party descended to the
rugged and stony banks of the stream ; and here again
Thomas lost ground sadly, and fell far behind his travelling
companions. Not much more than six weeks had elapsed
since he had sprained one of his ankles, and he began to feel
this same ankle getting rather weak when he found himself
among the stones that were strewn about the running water.
Goodchild and the landlord were getting farther and

THE CRIPPLED APPRENTICE. 371

farther ahead of him. He saw them cross the stream and
disappear round a projection on its banks. He heard them
shout the moment after as a signal that they had halted and
were waiting for him. Answering the shout, he mended his
pace, crossed the stream where they had crossed it, and was
within one step of the opposite bank, when his foot slipped
on a wet stone, his weak ankle gave a twist outwards, a hot,
rending, tearing pain ran through it at the same moment,
and down fell the idlest of the Two Idle Apprentices, crippled
in an instant.

The situation was now, in plain terms, one of absolute
danger. There lay Mr. Idle writhing with pain, there was
the mist as thick as ever, there was the landlord as com
pletely lost as the strangers whom he was conducting, and
there was the compass broken in Goodchild's pocket. To
leave the wretched Thomas on unknown ground was plainly
impossible ; and to get him to walk with a badly sprained
ankle seemed equally out of the question. However, Good-
child (brought back by his cry for help) bandaged the ankle
with a pocket-handkerchief, and assisted by the landlord,
raised the crippled Apprentice to his legs, offered him a
shoulder to lean on, and exhorted him for the sake of the
whole party to try if he could walk. Thomas, assisted by
the shoulder on one side, and a stick on the other, did try,
with what pain and difficulty those only can imagine who
have sprained an ankle and have had to tread on it after
wards. At a pace adapted to the feeble hobbling of a newly-
lamed man, the lost party moved on, perfectly ignorant
whether they were on the right side of the mountain or the
wrong, and equally uncertain how long Idle would be able
to contend with the pain in his ankle, before he gave in
altogether and fell down again, unable to stir another step.

Slowly and more slowly, as the clog of crippled Thomas
weighed heavily and more heavily on the march of the expe
dition, the lost travellers followed the windings of the stream,
till they came to a faintly-marked cart-track, branching

372 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

off nearly at right angles, to the left. After a little con
sultation it was resolved to follow this dim vestige of a road
in the hope that it might lead to some farm or cottage, at
which Idle could be left in safety. It was now getting on
towards the afternoon, and it was fast becoming more than
doubtful whether the party, delayed in their progress as
they now were, might not be overtaken by the darkness
before the right route was found, and be condemned to pass
the night on the mountain, without bit or drop to comfort
them, in their wet clothes.

The cart-track grew fainter and fainter, until it was washed
out altogether by another little stream, dark, turbulent, and
rapid. The landlord suggested, judging by the colour of the
water, that it must be flowing from one of the lead mines in
the neighbourhood of Carrock ; and the travellers accordingly
kept by the stream for a little while, in the hope of possibly
wandering towards help in that way. After walking forward
about two hundred yards, they came upon a mine indeed,
but a mine, exhausted and abandoned; a dismal, ruinous
place, with nothing but the wreck of its works and buildings
left to speak for it. Here, there were a few sheep feeding.
The landlord looked at them earnestly, thought he recognised
the marks on them — then thought he did not — finally gave
up the sheep in despair — and walked on just as ignorant of
the whereabouts of the party as ever.

The march in the dark, literally as well as metaphorically
in the dark, had now been continued for three-quarters of an
hour from the time when the crippled Apprentice had met
with his accident. Mr. Idle, with all the will to conquer
the pain in his ankle, and to hobble on, found the power
rapidly failing him, and felt that another ten minutes at
most would find him at the end of his last physical resources.
He had just made up his mind on this point, and was about
to communicate the dismal result of his reflections to his
companions, when the mist suddenly brightened, and begun
to lift straight ahead. In another minute, the landlord, who

BACK TO THE INN. 373

was in advance, proclaimed that he saw a tree. Before long,
other trees appeared — then a cottage — then a house beyond
the cottage, and a familiar line of road rising behind it.
Last of all, Carrock itself loomed darkly into view, far away
to the right hand. The party had not only got down the
mountain without knowing how, but had wandered away
from it in the mist, without knowing why — away, far down
on the very moor by which they had approached the base of
Carrock that morning.

The happy lifting of the mist, and the still happier dis
covery that the travellers had groped their way, though by
a very roundabout direction, to within a mile or so of the
part of the valley in which the farm-house was situated,
restored Mr. Idle's sinking spirits and reanimated his failing
strength. While the landlord ran off to get the dog-cart,
Thomas was assisted by Goodchild to the cottage which had
been the first building seen when the darkness brightened, and
was propped up against the garden wall, like an artist's lay
figure waiting to be forwarded, until the dog-cart should
arrive from the farm-house below. In due time — and a very
long time it seemed to Mr. Idle — the rattle of wheels was
heard, and the crippled Apprentice was lifted into the seat.
As the dog-cart was driven back to the inn, the landlord
related an anecdote which he had just heard at the farm
house, of an unhappy man who had been lost, like his two
guests and himself, on Carrock; who had passed the night
there alone ; who had been found the next morning, " scared
and starved ; " and who never went out afterwards, except on
his way to the grave. Mr. Idle heard this sad story, and
derived at least one useful impression from it. Bad as the
pain in his ankle was, he contrived to bear it patiently, for
he felt grateful that a worse accident had not befallen him
in the wilds of Carrock.-

CHAPTER II.

THE dog-cart, with Mr. Thomas Idle and his ankle on the
hanging seat behind, Mr. Francis Goodchild and the Inn
keeper in front, and the rain in spouts and splashes every
where, made the best of its way back to the little inn ; the
broken moor country looking like miles upon miles of Pre-
Adamite sop, or the ruins of some enormous jorum of
antediluvian toast-and-water. The trees dripped ; the eaves
of the scattered cottages dripped; the barren stone walls
dividing the land, dripped ; the yelping dogs dripped ; carts
and waggons under ill-roofed penthouses, dripped ; melancholy
cocks and hens perching on their shafts, or seeking shelter
underneath them, dripped; Mr. Goodchild dripped; Francis
Idle dripped ; the Innkeeper dripped ; the mare dripped ;
the vast curtains of mist and cloud passed before the
shadowy forms of the hills, streamed water as "they were
drawn across the landscape. Down such steep pitches that
the mare seemed to be trotting on her head, and up such
steep pitches that she seemed to have a supplementary leg in
her tail, the dog-cart jolted and tilted back to the village.
It was too wet for the women to look out, it was too wet
even for the children to look out ; all the doors and windows
were closed, and the only sign of life or motion was in the
rain-punctured puddles.

Whiskey and oil to Thomas Idlers ankle, and whiskey
without oil to Francis Goodchild's stomach, produced an
agreeable change in the systems of both ; soothing Mr. Idle's

MR. GOODCHILD TAKES OBSERVATIONS. 375

pain, which was sharp before, and sweetening Mr. Goodchild's
temper, which was sweet before. Portmanteaus being then
opened and clothes changed, Mr. Goodchild, through having
no change of outer garments but broadcloth and velvet, sud
denly became a magnificent portent in the Innkeeper's house,
a shining frontispiece to the fashions for the month, and a
frightful anomaly in the Cumberland village.

Greatly ashamed of his splendid appearance, the conscious
Goodchild quenched it as much as possible, in the shadow of
Thomas Idle's ankle, and in a corner of the little covered
carriage that started with them for Wigton — a most desirable
carriage for any country, except for its having a flat roof and
no sides; which caused the plumps of rain accumulating on
the roof to play vigorous games of bagatelle into the interior
all the way, and to score immensely. It was comfortable to
see how the people coming back in open carts from Wigton
market made no more of the rain than if it were sunshine ;
how the Wigton policeman taking a country walk of half-a-
dozen miles (apparently for pleasure), in resplendent uniform,
accepted saturation as his normal state; how clerks and
schoolmasters in black, loitered along the road without
umbrellas, getting varnished at every step ; how the Cumber
land girls, coming out to look after the Cumberland cows,
shook the rain from their eyelashes and laughed it away ; and
how the rain continued to fall upon all, as it only does fall
in hill countries.

Wigton market was over, and its bare booths were smoking
with rain all down the street. Mr. Thomas Idle, melo
dramatically carried to the inn's first floor, and laid upon
three chairs (he should have had the sofa, if there had been
one), Mr. Goodchild went to the window to take an obser
vation of Wigton, and report what he saw to his disabled
companion.

"Brother Francis, brother Francis," cried Thomas Idle.
" What do you see from the turret ? "

" I see," said Brother Francis, " what I hope and believe

376 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

to be one of the most dismal places ever seen by eyes. I
see the houses with their roofs of dull black, their stained
fronts, and their dark-rimmed windows, looking as if they
were all in mourning. As every little puff of wind comes
down the street, I see a perfect train of rain let off along
the wooden stalls in the market-place and exploded against
me. I see a very big gas lamp in the centre which I know,
by a secret instinct, will not be lighted to-night. I see a
pump, with a trivet underneath its spout whereon to stand
the vessels that are brought to be filled with water. I see a
man come to pump, and he pumps very hard, but no water
follows, and he strolls empty away."

" Brother Francis, brother Francis,*" cried Thomas Idle,
" what more do you see from the turret, besides the man and
the pump, and the trivet and the houses all in mourning and
the rain?"

"I see," said Brother Francis, "one, two, three, four, five,
linen-drapers' shops in front of me. I see a linen-draper's
shop next door to the right — and there are five more linen-
drapers' shops down the corner to the left. Eleven homicidal
linen-drapers' shops within a short stone's throw, each with
its hands at the throats of all the rest ! Over the small
first-floor of one of these linen-drapers' shops appears the
wonderful inscription, BANK."

"Brother Francis, brother Francis," cried Thomas Idle,
" what more do you see from the turret, besides the eleven
homicidal linen-drapers' shops, and the wonderful inscrip
tion, 'Bank,' on the small first-floor, and the man and the
pump and the trivet and the houses all in mourning and
the rain?"

" I see," said Brother Francis, " the depository for Christian
Knowledge, and through the dark vapour I think I again
make out Mr. Spurgeon looming heavily. Her Majesty the
Queen, God bless her, printed in colours, I am sure I see. I
see the Illustrated London News of several years ago, and I
see a sweetmeat shop — which the proprietor calls a 'Salt

TWO MYSTERIOUS MEN. 377

Warehouse' — with one small female child in a cotton bonnet
looking in on tip-toe, oblivious of rain. And I see a watch
maker's with only three great pale watches of a dull metal
hanging in his window, each in a separate pane."

"Brother Francis, brother Francis," cried Thomas Idle,
" what more do you see of Wigton, besides these objects, and
the man and the pump and the trivet and the houses all in
mourning and the rain ? "

" I see nothing more," said Brother Francis, " and there is
nothing more to see, except the curlpaper bill of the theatre,
which was opened and shut last week (the manager's family
played all the parts), and the short, square, chinky omnibus
that goes to the railway, and leads too rattling a life over
the stones to hold together long. O yes ! Now, I see two
men with their hands in their pockets and their backs
towards me."

"Brother Francis, brother Francis," cried Thomas Idle,
" what do you make out from the turret, of the expression
of the two men with their hands in their pockets and their
backs towards you ? "

"They are mysterious men," said Brother Francis, "with
inscrutable backs. They keep their backs towards me with
persistency. If one turns an inch in any direction, the other
turns an inch in the same direction, and no more. They turn
very stiffly, on a very little pivot, in the middle of the market
place. Their appearance is partly of a mining, partly of a
ploughing, partly of a stable, character. They are looking
at nothing — very hard. Their backs are slouched, and their
legs are curved with much standing about. Their pockets
are loose and dog's-eared, on account of their hands being
always in them. They stand to be rained upon, without
any movement of impatience or dissatisfaction, and they keep
so close together that an elbow of each jostles an elbow of
the other, but they never speak. They spit at times, but
speak not. I see it growing darker and darker, and still I
see them, sole visible population of the place, standing to be

378 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

rained upon with their backs towards me, and looking at
nothing very hard."

"Brother Francis, brother Francis," cried Thomas Idle,
" before you draw down the blind of the turret and come in
to have your head scorched by the hot gas, see if you can,
and impart to me, something of the expression of those two
amazing men."

"The murky shadows," said Francis Goodchild, "are
gathering fast ; and the wings of evening, and the wings of
coal, are folding over Wigton. Still, they look at nothing
very hard, with their backs towards me. Ah ! Now, they
turn, and I see "

"Brother Francis, brother Francis," cried Thomas Idle,
" tell me quickly what you see of the two men of Wigton ! "

"I see," said Francis Goodchild, "that they have no ex
pression at all. And now the town goes to sleep, undazzled
by the large unlighted lamp in the market-place ; and let-
no man wake it."

At the close of the next day's journey, Mr. Thomas Idlers
ankle became much swollen and inflamed. There are reasons
which will presently explain themselves for not publicly in
dicating the exact direction in which that journey lay, or the
place in which it ended. It was a long day's shaking of
Thomas Idle over the rough roads, and a long day's getting
out and going on before the horses, and fagging up hills,
and scouring down hills, on the part of Mr. Goodchild, who
in the fatigues of such labours congratulated himself on
attaining a high point of idleness. It was at a little town,
still in Cumberland, that they halted for the night — a very
little town, with the purple and brown moor close upon its
one street ; a curious little ancient market-cross set up in the
midst of it ; and the town itself looking much as if it were
a collection of great stones piled on end by the Druids long
ago, which a few recluse people had since hollowed out for
habitations.

" Is there a doctor here ? " asked Mr. Goodchild, on his

DOCTOR SPEDDIE. 379

knee, of the motherly landlady of the little Inn : stopping
in his examination of Mr. Idlers ankle, with the aid of a
candle.

"Ey, my word !" said the landlady, glancing doubtfully at
the ankle for herself; "there^s Doctor Speddie."

" Is he a good Doctor ? "

"Ey !" said the landlady, "I ca' him so. A' cooms efther
nae doctor that I ken. Mair nor which, a's just THE doctor
heer."

" Do you think he is at home ? "

Her reply was, " Gang awa1, Jock, and bring him.1"

Jock, a white-headed boy, who, under pretence of stirring
up some bay salt in a basin of water for the laving of this
unfortunate ankle, had greatly enjoyed himself for the last
ten minutes in splashing the carpet, set off promptly. A
very few minutes had elapsed when he showed the Doctor in,
by tumbling against the door before him and bursting it
open with his head.

"Gently, Jock, gently," said the Doctor as he advanced
with a quiet step. "Gentlemen, a good evening. I am
sorry that my presence is required here. A slight accident,
I hope ? A slip and a fall ? Yes, yes, yes. Carrock, indeed ?
Hah! Does that pain you, sir? No doubt, it does. It is
the great connecting ligament here, you see, that has been
badly strained. Time and rest, sir! They are often the
recipe in greater cases,"" with a slight sigh, "and often the
recipe in small. I can send a lotion to relieve you, but we
must leave the cure to time and rest."

This he said, holding Idle's foot on his knee between his
two hands, as he sat over against him. He had touched it
tenderly and skilfully in explanation of what he said, and,
when his careful examination was completed, softly returned
it to its former horizontal position on a chair.

He spoke with a little irresolution whenever he began, but
afterwards fluently. He was a tall, thin, large-boned, old
gentleman, with an appearance at first sight of being hard-

380 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

featured ; but, at a second glance, the mild expression of his
face and some particular touches of sweetness and patience
about his mouth, corrected this impression and assigned his
long professional rides, by day and night, in the bleak hill-
weather, as the true cause of that appearance. He stooped
very little, though past seventy and very grey. His dress
was more like that of a clergyman than a country doctor,
being a plain black suit, and a plain white neck-kerchief
tied behind like a band. His black was the worse for wear,
and there were darns in his coat, and his linen was a little
frayed at the hems and edges. He might have been poor —
it was likely enough in that out-of-the-way spot — or he
might have been a little self-forgetful and eccentric. Any
one could have seen directly, that he had neither wife nor
child at home. He had a scholarly air with him, and that
kind of considerate humanity towards others which claimed
a gentle consideration for himself. Mr. Goodchild made this
study of him while he was examining the limb, and as he
laid it down. Mr. Goodchild wishes to add that he considers
it a very good likeness.

It came out in the course of a little conversation, that
Doctor Speddie was acquainted with some friends of Thomas
Idlers, and had, when a young man, passed some years in
Thomas Idlers birthplace on the other side of England.
Certain idle labours, the fruit of Mr. Goodchild's apprentice
ship, also happened to be well known to him. The lazy
travellers were thus placed on a more intimate footing with
the Doctor than the casual circumstances of the meeting
would of themselves have established; and when Doctor
Speddie rose to go home, remarking that he would send his
assistant with the lotion, Francis Goodchild said that was
unnecessary, for, by the Doctor's leave, he would accompany
him, and bring it back. (Having done nothing to fatigue
himself for a full quarter of an hour, Francis began to fear
that he was not in a state of idleness.)

Doctor Speddie politely assented to the proposition of

THE DOCTOR'S ASSISTANT. 381

Francis Goodchild, "as it would give him the pleasure of
enjoying a few more minutes of Mr. Goodchild's society than
he could otherwise have hoped for," and they went out
together into the village street. The rain had nearly ceased,
the clouds had broken before a cool wind from the north-east,
and stars were shining from the peaceful heights beyond
them.

Doctor Speddie's house was the last house in the place.
Beyond it, lay the moor, all dark and lonesome. The wind
moaned in a low, dull, shivering manner round the little
garden, like a houseless creature that knew the winter was
coming. It was exceedingly wild and solitary. "Roses,""
said the Doctor, when Goodchild touched some wet leaves
overhanging the stone porch ; " but they get cut to pieces.1'

The Doctor opened the door with a key he carried, and
led the way into a low but pretty ample hall with rooms on
either side. The door of one of these stood open, and the
Doctor entered it, with a word of welcome to his guest. It,
too, was a low room, half surgery and half parlour, with
shelves of books and bottles against the walls, which were of
a very dark hue. There was a fire in the grate, the night
being damp and chill. Leaning against the chimney-piece
looking down into it, stood the Doctor's Assistant.

A man of a most remarkable appearance. Much older
than Mr. Goodchild had expected, for he was at least two-
and-fifty; but, that was nothing. What was startling in
him was his remarkable paleness. His large black eyes, his
sunken cheeks, his long and heavy iron-grey hair, his wasted
hands, and even the attenuation of his figure, were at first
forgotten in his extraordinary pallor. There was no vestige
of colour in the man. When he turned his face, Francis
Goodchild started as if a stone figure had looked round
at him.

"Mr. Lorn," said the Doctor. "Mr. Goodchild."

The Assistant, in a distraught way — as if he had forgotten
something — as if he had forgotten everything, even to his

382 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

own name and himself — acknowledged the visitor's presence,
and stepped further back into the shadow of the wall behind
him. But, he was so pale that his face stood out in relief
against the dark wall, and really could not be hidden so.

"Mr. Goodchild's friend has met with an accident, Lorn,"
said Doctor Speddie. "We want the lotion for a bad
sprain."

A pause.

"My dear fellow, you are more than usually absent to
night. The lotion for a bad sprain.'1

"Ah! yes! Directly.^

He was evidently relieved to turn away, and to take his
white face and his wild eyes to a table in a recess among
the bottles. But, though he stood there, compounding the
lotion with his back towards them, Goodchild could not, for
many moments, withdraw his gaze from the man. When he
at length did so, he found the Doctor observing him, with
some trouble in his face. "He is absent," explained the
Doctor, in a low voice. "Always absent. Very absent."

"Is he ill?"

" No, not ill."

"Unhappy?"

" I have my suspicions that he was," assented the Doctor,
"once."

Francis Goodchild could not but observe that the Doctor
accompanied these words with a benignant and protecting
glance at their subject, in which there was much of the ex
pression with which an attached father might have looked at
a heavily afflicted son. Yet, that they were not father and
son must have been plain to most eyes. The Assistant, on
the other hand, turning presently to ask the Doctor some
question, looked at him with a wan smile as if he were his
whole reliance and sustainment in life.

It was in vain for the Doctor in his easy-chair, to try to
lead the mind of Mr. Goodchild in the opposite easy-chair,
away from what was before him. Let Mr. Goodchild do

THE DOCTOR'S STORY. 383

what he would to follow the Doctor, his eyes and thoughts
reverted to the Assistant. The Doctor soon perceived it, and,
after falling silent, and musing in a little perplexity, said :

"Lorn!"

"My dear Doctor."

" Would you go to the Inn, and apply that lotion ? You
•will show the best way of applying it, far better than Mr.
Goodchild can."

" With pleasure."

The Assistant took his hat, and passed like a shadow to
the door.

" Lorn ! " said the Doctor, calling after him.

He returned.

" Mr. Goodchild will keep me company till you come home.
Don't hurry. Excuse my calling you back."

" It is not," said the Assistant, with his former smile, " the
first time you have called me back, dear Doctor." With
those words he went away.

" Mr. Goodchild," said Doctor Speddie, in a low voice, and
with his former troubled expression of face, "I have seen
that your attention has been concentrated on my friend."

"He fascinates me. I must apologise to you, but he has
quite bewildered and mastered me."

"I find that a lonely existence and a long secret," said
the Doctor, drawing his chair a little nearer to Mr. Good-
child's, "become in the course of time very heavy. I will
tell you something. You may make what use you will of it,
under fictitious names. I know I may trust you. I am the
more inclined to confidence to-night, through having been
unexpectedly led back, by the current of our conversation
at the Inn, to scenes in my early life. Will you please to
draw a little nearer?"

Mr. Goodchild drew a little nearer, and the Doctor went
on thus : speaking, for the most part, in so cautious a voice,
that the wind, though it was far from high, occasionally got
the better of him.

384 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

When this present nineteenth century was younger by a
good many years than it is now, a certain friend of mine,
named Arthur Holliday, happened to arrive in the town of
Doncaster, exactly in the middle of a race-week, or, in other
words, in the middle of the month of September. He was
one of those reckless, rattle-pated, open-hearted, and open-
mouthed young gentlemen, who possess the gift of familiarity
in its highest perfection, and who scramble carelessly along
the journey of life making friends, as the phrase is, wherever
they go. His father was a rich manufacturer, and had
bought landed property enough in one of the midland
counties to make all the born squires in his neighbourhood
thoroughly envious of him. Arthur was his only son,
possessor in prospect of the great estate and the great
business after his father's death; well supplied with money,
and not too rigidly looked after, during his father's lifetime.
Report, or scandal, whichever you please, said that the old
gentleman had been rather wild in his youthful days, and
that, unlike most parents, he was not disposed to be violently
indignant when he found that his son took after him. This
may be true or not. I myself only knew the elder Mr.
Holliday when he was getting on in years; and then he was
as quiet and as respectable a gentleman as ever I met with.

Well, one September, as I told you, young Arthur comes to
Doncaster, having decided all of a sudden, in his hare-brained
way, that he would go to the races. He did not reach the
town till towards the close of the evening, and he went at
once to see about his dinner and bed at the principal hotel.
Dinner they were ready enough to give him ; but as for a bed,
they laughed when he mentioned it. In the race- week at
Doncaster, it is no uncommon thing for visitors who have not
bespoken apartments, to pass the night in their carriages at
the inn doors. As for the lower sort of strangers, I myself
have often seen them, at that full time, sleeping out on the
doorsteps for want of a covered place to creep under. Rich
as he was, Arthur's chance of getting a night's lodging (seeing

THE RACE-WEEK AT DONCASTER. 385

that he had not written beforehand to secure one) was more
than doubtful. He tried the second hotel, and the third
hotel, and two of the inferior inns after that; and was met
everywhere by the same form of answer. No accommodation
for the night of any sort was left. All the bright golden
sovereigns in his pocket would not buy him a bed at Doncaster
in the race-week.

To a young fellow of Arthur's temperament, the novelty of
being turned away into the street, like a penniless vagabond,
at every house where he asked for a lodging, presented itself
in the light of a new and highly amusing piece of experience.
He went on, with his carpet-bag in his hand, applying for a
bed at every place of entertainment for travellers that he
could find in Doncaster, until he wandered into the outskirts
of the town. By this time, the last glimmer of twilight had
faded out, the moon was rising dimly in a mist, the wind
was getting cold, the clouds were gathering heavily, and there
was every prospect that it was soon going to rain.

The look of the night had rather a lowering effect on
young Holliday's good spirits. He began to contemplate the
houseless situation in which he was placed, from the serious
rather than the humorous point of view; and he looked
about him, for another public-house to inquire at, with some
thing very like downright anxiety in his mind on the subject
of a lodging for the night. The suburban part of the town
towards which he had now strayed was hardly lighted at all,
and he could see nothing of the houses as he passed them,
except that they got progressively smaller and dirtier, the
farther he went. Down the winding road before him shone
the dull gleam of an oil lamp, the one faint, lonely light that
struggled ineffectually with the foggy darkness all round
him. He resolved to go on as far as this lamp, and then,
if it showed him nothing in the shape of an Inn, to return
to the central part of the town and to try if he could not
at least secure a chair to sit down on, through the night, at
one of the principal Hotels.

VOL. ii. 2 c

386 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

As he got near the lamp, he heard voices; and, walk
ing close under it, found that it lighted the entrance to a
narrow court, on the wall of which was painted a long
hand in faded flesh-colour, pointing with a lean forefinger,
to this inscription : —

THE TWO ROBINS.

Arthur turned into the court without hesitation, to see
what The Two Robins could do for him. Four or five men
were standing together round the door of the house which
was at the bottom of the court, facing the entrance from
the street. The men were all listening to one other man,
better dressed than the rest, who was telling his audience
something, in a low voice, in which they were apparently
very much interested.

On entering the passage, Arthur was passed by a stranger
with a knapsack in his hand, who was evidently leaving the
house.

"No," said the traveller with the knapsack, turning round
and addressing himself cheerfully to a fat, sly-looking, bald-
headed man, with a dirty white apron on, who had followed
him down the passage. "No, Mr. Landlord, I am not easily
scared by trifles ; but, I don't mind confessing that I can't
quite stand that"

It occurred to young Holliday, the moment he heard these
words, that the stranger had been asked an exorbitant price
for a bed at The Two Robins; and that he was unable or
unwilling to pay it. The moment his back was turned,
Arthur, comfortably conscious of his own well-filled pockets,
addressed himself in a great hurry, for fear any other benighted
traveller should slip in and forestall him, to the sly-looking
landlord with the dirty apron and the bald head.

"If you have got a bed to let," he said, "and if that
gentleman who has just gone out won't pay your price for
it, I will."

The sly landlord looked hard at Arthur.

A DOUBLE-BEDDED ROOM. 387

"Will you, sir?" he asked, in a meditative, doubtful way.

" Name your price,"" said young Holliday, thinking that the
landlord"^ hesitation sprang from some boorish distrust of
him. Name your price, and 111 give you the money at once
if you like?"

" Are you game for five shillings ? " inquired the landlord,
rubbing his stubbly double chin, and looking up thoughtfully
at the ceiling above him.

Arthur nearly laughed in the man's face; but thinking it
prudent to control himself, offered the five shillings as seriously
as he could. The sly landlord held out his hand, then
suddenly drew it back again.

"You're acting all fair and above-board by me," he said:
"and, before I take your money, I'll do the same by you.
Look here, this is how it stands. You can have a bed all
to yourself for five shillings ; but you can't have more than
a half-share of the room it stands in. Do you see what I
mean, young gentleman ? "

"Of course I do," returned Arthur, a little irritably.
"You mean that it is a double-bedded room, and that one
of the beds is occupied?"

- The landlord nodded his head, and rubbed his double chin
harder than ever. Arthur hesitated, and mechanically moved
back a step or two towards the door. The idea of sleeping
in the same room with a total stranger, did not present an
attractive prospect to him. He felt more than half inclined
to drop his five shillings into his pocket, and to go out into
the street once more.

"Is it yes, or no?" asked the landlord. "Settle it as
quick as you can, because there's lots of people wanting a
bed at Doncaster to-night, besides you."

Arthur looked towards the court, and heard the rain falling
heavily in the street outside. He thought he would ask a
question or two before he rashly decided on leaving the
shelter of The Two Robins.

"What sort of a man is it who has got the other bed?"

388 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

he inquired. " Is he a gentleman ? I mean, is he a quiet,
well-behaved person ? "

"The quietest man I ever came across," said the landlord,
rubbing his fat hands stealthily one over the other. "As
sober as a judge, and as regular as clock-work in his habits.
It hasn't struck nine, not ten minutes ago, and he's in his
bed already. I don't know whether that comes up to your
notion of a quiet man : it goes a long way ahead of mine, I
can tell you."

" Is he asleep, do you think ? " asked Arthur.

"I know he's asleep," returned the landlord. "And
what's more, he's gone off so fast, that I'll warrant you
don't wake him. This way,. sir," said the landlord, speaking
over young Holliday's shoulder, as if he was addressing some
new guest who was approaching the house.

" Here you are," said Arthur, determined to be beforehand
with the stranger, whoever he might be. " I'll take the bed."
And he handed the five shillings to the landlord, who nodded,
dropped the money carelessly into his waistcoat-pocket, and
lighted the candle.

" Come up and see the room," said the host of The Two
Robins, leading the way to the staircase quite briskly,
considering how fat he was.

They mounted to the second-floor of the house. The
landlord half opened a door, fronting the landing, then stopped,
and turned round to Arthur.

" It's a fair bargain, mind, on my side as well as on yours,"
he said. "You give me five shillings, I give you in return
a clean, comfortable bed; and I warrant, beforehand, that
you won't be interfered with, or annoyed in any way, by the
man who sleeps in the same room as you." Saying those
words, he looked hard, for a moment, in young Holliday's
face, and then led the way into the room.

It was larger and cleaner than Arthur had expected it
would be. The two beds stood parallel with each other — a
space of about six feet intervening between them. They

A VERY QUIET SLEEPER. 389

were both of the same medium size, and both had the same
plain white curtains, made to draw, if necessary, all round
them. The occupied bed was the bed nearest the window.
The curtains were all drawn round this, except the half
curtain at the bottom, on the side of the bed farthest from
the window. Arthur saw the feet of the sleeping man
raising the scanty clothes into a sharp little eminence, as if he
was lying flat on his back. He took the candle, and advanced
softly to draw the curtain — stopped half-way, and listened
for a moment — then turned to the landlord.

" He's a very quiet sleeper," said Arthur.

"Yes," said the landlord, "very quiet."

Young Holliday advanced with the candle, and looked in
at the man cautiously.

" How pale he is ! " said Arthur.

"Yes," returned the landlord, "pale enough, isn't he?"

Arthur looked closer at the man. The bedclothes were
drawn up to his chin, and they lay perfectly still over the
region of his chest. Surprised and vaguely startled, as he
noticed this, Arthur stooped down closer over the stranger;
looked at his ashy, parted lips ; listened breathlessly for an
instant; looked again at the strangely still face, and the
motionless lips and chest; and turned round suddenly on the
landlord, with his own cheeks as pale for the moment as the
hollow cheeks of the man on the bed.

"Come here," he whispered, under his breath. "Come
here, for God's sake ! The man's not asleep — he is dead ! "

"You have found that out sooner than I thought you
would," said the landlord, composedly. " Yes, he's dead, sure
enough. He died at five o'clock to-day."

" How did he die ? Who is he ? " asked Arthur, staggered,
for a moment, by the audacious coolness of the answer.

"As to who is he," rejoined the landlord, "I know no
more about him than you do. There are his books and
letters and things, all sealed up .in that brown-paper parcel,
for the Coroner's inquest to open to-morrow or next day.

390 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

He's been here a week, paying his way fairly enough, and
stopping in-doors, for the most part, as if he was ailing.
My girl brought him up his tea at five to-day; and as he
was pouring of it out, he fell down in a faint, or a fit, or
a compound of both, for anything I know. We could not
bring him to — and I said he was dead. And the doctor
couldn't bring him to — and the doctor said he was dead.
And there he is. And the Coroner's inquest's coming as soon
as it can. And that's as much as I know about it."

Arthur held the candle close to the man's lips. The flame
still burnt straight up, as steadily as before. There was a
moment of silence; and the rain pattered drearily through
it against the panes of the window.

" If you haven't got nothing more to say to me," continued
the landlord, "I suppose I may go. You don't expect your
five shillings back, do you ? There's the bed I promised you,
clean and comfortable. There's the man I warranted not to
disturb you, quiet in this world for ever. If you're frightened
to stop alone with him, that's not my look out. I've kept
my part of the bargain, and I mean to keep the money. I'm
not Yorkshire, myself, young gentleman ; but I've lived long
enough in these parts to have my wits sharpened; and I
shouldn't wonder if you found out the way to brighten up
yours, next time you come amongst us." With these words,
the landlord turned towards the door, and laughed to himself
softly, in high satisfaction at his own sharpness.

Startled and shocked as he was, Arthur had by this time
sufficiently recovered himself to feel indignant at the trick
that had been played on him, and at the insolent manner in
which the landlord exulted in it.

"Don't laugh," he said sharply, "till you are quite sure
you have got the laugh against me. You shan't have the
five shillings for nothing, my man. I'll keep the bed."

"Will you?" said the landlord. "Then I wish you a
good night's rest." With that brief farewell, he went out,
and shut the door after him.

ALONE WITH THE DEAD MAN. 391

A good night's rest ! The words had hardly been spoken,
the door had hardly been closed, before Arthur half-repented
the hasty words that had just escaped him. Though not
naturally over-sensitive, and not wanting in courage of the
moral as well as the physical sort, the presence of the dead
man had an instantaneously chilling effect on his mind when
he found himself alone in the room — alone, and bound by
his own rash words to stay there till the next morning. An
older man would have thought nothing of those words, and
would have acted, without reference to them, as his calmer
sense suggested. But Arthur was too young to treat the
ridicule, even of his inferiors, with contempt — too young not
to fear the momentary humiliation of falsifying his own
foolish boast, more than he feared the trial of watching out
the long night in the same chamber with the dead.

" It is but a few hours," he thought to himself, " and I can
get away the first thing in the morning."

He was looking towards the occupied bed as that idea
passed through his mind, and the sharp angular eminence
made in the clothes by the dead man's upturned feet again
caught his eye. He advanced and drew the curtains, pur
posely abstaining, as he did so, from looking at the face of
the corpse, lest he might unnerve himself at the outset by
fastening some ghastly impression of it on his mind. He
drew the curtain very gently, and sighed involuntarily as he
closed it. " Poor fellow," he said, almost as sadly as if he
had known the man. " Ah, poor fellow ! "

He went next to the window. The night was black, and
he could see nothing from it. The rain still pattered heavily
against the glass. He inferred, from hearing it, that the
window was at the back of the house; remembering that
the front was sheltered from the weather by the court and
the buildings over it.

While he was still standing at the window — for even the
dreary rain was a relief, because of the sound it made; a
relief, also, because it moved, and had some faint suggestion,

392 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

in consequence, of life and companionship in it — while he was
standing at the window, and looking vacantly into the black
darkness outside, he heard a distant church-clock strike ten.
Only ten ! How was he to pass the time till the house was
astir the next morning?

Under any other circumstances, he would have gone down
to the public-house parlour, would have called for his grog,
and would have laughed and talked with the company
assembled as familiarly as if he had known them all his life.
But the very thought of whiling away the time in this
manner was distasteful to him. The new situation in which
he was placed seemed to have altered him to himself already.
Thus far, his life had been the common, trifling, prosaic,
surface-life of a prosperous young man, with no troubles to
conquer, and no trials to face. He had lost no relation
whom he loved, no friend whom he treasured. Till this
night, what share he had of the immortal inheritance that
is divided amongst us all, had laid dormant within him.
Till this night, Death and he had not once met, even in
thought.

He took a few turns up and down the room — then stopped.
The noise made by his boots on the poorly carpeted floor,
jarred on his ear. He hesitated a little, and ended by
taking the boots off, and walking backwards and forwards
noiselessly. All desire to sleep or to rest had left him. The
bare thought of lying down on the unoccupied bed instantly
drew the picture on his mind of a dreadful mimicry of the
position of the dead man. Who was he? What was the
story of his past life ? Poor he must have been, or he would
not have stopped at such a place as The Two Robins Inn —
and weakened, probably, by long illness, or he could hardly
have died in the manner in which the landlord had described.
Poor, ill, lonely, — dead in a strange place ; dead, with nobody
but a stranger to pity him. A sad story : truly, on the mere
face of it, a very sad story.

While these thoughts were passing through his mind, he

READING RIDDLES. 393

had stopped insensibly at the window, close to which stood
the foot of the bed with the closed curtains. At first he
looked at it absently ; then he became conscious that his eyes
were fixed on it; and then, a perverse desire took possession
of him to do the very thing which he had resolved not to
do, up to this time — to look at the dead man.

He stretched out his hand towards the curtains ; but checked
himself in the very act of undrawing them, turned his back
sharply on the bed, and walked towards the chimney-piece, to
see what things were placed on it, and to try if he could
keep the dead man out of his mind in that way.

There was a pewter inkstand on the chimney-piece, with
some mildewed remains of ink in the bottle. There were two
coarse china ornaments of the commonest kind; and there
was a square of embossed card, dirty and fly-blown, with a
collection of wretched riddles printed on it, in all sorts of
zig-zag directions, and in variously coloured inks. He took
the card, and went away, to read it, to the table on which
the candle was placed ; sitting down9 with his back resolutely
turned to the curtained bed.

He read the first riddle, the second, the third, all in one
corner of the card — then turned it round impatiently to look
at another. Before he could begin reading the riddles printed
here, the sound of the church-clock stopped him. Eleven.
He had got through an hour of the time, in the room with
the dead man.

Once more he looked at the card. It was not easy to
make out the letters printed on it, in consequence of the
dimness of the light which the landlord had left him — a
common tallow candle, furnished with a pair of heavy old-
fashioned steel snuffers. Up to this time, his mind had been
too much occupied to think of the light. He had left the
wick of the candle unsnuffed, till it had risen higher than
the flame, and had burnt into an odd pent-house shape at
the top, from which morsels of the charred cotton fell off,
from time to time, in little flakes. He took up the snuffers

394 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

now, and trimmed the wick. The light brightened directly,
and the room became less dismal.

Again he turned to the riddles; reading them doggedly
and resolutely, now in one corner of the card, now in
another. All his efforts, however, could not fix his attention
on them. He pursued his occupation mechanically, deriving
no sort of impression from what he was reading. It was as
if a shadow from the curtained bed had got between his
mind and the gaily printed letters — a shadow that nothing
could dispel. At last, he gave up the struggle, and threw
the card from him impatiently, and took to walking softly
up and down the room again.

The dead man, the dead man, the hidden dead man on the
bed! There was the one persistent idea still haunting him.
Hidden ? Was it only the body being there, or was it the
body being there, concealed, that was preying on his mind?
He stopped at the window, with that doubt in him ; once
more listening to the pattering rain, once more looking out
into the black darkness.

Still the dead man ! The darkness forced his mind back
upon itself, and set his memory at work, reviving, with a
painfully-vivid distinctness the momentary impression it had
received from the first sight of the corpse. Before long the'
face seemed to be hovering out in the middle of the darkness,
confronting him through the window, with the paleness whiter,
with the dreadful dull line of light between the imperfectly-
closed eyelids broader than he had seen it — with the parted
lips slowly dropping farther and farther away from each other
— with the features growing larger and moving closer, till they
seemed to fill the window and to silence the rain, and to shut
out the night.

The sound of a voice, shouting below-stairs, woke him
suddenly from the dream of his own distempered fancy.
He recognised it as the voice of the landlord. " Shut up at
twelve, Ben," he heard it say. "I'm off to. bed."

He wiped away the damp that had gathered on his forehead,

THE HOUSE CLOSED FOR THE NIGHT. 395

reasoned with himself for a little while, and resolved to shake
his mind free of the ghastly counterfeit which still clung
to it, by forcing himself to confront, if it was only for a
moment, the solemn reality. Without allowing himself an
instant to hesitate, he parted the curtains at the foot of the
bed, and looked through.

There was a sad, peaceful, white face, with the awful
mystery of stillness on it, laid back upon the pillow. No
stir, no change there ! He only looked at it for a moment
before he closed the curtains again — but that moment
steadied him, calmed him, restored him — mind and body — to
himself.

He returned to his old occupation of walking up and down
the room; persevering in it, this time, till the clock struck
again. Twelve.

As the sound of the clock-bell died away, it was succeeded
by the confused noise, down -stairs, of the drinkers in the tap
room leaving the house. The next sound, after an interval
of silence, was caused by the barring of the door, and the
closing of the shutters, at the back of the Inn. Then the
silence followed again, and was disturbed no more.

He was alone now — absolutely, utterly, alone with the
dead man, till the next morning.

The wick of the candle wanted trimming again. He took
up the snuffers — but paused suddenly on the very point of
using them, and looked attentively at the candle — then back,
over his shoulder, at the curtained bed — then again at the
candle* It had been lighted, for the first time, to show him
the way up-stairs, and three parts of it, at least, were already
consumed. In another hour it would be burnt out. In
another hour — unless he called at once to the man who had
shut up the Inn, for a fresh candle — he would be left in the
dark.

Strongly as his mind had been affected since he had entered
his room, his unreasonable dread of encountering ridicule, and
of exposing his courage to suspicion, had not altogether lost

396 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

its influence over him, even yet. He lingered irresolutely by
the table, waiting till he could prevail on himself to open the
door, and call, from the landing, to the man who had shut
up the Inn. In his present hesitating frame of mind, it was
a kind of relief to gain a few moments only by engaging in
the trifling occupation of snuffing the candle. His hand
trembled a little, and the snuffers were heavy and awkward
to use. When he closed them on the wick, he closed them a
hair's breadth too low. In an instant the candle was out, and
the room was plunged in pitch darkness.

The one impression which the absence of light immediately
produced on his mind, was distrust of the curtained bed — dis
trust which shaped itself into no distinct idea, but which was
powerful enough, in its very vagueness, to bind him down to
his chair, to make his heart beat fast, and to set him listening
intently. No sound stirred in the room but the familiar
sound of the rain against the window, louder and sharper
now than he had heard it yet.

Still the vague distrust, the inexpressible dread possessed
him, and kept him to his chair. He had put his carpet-bag
on the table, when he first entered the room ; and he now
took the key from his pocket, reached out his hand softly,
opened the bag, and groped in it for his travelling writing-
case, in which he knew that there was a small store of
matches/ When he had got one of the matches, he waited
before he struck it on the coarse wooden table, and listened
intently again, without knowing why. Still there was no
sound in the room but the steady, ceaseless, rattling sound
of the rain.

He lighted the candle again, without another moment
of delay; and, on the instant of its burning up, the first
object in the room that his eyes sought ,for was the cur
tained bed.

Just before the light had been put out, he had looked in
that direction, and had seen no change, no disarrangement
of any sort, in the folds of the closely-drawn curtains.

THE HOUSE AROUSED. 397

When he looked at the bed, now, he saw, hanging over
the side of it, a long white hand.

It lay perfectly motionless, midway on the side of the bed,
where the curtain at the head and the curtain at the foot
met. Nothing more was visible. The clinging curtains hid
everything but the long white hand.

He stood looking at it unable to stir, unable to call out ;
feeling nothing, knowing nothing, every faculty he possessed
gathered up and lost in the one seeing faculty. How long
that first panic held him he never could tell afterwards. It
might have been only for a moment ; it might have been for
many minutes together. How he got to the bed — whether
he ran to it headlong, or whether he approached it slowly —
how he wrought himself up to unclose the curtains and look
in, he never has remembered, and never will remember to his
dying day. It is enough that he did go to the bed, and
that he did look inside the curtains.

The man had moved. One of his arms was outside the
clothes ; his face was turned a little on the pillow ; his eye
lids were wide open. Changed as to position, and as to one
of the features, the face was, otherwise, fearfully and wonder
fully unaltered. The dead paleness and the dead quiet were
on it still.

One glance showed Arthur this — one glance, before he flew
breathlessly to the door, and alarmed the house.

The man whom the landlord called " Ben," was the first to
appear on the stairs. In three words, Arthur told him what
had happened, and sent him for the nearest doctor.

I, who tell you this story, was then staying with a medical
friend of mine, in practice at Doncaster, taking care of his
patients for him, during his absence in London ; and I, for
the time being, was the nearest doctor. They had sent for
me from the Inn, when the stranger was taken ill in the
afternoon ; but I was not at home, and medical assistance was
sought for elsewhere. When the man from The Two Robins
rang the night-bell, I was just thinking of going to bed.

398 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

Naturally enough, I did not believe a word of his story about
"a dead man who had come to life again.1" However, I put
on my hat, armed myself with one or two bottles of restora
tive medicine, and ran to the Inn, expecting to find nothing
more remarkable, when I got there, than a patient in a fit.

My surprise at finding that the man had spoken the literal
truth was almost, if not quite, equalled by my astonishment
at finding myself face to face with Arthur Holliday as soon
as I entered the bedroom. It was no time then for giving
or seeking explanations. We just shook hands amazedly;
and then I ordered everybody but Arthur out of the room,
and hurried to the man on the bed.

The kitchen fire had not been long out. There was plenty
of hot water in the boiler, and plenty of flannel to be had.
With these, with my medicines, and with such help as Arthur
could render under my direction, I dragged the man, literally,
out of the jaws of death. In less than an hour from the
time when I had been called in, he was alive and talking in
the bed on which he had been laid out to wait for the
Coroner's inquest.

You will naturally ask me, what had been the matter with
him; and I might treat you, in reply, to a long theory,
plentifully sprinkled with, what the children call, hard words.
I prefer telling you that, in this case, cause and effect could
not be satisfactorily joined together by any theory whatever.
There are mysteries in life, and the condition of it, which
human science has not fathomed yet; and I candidly confess
to you, that, in bringing that man back to existence, I was,
morally speaking, groping hap-hazard in the dark. I know
(from the testimony of the doctor who attended him in the
afternoon) that the vital machinery, so far as its action is
appreciable by our senses, had, in this case, unquestionably
stopped; and I am equally certain (seeing that I recovered
him) that the vital principle was not extinct. When I add,
that he had suffered from a long and complicated illness, and
that his whole nervous system was utterly deranged, I have

COME TO LIFE AGAIN. 399

told you all I really know of the physical condition of my
dead-alive patient at The Two Robins Inn.

When he " came to," as the phrase goes, he was a startling
object to look at, with his colourless face, his sunken cheeks,
his wild black eyes, and his long black hair. The first
question he asked me about himself, when he could speak,
made me suspect that I had been called in to a man in my
own profession. I mentioned to him my surmise; and he
told me that I was right.

He said he had come last from Paris, where he had been
attached to a hospital. That he had lately returned to
England, on his way to Edinburgh, to continue his studies ;
that he had been taken ill on the journey ; and that he had
stopped to rest and recover himself at Doncaster. He did
not add a word about his name, or who he was: and, of
course, I did not question him on the subject. All I inquired,
when he ceased speaking, was what branch of the profession
he intended to follow.

"Any branch," he said, bitterly, "which will put bread
into the mouth of a poor man."

At this, Arthur, who had been hitherto watching him
in silent curiosity, burst out impetuously in his usual good-
humoured way : —

" My dear fellow ! " (everybody was " my dear fellow " with
Arthur) "now you have come to life again, don't begin by
being downhearted about your prospects. Ill answer for it,
I can help you to some capital thing in the medical line — or,
if I can't, I know my father can."

The medical student looked at him steadily.

"Thank you," he said, coldly. Then added, "May I ask
who your father is ? "

"He's well enough known all about this part of the
country," replied Arthur. "He is a great manufacturer,
and his name is Holliday."

My hand was on the man's wrist during this brief conversa
tion. The instant the name of Holliday was pronounced I

400 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

felt the pulse under my fingers flutter, stop, go on suddenly
with a bound, and beat afterwards, for a minute or two, at
the fever rate.

"How did you come here?" asked the stranger, quickly,
excitably, passionately almost.

Arthur related briefly what had happened from the time
of his first taking the bed at the inn.

"I am indebted to Mr. Holliday's son then for the help
that has saved my life," said the medical student, speaking
to himself, with a singular sarcasm in his voice. "Come
here ! "

He held out, as he spoke, his long, white, bony, right hand.

"With all my heart," said Arthur, taking the hand
cordially. "I may confess it now," he continued, laughing.
" Upon my honour, you almost frightened me out of my wits."

The stranger did not seem to listen. His wild black eyes
were fixed with a look of eager interest on Arthur's face,
and his long bony fingers kept tight hold of Arthur's hand.
Young Holliday, on his side, returned the gaze, amazed and
puzzled by the medical student's odd language and manners.
The two faces were close together ; I looked at them ; and, to
my amazement, I was suddenly impressed by the sense of a
likeness between them — not in features, or complexion, but
solely in expression. It must have been a strong likeness, or
I should certainly not have found it out, for I am naturally
slow at detecting resemblances between faces.

"You have saved my life," said the strange man, still
looking hard in Arthur's face, still holding tightly by his
hand. " If you had been my own brother, you could not
have done more for me than that."

He laid a singularly strong emphasis on those three words
"my own brother," and a change passed over his face as he
pronounced them, — a change that no language of mine is
competent to describe.

" I hope I have not done being of service to you yet," said
Arthur. " I'll speak to my father, as soon as I get home."

NOBODY'S SON. 401

" You seem to be fond and proud of your father,*" said the
medical student. "I suppose, in return, he is fond and
proud of you ? "

" Of course, he is ! " answered Arthur, laughing. " Is there
anything wonderful in that ? Isn't your father fond "

The stranger suddenly dropped young Holliday's hand,
and turned his face away.

" I beg your pardon," said Arthur. " I hope I have not
unintentionally pained you. I hope you have not lost your
father.1'

"I can't well lose what I have never had," retorted the
medical student, with a harsh, mocking laugh.

" What you have never had ! "

The strange man suddenly caught Arthur's hand again,
suddenly looked once more hard in his face.

"Yes," he said, with a repetition of the bitter laugh.
"You have brought a poor devil back into the world, who
has no business there. Do I astonish you ? Well ! I have
a fancy of my own for telling you what men in my situation
generally keep a secret. I have no name and no father.
The merciful law of Society tells me I am Nobody's Son !
Ask your father if he will be my father too, and help me on
in life with the family name."

Arthur looked at me, more puzzled than ever. I signed
to him to say nothing, and then laid my fingers again on
the man's wrist. No ! In spite of the extraordinary speech
that he had just made, he was not, as I had been disposed
to suspect, beginning to get light-headed. His pulse, by this
time, had fallen back to a quiet, slow beat, and his skin was
moist and cool. Not a symptom of fever or agitation about
him.

Finding that neither of us answered him, he turned to me,
and began talking of the extraordinary nature of his case,
and asking my advice about the future course of medical
treatment to which he ought to subject himself. I said the
matter required careful thinking over, and suggested that I

VOL. IL 2 D

402 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

should submit certain prescriptions to him the next morning.
He told me to write them at once, as he would, most
likely, be leaving Doncaster, in the morning, before I was up.
It was quite useless to represent to him the folly and danger
of such a proceeding as this. He heard me politely and
patiently, but held to his resolution, without offering any
reasons or any explanations, and repeated to me, that if I
wished to give him a chance of seeing my prescription, I
must write it at once. Hearing this, Arthur volunteered the
loan of a travelling writing-case, which, he said, he had with
him ; and, bringing it to the bed, shook the note-paper out
of the pocket of the case forthwith in his usual careless way.
With the paper, there fell out on the counterpane of the bed
a small packet of sticking-plaster, and a little water-colour
drawing of a landscape.

The medical student took up the drawing and looked at it.
His eye fell on some initials neatly written, in cypher, in one
corner. He started and trembled ; his pale face grew whiter
than ever; his wild black eyes turned on Arthur, and looked
through and through him.

"A pretty drawing," he said in a remarkably quiet tone
of voice.

" Ah ! and done by such a pretty girl," said Arthur. " Oh,
such a pretty girl ! I wish it was not a landscape — I wish
it was a portrait of her!"

" You admire her very much ? "

Arthur, half in jest, half in earnest, kissed his hand for
answer.

"Love at first sight!" he said, putting the drawing away
again. "But the course of it doesn't run smooth. It's the
old story. She's monopolised as usual. Trammelled by a
rash engagement to some poor man who is never likely to
get money enough to marry her. It was lucky I heard of it
in time, or I should certainly have risked a declaration when
she gave me that drawing. Here, doctor ! Here is pen, ink,
and paper all ready for you."

A STRANGE REQUEST. 403

" When she gave you that drawing ? Gave it. Gave it."
He repeated the words slowly to himself, and suddenly closed
his eyes. A momentary distortion passed across his face,
and I saw one of his hands clutch up the bedclothes and
squeeze them hard. I thought he was going to be ill again,
and begged that there might be no more talking. He opened
his eyes when I spoke, fixed them once more searchingly on
Arthur, and said, slowly and distinctly, "You like her, and
she likes you. The poor man may die out of your way.
Who can tell that she may not give you herself as well as
her drawing, after all?""

Before young Holliday could answer, he turned to me,
and said in a whisper, "Now for the prescription."" From
that time, though he spoke to Arthur again, he never looked
at him more.

When I had written the prescription, he examined it,
approved of it, and then astonished us both by abruptly
wishing us good night. I offered to sit up with him, and he
shook his head. Arthur offered to sit up with him, and he
said, shortly, with his face turned away, "No." I insisted
on having somebody left to watch him. He gave way when
he found I was determined, and said he would accept the
services of the waiter at the Inn.

" Thank you, both,11 he said, as we rose to go. " I have
one last favour to ask — not of you, doctor, for I leave you
to exercise your professional discretion — but of Mr. Holliday.11
His eyes, while he spoke, still rested steadily on me, and
never once turned towards Arthur. " I beg that Mr. Holliday
will not mention to any one — least of all to his father— the
events that have occurred, and the words that have passed,
in this room. I entreat him to bury me in his memory,
as, but for him, I might have been buried in my grave.
I cannot give my reasons for making this strange request.
I can only implore him to grant it."

His voice faltered for the first time, and he hid his face
on the pillow. Arthur, completely bewildered, gave the

404 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

required pledge. I took young Holliday away with me, im
mediately afterwards, to the house of my friend ; determining
to go back to the Inn, and to see the medical student again
before he had left in the morning.

I returned to the Inn at eight o'clock, purposely abstaining
from waking Arthur, who was sleeping off the past night's
excitement on one of my friend's sofas. A suspicion had
occurred to me as soon as I was alone in my bedroom, which
made me resolve that Holliday and the stranger whose life
he had saved should not meet again, if I could prevent it. I
have already alluded to certain reports, or scandals, which I
knew of, relating to the early life of Arthur's father. While
I was thinking, in my bed, of what had passed at the Inn —
of the change in the student's pulse when he heard the name
of Holliday; of the resemblance of expression that I had
discovered between his face and Arthur's; of the emphasis
he had laid on those three words, " my own brother ; " and of
his incomprehensible acknowledgment of his own illegitimacy
— while I was thinking of these things, the reports I have
mentioned suddenly flew into my mind, and linked themselves
fast to the chain of my previous reflections. Something
within me whispered, "It is best that those two young men
should not meet again." I felt it before I slept ; I felt it
when I woke ; and I went, as I told you, alone to the Inn
the next morning.

I had missed my only opportunity of seeing my nameless
patient again. He had been gone nearly an hour when I
inquired for him.

I have now told you everything that I know for certain,
in relation to the man whom I brought back to life in the
double-bedded room of the Inn at Doncaster. What I have
next to add is matter for inference and surmise, and is not,
strictly speaking, matter of fact.

I have to tell you, first, that the medical student turned
out to be strangely and unaccountably right in assuming it

LOOKING OVER OLD LETTERS. 405

as more than probable that Arthur Holliday would marry
the young lady who had given him the water-colour drawing
of the landscape. That marriage took place a little more
than a year after the events occurred which I have just been
relating. The young couple came to live in the neighbourhood
in which I was then established in practice. I was present
at the wedding, and was rather surprised to find that Arthur
was singularly reserved with me, both before and after his
marriage, on the subject of the young lady's prior engagement.
He only referred to it once, when we were alone, merely
telling me, on that occasion, that his wife had done all that
honour and duty required of her in the matter, and that the
engagement had been broken off with the full approval of her
parents. I never heard more from him than this. For three
years he and his wife lived together happily. At the expira
tion of that time, the symptoms of a serious illness first
declared themselves in Mrs. Arthur Holliday. It turned out
to be a long, lingering, hopeless malady. I attended her
throughout. We had been great friends when she was well,
and we became more attached to each other than ever when
she was ill. I had many long and interesting conversations
with her in the intervals when she suffered least. The result
of one of these conversations I may briefly relate, leaving you
to draw any inferences from it that you please.

The interview to which I refer, occurred shortly before her
death. I called one evening, as usual, and found her alone,
with a look in her eyes which told me that she had been
crying. She only informed me at first, that she had been
depressed in spirits ; but, by little and little, she became more
communicative, and confessed to me that she had been
looking over some old letters, which had been addressed to
her, before she had seen Arthur, by a man to whom she had
been engaged to be married. I asked her how the engagement
came to be broken off. She replied that it had not been
broken off, but that it had died out in a very mysterious way.
The person to whom she was engaged — her first love, she

406 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

called him — was very poor, and there was no immediate
prospect of their being married. He followed my profession,
and went abroad to study. They had corresponded regularly,
until the time when, as she believed, he had returned to
England. From that period she heard no more of him.
He was of a fretful, sensitive temperament ; and she feared
that she might have inadvertently done or said something
that offended him. However that might be, he had never
written to her again ; and, after waiting a year, she had
married Arthur. I asked when the first estrangement had
begun, and found that the time at which she ceased to hear
anything of her first lover exactly corresponded with the time
at which I had been called in to my mysterious patient at
The Two Robins Inn.

A fortnight after that conversation, she died. In course
of time, Arthur married again. Of late years, he has lived
principally in London, and I have seen little or nothing
of him.

I have many years to pass over before I can approach to
anything like a conclusion of this fragmentary narrative. And
even when that later period is reached, the little that I have
to say will not occupy your attention for more than a few
minutes. Between six and seven years ago, the gentleman
to whom I introduced you in this room, came to me, with
good professional recommendations, to fill the position of my
assistant. We met, not like strangers, but like friends — the
only difference between us being, that I was very much
surprised to see him, and that he did not appear to be at
all surprised to see me. If he was my son or my brother, I
believe he could not be fonder of me than he is ; but he has
never volunteered any confidences since he has been here, on
the subject of his past life. I saw something that was familiar
to me in his face when we first met; and yet it was also
something that suggested the idea of change. I had a notion
once that my patient at the Inn might be a natural son
of Mr. Holliday's; I had another idea that he might also

CONCLUSION OF THE NARRATIVE. 407

have been the man who was engaged to Arthur's first wife;
and I have a third idea, still clinging to me, that Mr. Xiorn
is the only man in England who could really enlighten me,
if he chose, on both those doubtful points. His hair is not
black, now, and his eyes are dimmer than the piercing eyes
that I remember, but, for all that, he is very like the nameless
medical student of my young days — very like him. And,
sometimes, when I come home late at night, and find him
asleep, and wake him, he looks, in coming to, wonderfully
like the stranger at Doncaster, as he raised himself in the
bed on that memorable night!

The Doctor paused. Mr. Goodchild, who had been following
every word that fell from his lips up to this time, leaned
forward eagerly to ask a question. Before he could say a
word, the latch of the door was raised, without any warning
sound of footsteps in the passage outside. A long, white,
bony hand appeared through the opening, gently pushing the
door, which was prevented from working freely on its hinges
by a fold in the carpet under it.

"That hand! Look at that hand, Doctor!" said Mr.
Goodchild, touching him.

At the same moment, the Doctor looked at Mr. Goodchild,
and whispered to him, significantly :

"Hush! he has come back."

CHAPTER III.

THE Cumberland Doctor's mention of Doncaster Races,
inspired Mr. Francis Goodchild with the idea of going down
to Doncaster to see the races. Doncaster being a good way
off, and quite out of the way of the Idle Apprentices (if
anything could be out of their way, who had no way), it
necessarily followed that Francis perceived Doncaster in the
race-week to be, of all possible idlenesses, the particular
idleness that would completely satisfy him.

Thomas, with an enforced idleness grafted on the natural
and voluntary power of his disposition, was not of this mind ;
objecting that a man compelled to lie on his back on a floor,
a sofa, a table, a line of chairs, or anything he could get to
lie upon, was not in racing condition, and that he desired
nothing better than to lie where he was, enjoying himself in
looking at the flies on the ceiling. But, Francis Goodchild,
who had been walking round his companion in a circuit of
twelve miles for two days, and had begun to doubt whether
it was reserved for him ever to be idle in his life, not only
overpowered this objection, but even converted Thomas Idle
to a scheme he formed (another idle inspiration), of conveying
the said Thomas to the sea-coast, and putting his injured leg
under a stream of salt-water.

Plunging into this happy conception headforemost, Mr.
Goodchild immediately referred to the county-map, and
ardently discovered that the most delicious piece of sea-coast
to be found within the limits of England, Ireland, Scotland,
Wales, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands, all summed

WITHIN SNIFF OF THE SEA. 409

up together, was Allonby on the coast of Cumberland. There
was the coast of Scotland opposite to Allonby, said Mr.
Goodchild with enthusiasm ; there was a fine Scottish moun
tain on that Scottish coast; there were Scottish lights to be
seen shining across the glorious Channel, and at Allonby
itself there was every idle luxury (no doubt) that a watering-
place could offer to the heart of idle man. Moreover, said
Mr. Goodchild, with his finger on the map, this exquisite
retreat was approached by a coach-road, from a railway-
station called Aspatria — a name, in a manner, suggestive of
the departed glories of Greece, associated with one of the
most engaging and most famous of Greek women. On this
point, Mr. Goodchild continued at intervals to breathe a vein
of classic fancy and eloquence exceedingly irksome to Mr. Idle,
until it appeared that the honest English pronunciation of
that Cumberland country shortened Aspatria into "Spatter."
After this supplementary discovery, Mr. Goodchild said no
more about it.

By way of Spatter, the crippled Idle was carried, hoisted,
pushed, poked, and packed, into and out of carriages, into
and out of beds, into and out of tavern resting-places, until
he was brought at length within sniff of the sea. And now,
behold the apprentices gallantly riding into Allonby in a
one-horse fly, bent upon staying in that peaceful marine valley
until the turbulent Doncaster time shall come round upon
the wheel, in its turn among what are in sporting registers
called the " Fixtures " for the month.

" Do you see Allonby ! " asked Thomas Idle.

" I don't see it yet,'1 said Francis, looking out of window.

"It must be there,'1 said Thomas Idle.

"I don't see it," returned Francis.

" It must be there," repeated Thomas Idle, fretfully.

" Lord bless me ! " exclaimed Francis, drawing in his head,
" I suppose this is it ! "

"A watering-place," retorted Thomas Idle, with the par
donable sharpness of an invalid, "can't be five gentlemen

410 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

in straw hats, on a form on one side of a door, and four
ladies in hats and falls, on a form on another side of a door,
and three geese in a dirty little brook before them, and a
boy's legs hanging over a bridge (with a boy's body I suppose
on the other side of the parapet), and a donkey running
away. , What are you talking about ? "

" Allonby, gentlemen,*" said the most comfortable of land
ladies, as she opened one door of the carriage ; " Allonby,
gentlemen,1' said the most attentive of landlords, as he opened
the other.

Thomas Idle yielded his arm to the ready Goodchild, and
descended from the vehicle, Thomas, now just able to grope
his way along, in a doubled-up condition, with the aid of two
thick sticks, was no bad embodiment of Commodore Trunnion,
or of one of those many gallant Admirals of the stage, who
have all ample fortunes, gout, thick sticks, tempers, wards,
and nephews. With this distinguished naval appearance upon
him, Thomas made a crab-like progress up a clean little bulk-
headed staircase, into a clean little bulk-headed room, where
he slowly deposited himself on a sofa, with a stick on either
hand of him, looking exceedingly grim.

" Francis," said Thomas Idle, " what do you think of this
place?"

"I think," returned Mr. Goodchild, in a glowing way, "it
is everything we expected."

" Hah ! " said Thomas Idle.

" There is the sea," cried Mr. Goodchild, pointing out of
window; "and here," pointing to the lunch on the table,

"are shrimps. Let us " here Mr. Goodchild looked out

of window, as if in search of something, and looked in again,
— " let us eat 'em."

The shrimps eaten and the dinner ordered, Mr. Goodchild
went out to survey the watering-place. As Chorus of the
Drama, without whom Thomas could make nothing of the
scenery, he by-and-by returned, to have the following report
screwed out of him.

•MR. GOODCHIUTS REPORT. 411

In brief, it was the most delightful place ever seen.

"But," Thomas Idle asked, "where is it?"

" It's what you may call generally up and down the beach,
here and there," said Mr. Goodchild, with a twist of his hand.

"Proceed," said Thomas Idle.

It was, Mr. Goodchild went on to say, in cross-examination,
what you might call a primitive place. Large ? No, it was
not large. Who ever expected it would be large? Shape?
What a question to ask I No shape. What sort of a street ?
Why, no street. Shops? Yes, of course (quite indignant).
How many ? Who ever went into a place to count the shops ?
Ever so many. Six ? Perhaps. A library ? Why, of course
(indignant again). Good collection of books ? Most likely
— couldn't say — had seen nothing in it but a pair of scales.
Any reading-room? Of course, there was a reading-room.
Where ? Where ! why, over there. Where was over there ?
Why, there ! Let Mr. Idle carry his eye to that bit of waste
ground above high-water mark, where the rank grass and
loose stones were most in a litter ; and he would see a sort of
a long ruinous brick loft, next door to a ruinous brick out
house, which loft had a ladder outside, to get up by. That
was the reading-room, and if Mr. Idle didn't like the idea of
a weaver's shuttle throbbing under a reading-room, that was
his look out.' He was not to dictate, Mr. Goodchild supposed
(indignant again), to the company.

" By-the-by," Thomas Idle observed ; " the company ? "

Well ! (Mr. Goodchild went on to report) very nice company.
Where were they? Why, there they were. Mr. Idle could
see the tops of their hats, he supposed. What ? Those nine
straw hats again, five gentlemen's and four ladies'? Yes, to
be sure. Mr. Goodchild hoped the company were not to be
expected to wear helmets, to please Mr. Idle.

Beginning to recover his temper at about this point, Mr.
Goodchild voluntarily reported that if you wanted to be
primitive, you could be primitive here, and that if you wanted
to be idle, you could be idle here. In the course of some

LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

days, he added, that there were three fishing-boats, but no
rigging, and that there were plenty of fishermen who never
fished. That they got their living entirely by looking at
the ocean. What nourishment they looked out of it to
support their strength, he couldn't say ; but, he supposed it
was some sort of Iodine. The place was full of their children,
who were always upside down on the public buildings (two
small bridges over the brook), and always hurting themselves
or one another, so that their wailings made more continual
noise in the air than could have been got in a busy place.
The houses people lodged in, were nowhere in particular,
and were in capital accordance with the beach; being all
more or less cracked and damaged as its shells were, and all
empty — as its shells were. Among them, was an edifice of
destitute appearance, with a number of wall-eyed windows in
it, looking desperately out to Scotland as if for help, which
said it was a Bazaar (and it ought to know), and where you
might buy anything you wanted — supposing what you wanted,
was a little camp-stool or a child's wheelbarrow. The brook
crawled or stopped between the houses and the sea, and the
donkey was always running away, and when he got into the
brook he was pelted out with stones, which never hit him,
and which always hit some of the children who were upside
down on the public buildings, and made their lamentations
louder. This donkey was the public excitement of Allonby,
and was probably supported at the public expense.

The foregoing descriptions, delivered in separate items,
on separate days of adventurous discovery, Mr. Goodchild
severally wound up, by looking out of window, looking in
again, and saying, "But there is the sea, and here are the
shrimps — let us eat 'em."

There were fine sunsets at Allonby when the low flat beach,
with its pools of water and its dry patches, changed into long
bars of silver and gold in various states of burnishing, and
there were fine views — on fine days — of the Scottish coast.
But, when it rained at Allonby, Allonby thrown back upon

WALKS TO MARYPORT. 413

its ragged self, became a kind of place which the donkey
seemed to have found out, and to have his highly sagacious
reasons for wishing to bolt from. Thomas Idle observed, too,
that Mr. Goodchild, with a noble show of disinterestedness,
became every day more ready to walk to Maryport and back,
for letters ; and suspicions began to harbour in the mind of
Thomas, that his friend deceived him, and that Maryport
was a preferable place.

Therefore, Thomas said to Francis on a day when they had
looked at the sea and eaten the shrimps, " My mind misgives
me, Goodchild, that you go to Maryport, like the boy in the
story-book, to ask it to be idle with you."

" Judge, then,11 returned Francis, adopting the style of the
story-book, " with what success. I go to a region which is a
bit of water-side Bristol, with a slice of Wapping, a seasoning
of Wolverhampton, and a garnish of Portsmouth, and I say,
'Will you come and be idle with me?' And it answers,
'No; for I am a great deal too vaporous, and a great deal
too rusty, and a great deal too muddy, and a great deal too
dirty altogether ; and I have ships to load, and pitch and tar
to boil, and iron to hammer, and steam to get up, and smoke
to make, and stone to quarry, and fifty other disagreeable
things to do, and I can't be idle with you.' Then I go into
jagged up-hill and down-hill streets, where I am in the
pastrycook's shop at one moment, and next moment in savage
fastnesses of moor and morass, beyond the confines of civilisa
tion, and I say to those murky and black-dusty streets, * Will
you come and be idle with me ? ' To which they reply, ' No,
we can't, indeed, for we haven't the spirits, and we are
startled by the echo of your feet on the sharp pavement, and
we have so many goods in our shop-windows which nobody
wants, and we have so much to do for a limited public which
never comes to us to be done for, that we are altogether out
of sorts and can't enjoy ourselves with any one.' So I go to
the Post-office, and knock at the shutter, and I say to the
Post-master, 'Will you come and be idle with me?' To

414 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

which he rejoins, 'No, I really can't, for I live, as you may
see, in such a very little Post-office* and pass my life behind
such a very little shutter, that my hand, when I put it out,
is as the hand of a giant crammed through the window of a
dwarfs house at a fair, and I am a mere Post-office anchorite
in a cell much too small for him, and I can't get out, and
I can't get in, and I have no space to be idle in, even if I
would.' So, the boy," said Mr. Goodchild, concluding the
tale, "comes back with the letters after all, and lives happy
never afterwards."

But it may, not unreasonably, be asked — while Francis
Goodchild was wandering hither and thither, storing his mind
with perpetual observation of men and things, and sincerely
believing himself to be the laziest creature in existence all
the time — how did Thomas Idle, crippled and confined to
the house, contrive to get through the hours of the day ?

Prone on the sofa, Thomas made no attempt to get through
the hours, but passively allowed the hours to get through
him. Where other men in his situation would have read
books and improved their minds, Thomas slept and rested his
body. Where other men would have pondered anxiously
over their future prospects, Thomas dreamed lazily of his
past life. The one solitary thing he did, which most other
people would have done in his place, was to resolve on making
certain alterations and improvements in his mode of existence,
as soon as the effects of the misfortune that had overtaken
him had all passed away. Remembering that the current
of his life had hitherto oozed along in one smooth stream
of laziness, occasionally troubled on the surface by a slight
passing ripple of industry, his present ideas on the subject of
self-reform, inclined him — not as the reader may be disposed
to imagine, to project schemes for a new existence of enter
prise and exertion — but, on the contrary, to resolve that he
would never, if he could possibly help it, be active or indus
trious again, throughout the whole of his future career.

It is due to Mr. Idle to relate that his mind sauntered

MR. IDLE REVIEWS HIS PAST LIFE. 415

towards this peculiar conclusion on distinct and logically-
producible grounds. After reviewing, quite at his ease, and
with many needful intervals of repose, the generally-placid
spectacle of his past existence, he arrived at the discovery
that all the great disasters which had tried his patience and
equanimity in early life, had been caused by his having
allowed himself to be deluded into imitating some pernicious
example of activity and industry that had been set him by
others. The trials to which he here alludes were three in
number, and may be thus reckoned up : First, the disaster of
being an unpopular and a thrashed boy at school ; secondly,
the disaster of falling seriously ill; thirdly, the disaster of
becoming acquainted with a great bore.

The first disaster occurred after Thomas had been an idle
and a popular boy at school, for some happy years. One
Christmas-time, he was stimulated by the evil example of a
companion, whom he had always trusted and liked, to be
untrue to himself, and to try for a prize at the ensuing
half-yearly examination. He did try, and he got a prize —
how, he did not distinctly know at the moment, and cannot
remember now. No sooner, however, had the book — Moral
Hints to the Young on the Value of Time — been placed in
his hands, than the first troubles of his life began. The idle
boys deserted him, as a traitor to their cause. The industrious
boys avoided him, as a dangerous interloper; one of their
number, who had always won the prize on previous occasions,
expressing just resentment at the invasion of his privileges
by calling Thomas into the play-ground, and then and there
administering to him the first sound and genuine thrashing
that he had ever received in his life. Unpopular from that
moment, as a beaten boy, who belonged to no side and was
rejected by all parties, young Idle soon lost caste with his
masters, as he had previously lost caste with his schoolfellows.
He had forfeited the comfortable reputation of being the one
lazy member of the youthful community whom it was quite
hopeless to punish. Never again did he hear the headmaster

416 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

say reproachfully to an industrious boy who had committed
a fault, " I might have expected this in Thomas Idle, but it
is inexcusable, sir, in you, who know better." Never more,
after winning that fatal prize, did he escape the retributive
imposition, or the avenging birch. From that time, the
masters made him work, and the boys would not let him
play. From that time his social position steadily declined,
and his life at school became a perpetual burden to him.

So, again, with the second disaster. While Thomas was
lazy, he was a model of health. His first attempt at active
exertion and his first suffering from severe illness are connected
together by the intimate relations of cause and effect. Shortly
after leaving school, he accompanied a party of friends to
a cricket-field, in his natural and appropriate character of
spectator only. On the ground it was discovered that the
players fell short of the required number, and facile Thomas
was persuaded to assist in making up the complement. At
a certain appointed time, he was roused from peaceful slumber
in a dry ditch, and placed before three wickets with a bat in
his hand. Opposite to him, behind three more wickets, stood
one of his bosom friends, filling the situation (as he was
informed) of bowler. No words can describe Mr. Idlers
horror and amazement, when he saw this young man — on
ordinary occasions, the meekest and mildest of human beings
— suddenly contract his eyebrows, compress his lips, assume
the aspect of an infuriated savage, run back a few steps,
then run forward, and, without the slightest previous provoca
tion, hurl a detestably hard ball with all his might straight
at Thomas's legs. Stimulated to preternatural activity of
body and sharpness of eye by the instinct of self-preservation,
Mr. Idle contrived, by jumping deftly aside at the right
moment, and by using his bat (ridiculously narrow as it was
for the purpose) as a shield, to preserve his life and limbs
from the dastardly attack that had been made on both, to
leave the full force of the deadly missile to strike his wicket
instead of his leg ; and to end the innings, so far as his side

A SERIES OF DISASTERS. 417

was concerned, by being immediately bowled out. Grateful
for his escape, he was about to return to the dry ditch, when
he was peremptorily stopped, and told that the other side
was " going in," and that he was expected to " field." His
conception of the whole art and mystery of "fielding," may
be summed up in the three words of serious advice which he
privately administered to himself on that trying occasion —
avoid the ball. Fortified by this sound and salutary principle,
he took his own course, impervious alike to ridicule and abuse.
Whenever the ball came near him, he thought of his shins,
and got out of the way immediately. " Catch it ! " " Stop
it ! " " Pitch it up ! " were cries that passed by him like the
idle wind that he regarded not. He ducked under it, he
jumped over it, he whisked himself away from it on either
side. Never once, through the whole innings did he and the
ball come together on anything approaching to intimate
terms. The unnatural activity of body which was necessarily
called forth for the accomplishment of this result threw
Thomas Idle, for the first time in his life, into a perspiration.
The perspiration, in consequence of his want of practice in
the management of that particular result of bodily activity,
was suddenly checked ; the inevitable chill succeeded ; and
that, in its turn, was followed by a fever. For the first time
since his birth, Mr. Idle found himself confined to his bed
for many weeks together, wasted and worn by a long illness,
of which his own disastrous muscular exertion had been the
sole first cause.

The third occasion on which Thomas found reason to
reproach himself bitterly for the mistake of having attempted
to be industrious, was connected with his choice of a calling
in life. Having no interest in the Church, he appropriately
selected the next best profession for a lazy man in England
— the Bar. Although the Benchers of the Inns of Court
have lately abandoned their good old principles, and oblige
their students to make some show of studying, in Mr. Idle's
time no such innovation as this existed. Young men who

VOL. II. 2 E

418 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

aspired to the honourable title of barrister were, very properly,
not asked to learn anything of the law, but were merely
required to eat a certain number of dinners at the table of
their Hall, and to pay a certain sum of money ; and were
called to the Bar as soon as they could prove that they had
sufficiently complied with these extremely sensible regulations.
Never did Thomas move more harmoniously in concert with
his elders and betters than when he was qualifying himself
for admission among the barristers of his native country.
Never did he feel more deeply what real laziness was in all
the serene majesty of its nature, than on the memorable
day when he was called to the Bar, after having carefully
abstained from opening his law-books during his period of
probation, except to fall asleep over them. How he could
ever again have become industrious, even for the shortest
period, after that great reward conferred upon his idleness,
quite passes his comprehension. The kind Benchers did
everything they could to show him the folly of exerting
himself. They wrote out his probationary exercise for him,
and never expected him even to take the trouble of reading
it through when it was written. They invited him, with
seven other choice spirits as lazy as himself, to come and be
called to the Bar, while they were sitting over their wine
and fruit after dinner. They put his oaths of allegiance,
and his dreadful official denunciations of the Pope and the
Pretender, so gently into his mouth, that he hardly knew
how the words got there. They wheeled all their chairs
softly round from the table, and sat surveying the young
barristers with their backs to their bottles, rather than stand
up, or adjourn to hear the exercises read. And when Mr.
Idle and the seven unlabouring neophytes, ranged in order,
as a class, with their backs considerately placed against a
screen, had begun, in rotation, to read the exercises which
they had not written, even then, each Bencher, true to the
great lazy principle of the whole proceeding, stopped each
neophyte before he had stammered through his first line,

CALAMITY OF KNOWING A BORE. 419

and bowed to him, and told him politely that he was a
barrister from that moment. This was all the ceremony. It
was followed by a social supper, and by the presentation, in
accordance with ancient custom, of a pound of sweetmeats
and a bottle of Madeira, offered in the way of needful refresh
ment, by each grateful neophyte to each beneficent Bencher.
It may seem inconceivable that Thomas should ever have
forgotten the great do-nothing principle instilled by such a
ceremony as this; but it is, nevertheless, true, that certain
designing students of industrious habits found him out, took
advantage of his easy humour, persuaded him that it was
discreditable to be a barrister and to know nothing whatever
about the law, and lured him, by the force of their own evil
example, into a conveyancer's chambers, to make up for lost
time, and to qualify himself for practice at the Bar. After
a fortnight of self-delusion, the curtain fell from his eyes ;
he resumed his natural character, and shut up his books.
But the retribution which had hitherto always followed his
little casual errors of industry followed them still. He could
get away from the conveyancer's chambers, but he could not
get away from one of the pupils, who had taken a fancy to
him, — a tall, serious, raw-boned, hard-working, disputatious
pupil, with ideas of his own about reforming the Law of
Real Property, who has been the scourge of Mr. Idle's
existence ever since the fatal day when he fell into the mistake
of attempting to study the law. Before that time his friends
were all sociable idlers like himself. Since that time the
burden of bearing with a hard-working young man has
become part of his lot in life. Go where he will now, he can
never feel certain that the raw-boned pupil is not affectionately
waiting for him round a corner, to tell him a little more
about the Law of Real Property. Suffer as he may under
the infliction, he can never complain, for he must always
remember, with unavailing regret, that he has his own
thoughtless industry to thank for first exposing him to the
great social calamity of knowing a bore.

420 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

These events of his past life, with the significant results
that they brought about, pass drowsily through Thomas Idlers
memory, while he lies alone on the sofa at Allonby and
elsewhere, dreaming away the time which his fellow-apprentice
gets through so actively out of doors. Remembering the
lesson of laziness which his past disasters teach, and bearing
in mind also the fact that he is crippled in one leg because
he exerted himself to go up a mountain, when he ought to
have known that his proper course of conduct was to stop
at the bottom of it, he holds now, and will for the future
firmly continue to hold, by his new resolution never to be
industrious again, on any pretence whatever, for the rest of his
life. The physical results of his accident have been related
in a previous chapter. The moral results now stand on
record; and, with the enumeration of these, that part of
the present narrative which is occupied by the Episode of
The Sprained Ankle may now perhaps be considered, in all
its aspects, as finished and complete.

" How do you propose that we get through this present
afternoon and evening?" demanded Thomas Idle, after two
or three hours of the foregoing reflections at Allonby.

Mr. Goodchild faltered, looked out of window, looked in
again, and said, as he had so often said before, "There is
the sea, and here are the shrimps ; — let us eat 'em ! "

But, the wise donkey was at that moment in the act of
bolting: not with the irresolution of his previous efforts
which had been wanting in sustained force of chai*acter, but
with real vigour of purpose : shaking the dust off his mane
and hind-feet at AUonby, and tearing away from it, as if he
had nobly made up his mind that he never would be taken
alive. At sight of this inspiring spectacle, which was visible
from his sofa, Thomas Idle stretched his neck and dwelt
upon it rapturously.

"Francis Goodchild," he then said, turning to his com
panion with a solemn air, "this is a delightful little Inn,
excellently kept by the most comfortable of landladies

FOLLOWING THE DONKEY.

and the most attentive of landlords, but the donkey's

right!"

The words, " There is the sea, and here are the " again

trembled on the lips of Goodchild, unaccompanied however
by any sound.

"Let us instantly pack the portmanteaus,"" said Thomas
Idle, " pay the bill, and order a fly out, with instructions to
the driver to follow the donkey ! "

Mr. Goodchild, who had only wanted encouragement to
disclose the real state of his feelings, and who had been pining
beneath his weary secret, now burst into tears, and confessed
that he thought another day in the place would be the death
of him.

So, the two idle apprentices followed the donkey until the
night was far advanced. Whether he was recaptured by the
town-council, or is bolting at this hour through the United
Kingdom, they know not. They hope he may be still bolting ;
if so, their best wishes are with him.

It entered Mr. Idle's head, on the borders of Cumberland,
that there could be no idler place to stay at, except by snatches
of a few minutes each, than a railway station. "An
intermediate station on a line — a junction — anything of that
sort," Thomas suggested. Mr. Goodchild approved of the
idea as eccentric, and they journeyed on and on, until they
came to such a station where there was an Inn.

" Here," said Thomas, " we may be luxuriously lazy ; other
people will travel for us, as it were, and we shall laugh at
their folly."

It was a Junction-Station, where the wooden razors before
mentioned shaved the air very often, and where the sharp
electric-telegraph bell was in a very restless condition. All
manner of cross-lines of rails came zig-zagging into it, like
a Congress of iron vipers ; and, a little way out of it, a
pointsman in an elevated signal-box was constantly going
through the motions of drawing immense quantities of beer
at a public -house bar. In one direction, confused perspectives

422 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

of embankments and arches were to be seen from the platform ;
in the other, the rails soon disentangled themselves into two
tracks, and shot away under a bridge, and curved round a
corner. Sidings were there, in which empty luggage-vans
and cattle-boxes often butted against each other as if they
couldn't agree; and warehouses were there, in which great
quantities of goods seemed to have taken the veil (of the
consistency of tarpaulin), and to have retired from the world
without any hope of getting back to it. Refreshment-rooms
were there ; one, for the hungry and thirsty Iron Locomotives
where their coke and water were ready, and of good quality,
for they were dangerous to play tricks with; the other, for
the hungry and thirsty human Locomotives, who might take
what they could get, and whose chief consolation was provided
in the form of three terrific urns or vases of white metal,
containing nothing, each forming a breastwork for a defiant
and apparently much-injured woman.

Established at this Station, Mr. Thomas Idle and Mr.
Francis Goodchild resolved to enjoy it. But, its contrasts
were very violent, and there was also an infection in it.

First, as to its contrasts. They were only two, but they
were Lethargy and Madness. The Station was either totally
unconscious, or wildly raving. By day, in its unconscious
state, it looked as if no life could* come to it, — as if it were
all rust, dust, and ashes — as if the last train for ever, had
gone without issuing any Return-Tickets — as if the last
Engine had uttered its last shriek and burst. One awkward
shave of the air from the wooden razor, and everything
changed. Tight office-doors flew open, panels yielded, books,
newspapers, travelling-caps and wrappers broke out of brick
walls, money chinked, conveyances oppressed by nightmares of
luggage came careering into the yard, porters started up from
secret places, ditto the much-injured women, the shining bell,
who lived in a little tray on stilts by himself, flew into a
man's hand and clamoured violently. The pointsman aloft
in the signal-box made the motions of drawing, with some

LETHARGY AND MADNESS. 423

difficulty, hogsheads of beer. Down Train ! More beer !
Up Train ! More beer. Cross Junction Train ! More t)eer !
Cattle Train ! More beer. Goods Train ! Simmering,
whistling, trembling, rumbling, thundering. Trains on the
whole confusion of intersecting rails, crossing one another,
bumping one another, hissing one another, backing to go
forward, tearing into distance to come close. People frantic.
Exiles seeking restoration to their native carriages, and
banished to remoter climes. More beer and more bell.
Then, in a minute, the Station relapsed into stupor as the
stoker of the Cattle Train, the last to depart, went gliding
out of it, wiping the long nose of his oil-can with a dirty
pocket-handkerchief.

By night, in its unconscious state, the Station was not so
much as visible. Something in the air, like an enterprising
chemises established in business on one of the boughs of
Jack's beanstalk, was all that could be discerned of it under
the stars. In a moment it would break out, a constellation
of gas. In another moment, twenty rival chemists, on twenty
rival beanstalks, came into existence. Then, the Furies
would be seen, waving their lurid torches up and down the
confused perspectives of embankments and arches — would be
heard, too, wailing and shrieking. Then, the Station would be
full of palpitating trains, as in the day ; with the heightening
difference that they were not so clearly seen as in the day,
whereas the Station walls, starting forward under the gas,
like a hippopotamus's eyes, dazzled the human locomotives
with the sauce-bottle, the cheap music, the bedstead, the
distorted range of buildings where the patent safes are made,
the gentleman in the rain with the registered umbrella, the
lady returning from the ball with the registered respirator,
and all their other embellishments. And now, the human
locomotives, creased as to their countenances and purblind
as to their eyes, would swarm forth in a heap, addressing
themselves to the mysterious urns and the much-injured
women ; while the iron locomotives, dripping fire and water,

LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

shed their steam about plentifully, making the dull oxen in
their cages, with heads depressed, and foam hanging from their
mouths as their red looks glanced fearfully at the surrounding
terrors, seem as though they had been drinking at half-frozen
waters and were hung with icicles. Through the same steam
would be caught glimpses of their fellow-travellers, the sheep,
getting their white kid faces together, away from the bars,
and stuffing the interstices with trembling wool. Also, down
among the wheels, of the man with the sledge-hammer,
ringing the axles of the fast night-train; against whom the
oxen have a misgiving that he is the man with the pole-axe
who is to come by-and-by, and so the nearest of them try to
get back, and get a purchase for a thrust at him through
the bars. Suddenly, the bell would ring, the steam would
stop with one hiss and a yell, the chemists on the beanstalks
would be busy, the avenging Furies would bestir themselves,
the fast night-train would melt from eye and ear, the other
trains going their ways more slowly would be heard faintly
rattling in the distance like old-fashioned watches running
down, the sauce-bottle and cheap music retired from view,
even the bedstead went to bed, and there was no such
visible thing as the Station to vex the cool wind in its
blowing, or perhaps the autumn lightning, as it found out
the iron rails.

The infection of the Station was this : — When it was in
its raving state, the Apprentices found it impossible to be
there, without labouring under the delusion that they were
in a hurry. To Mr. Goodchild, whose ideas of idleness were
so imperfect, this was no unpleasant hallucination, and
accordingly that gentleman went through great exertions in
yielding to it, and running up and down the platform
jostling everybody, under the impression that he had a highly
important mission somewhere, and had not a moment to lose.
But, to Thomas Idle, this contagion was so very unacceptable
an incident of the situation, that he struck on the fourth
day, and requested to be moved.

A FINE OLD HOUSE. 425

" This place fills me with a dreadful sensation," said Thomas,
" of having something to do. Remove me, Francis.*"

" Where would you like to go next ? " was the question of
the ever-engaging Goodchild.

" I have heard there is a good old Inn at Lancaster, established
in a fine old house : an Inn where they give you Bride-cake
every day after dinner," said Thomas Idle. " Let us eat Bride
cake without the trouble of being married, or of knowing
anybody in that ridiculous dilemma.1'

Mr. Goodchild, with a lover's sigh, assented. They departed
from the Station in a violent hurry (for which, it is unnecessary
to observe, there was not the least occasion), and were delivered
at the fine old house at Lancaster, on the same night.

It is Mr. Goodchild's opinion, that if a visitor on his arrival
at Lancaster could be accommodated with a pole which would
push the opposite side of the street some yards farther off,
it would be better for all parties. Protesting against being
required to live in a trench, and obliged to speculate all day
upon what the people can possibly be doing within a mysterious
opposite window, which is a shop- window to look at, but not
a shop-window in respect of its offering nothing for sale and
declining to give any account whatever of itself, Mr. Good-
child concedes Lancaster to be a pleasant place. A place
dropped in the midst of a charming landscape, a place with a
fine ancient fragment of castle, a place of lovely walks, a place
possessing staid old houses richly fitted with old Honduras
mahogany, which has grown so dark with time that it seems
to have got something of a retrospective mirror-quality into
itself, and to show the visitor, in the depth of its grain,
through all its polish, the hue of the wretched slaves who
groaned long ago under old Lancaster merchants. And
Mr. Goodchild adds that the stones of Lancaster do some
times whisper, even yet, of rich men passed away — upon whose
great prosperity some of these old doorways frowned sullen
in the brightest weather — that their slave-gain turned to
curses, as the Arabian Wizard's money turned to leaves, and

LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

that no good ever came of it, even unto the third and fourth
generations, until it was wasted and gone.

It was a gallant sight to behold, the Sunday procession of
the Lancaster elders to Church — all in black, and looking
fearfully like a funeral without the Body — under the escort
of Three Beadles.

"Think," said Francis, as he stood at the Inn window,
admiring, "of being taken to the sacred edifice by three
Beadles ! I have, in my early time, been taken out of it by
one Beadle ; but, to be taken into it by three, O Thomas,
is a distinction I shall never enjoy I1'

CHAPTER IV.

WHEN Mr. Goodchild had looked out of the Lancaster Inn
window for two hours on end, with great perseverance, he
began to entertain a misgiving that he was growing industrious.
He therefore set himself next, to explore the country from
the tops of all the steep hills in the neighbourhood.

He came back at dinner-time, red and glowing, to tell
Thomas Idle what he had seen. Thomas, on his back reading,
listened with great composure, and asked him whether he
really had gone up those hills, and bothered himself with
those views, and walked all those miles ?

"Because I want to know," added Thomas, "what you
would say of it, if you were obliged to do it ? "

" It would be different, then," said Francis. " It would be
work, then ; now, it's play."

" Play ! " replied Thomas Idle, utterly repudiating the reply.
" Play ! Here is a man goes systematically tearing himself
to pieces, and putting himself through an incessant course of
training, as if he were always under articles to fight a match
for the champion's belt, and he calls it Play! Play!"
exclaimed Thomas Idle, scornfully contemplating his one boot
in the air. " You can't play. You don't know what it is.
You make work of everything."

The bright Goodchild amiably smiled.

" So you do," said Thomas. " I mean it. To me you are
an absolutely terrible fellow. You do nothing like another
man. Where another fellow would fall into a footbath of

428 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

action or emotion, you fall into a mine. Where any other
fellow would be a painted butterfly, you are a fiery dragon.
Where another man would stake a sixpence, you stake your
existence. If you were to go up in a balloon, you would
make for Heaven ; and if you were to dive into the depths of
the earth, nothing short of the other place would content
you. What a fellow you are, Francis ! "

The cheerful Goodchild laughed.

"It's all very well to laugh, but I wonder you don't feel
it to be serious," said Idle. "A man who can do nothing
by halves appears to me to be a fearful man.""

"Tom, Tom," returned Goodchild, "if I can do nothing
by halves, and be nothing by halves, it's pretty clear that
you must take me as a wrhole, and make the best of me."

With this philosophical rejoinder, the airy Goodchild
clapped Mr. Idle on the shoulder in a final manner, and
they sat down to dinner.

" By-the-by," said Goodchild, " I have been over a lunatic
asylum too, since I have been out."

"He has been," exclaimed Thomas Idle, casting up his
eyes, " over a lunatic asylum ! Not content with being as
great an Ass as Captain Barclay in the pedestrian way, he
makes a Lunacy Commissioner of himself — for nothing ! "

"An immense place," said Goodchild, "admirable offices,
very good arrangements, very good attendants; altogether a
remarkable place."

"And what did you see there?" asked Mr. Idle, adapting
Hamlet's advice to the occasion, and assuming the virtue of
interest, though he had it not.

"The usual thing," said Francis Goodchild, with a sigh.
" Long groves of blighted men-and-women-trees ; interminable
avenues of hopeless faces; numbers, without the slightest
power of really combining for any earthly purpose ; a society
of human creatures who have nothing in common but that
they have all lost the power of being humanly social with
one another."

THE MADMAN. 429

"Take a glass of wine with me," said Thomas Idle, "and
let us be social."

" In one gallery, Tom," pursued Francis Goodchild, " which
looked to me about the length of the Long Walk at Windsor,
more or less "

" Probably less," observed Thomas Idle.

" In one gallery, which was otherwise clear of patients (for
they were all out), there was a poor little dark-chinned,
meagre man, with a perplexed brow and a pensive face,
stooping low over the matting on the floor, and picking out
with his thumb and forefinger the course of its fibres. The
afternoon sun was slanting in at the large end-window, and
there were cross patches of light and shade all down the
vista, made by the unseen windows and the open doors of
the little sleeping-cells on either side. In about the centre
of the perspective, under an arch, regardless of the pleasant
weather, regardless of the solitude, regardless of approaching
footsteps, was the poor little dark-chinned, meagre man,
poring over the matting. 'What are you doing there?'
said my conductor, when we came to him. He looked up,
and pointed to the matting. 'I wouldn't do that, I think,'
said my conductor, kindly ; ' if I were you, I would go and
read, or I would lie down if I felt tired; but I wouldn't do
that.' The patient considered a moment, and vacantly
answered, 'No, sir, I won't; I'll — I'll go and read,' and so
he lamely shuffled away into one of the little rooms. I
turned my head before we had gone many paces. He had
already come out again, and was again poring over the
matting, and tracking out its fibres with his thumb and
forefinger. I stopped to look at him, and it came into my
mind, that probably the course of those fibres as they plaited
in and out, over and under, was the only course of things in
the whole wide world that it was left to him to understand
— that his darkening intellect had narrowed down to the
small cleft of light which showed him, 'This piece was
twisted this way, went in here, passed under, came out

430 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

there, was carried on away here to the right where I now
put my finger on it, and in this progress of events, the
thing was made and came to be here.' Then, I wondered
whether he looked into the matting, next, to see if it could
show him anything of the process through which Tie came to
be there, so strangely poring over it. Then, I thought how
all of us, GOD help us ! in our different ways are poring over
our bits of matting, blindly enough, and what confusions
and mysteries we make in the pattern. I had a sadder
fellow-feeling with the little dark-chinned, meagre man, by
that time, and I came away."

Mr. Idle diverting the conversation to grouse, custards,
and bride-cake, Mr. Goodchild followed in the same direction.
The bride-cake was as bilious and indigestible as if a real
Bride had cut it, and the dinner it completed was an
admirable performance.

The house was a genuine old house of a very quaint
description, teeming with old carvings, and beams, and
panels, and having an excellent old staircase, with a gallery
or upper staircase, cut off from it by a curious fence- work of
old oak, or of the old Honduras Mahogany wood. It was,
and is, and will be, for many a long year to come, a
remarkably picturesque house; and a certain grave mystery
lurking in the depth of the old mahogany panels, as if they
were so many deep pools of dark water — such, indeed, as
they had been much among when they were trees — gave it
a very mysterious character after nightfall.

When Mr. Goodchild and Mr. Idle had first alighted at
the door, and stepped into the sombre handsome old hall,
they had been received by half-a-dozen noiseless old men in
black, all dressed exactly alike, who glided up the stairs
with the obliging landlord and waiter — but without appear
ing to get into their way, or to mind whether they did or
no — and who had filed off to the right and left on the old
staircase, as the guests entered their sitting-room. It was
then broad, bright day. But, Mr. Goodchild had said, when

THE SIX OLD MEN. 431

their door was shut, "Who on earth are those old men?"
And afterwards, both on going out and coming in, he had
noticed that there were no old men to be seen.

Neither, had the old men, or any one of the old men,
reappeared since. The two friends had passed a night in
the house, but had seen nothing more of the old men. Mr.
Goodchild, in rambling about it, had looked along passages,
and glanced in at doorways, but had encountered no old
men ; neither did it appear that any old men were, by any
member of the establishment, missed or expected.

Another odd circumstance impressed itself on their atten
tion. It was, that the door of their sitting-room was never
left untouched for a quarter of an hour. It was opened
with hesitation, opened with confidence, opened a little way,
opened a good way, — always clapped-to again without a
word of explanation. They were reading, they were writing,
they were eating, they were drinking, they were talking,
they were dozing; the door was always opened at an unex
pected moment, and they looked towards it, and it was
clapped-to again, and nobody was to be seen. When this
had happened fifty times or so, Mr. Goodchild had said to
his companion, jestingly: "I begin to think, Tom, there
was something wrong with those six old men."

Night had come again, and they had been writing for two
or three hours : writing, in short, a portion of the lazy notes
from which these lazy sheets are taken. They had left off
writing, and glasses were on the table between them. The
house was closed and quiet. Around the head of Thomas
Idle, as he lay upon his sofa, hovered light wreaths of
fragrant smoke. The temples of Francis Goodchild, as he
leaned back in his chair, with his two hands clasped behind
his head, and his legs crossed, were similarly decorated.

They had been discussing several idle subjects of specula
tion, not omitting the strange old men, and were still so
occupied, when Mr. Goodchild abruptly changed his attitude
to wind up his watch. They were just becoming drowsy

432 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

enough to be stopped in their talk by any such slight check.
Thomas Idle, who was speaking at the moment, paused and
said, "How goes it?"

" One," said Goodchild.

As if he had ordered One old man, and the order were
promptly executed (truly, all orders were so, in that excellent
hotel), the door opened, and One old man stood there.

He did not come in, but stood with the door in his hand.

" One of the six, Tom, at last ! " said Mr. Goodchild, in a
surprised whisper. — " Sir, your pleasure ? "

" Sir, your pleasure ? " said the One old man.

"I didn't ring."

"The bell did," said the One old man.

He said BELL, in a deep strong way, that would have
expressed the church Bell.

"I had the pleasure, I believe, of seeing you, yesterday?"
said Goodchild.

"I cannot undertake to say for certain," was the grim
reply of the One old man.

" I think you saw me ? Did you not ? "

" Saw you ? " said the old man. " O yes, I saw you. But,
I see many who never see me."

A chilled, slow, earthy, fixed old man. A cadaverous old
man of measured speech. An old man who seemed as unable
to wink, as if his eyelids had been nailed to his forehead.
An old man whose eyes — two spots of fire — had no more
motion than if they had been connected with the back of his
skull by screws driven through it, and rivetted and bolted
outside, among his grey hair.

The night had turned so cold, to Mr. Goodchild's sensa
tions, that he shivered. He remarked lightly, and half
apologetically, " I think somebody is walking over my grave."

" No," said the weird old man, " there is no one there."

Mr. Goodchild looked at Idle, but Idle lay with his head
enwreathed in smoke.

"No one there?" said Goodchild.

THE ONE OLD MAN. 433

"There is no one at your grave, I assure you," said the
old man.

He had come in and shut the door, and he now sat down.
He did not bend himself to sit, as other people do, but
seemed to sink bolt upright, as if in water, until the chair
stopped him.

"My friend, Mr. Idle," said Goodchild, extremely anxious
to introduce a third person into the conversation.

"I am," said the old man, without looking at him, "at
Mr. Idle's service."

"If you are an old inhabitant of this place," Francis
Goodchild resumed :

"Yes."

" Perhaps you can decide a point my friend and I were in
doubt upon, this morning. They hang condemned criminals
at the Castle, I believe?"

"/ believe so," said the old man.

"Are their faces turned towards that noble prospect?"

" Your face is turned," replied the old man, " to the Castle
wall. When you are tied up, you see its stones expanding
and contracting violently, and a similar expansion and con
traction seem to take place in your own head and breast.
Then, there is a rush of fire and an earthquake, and the
Castle springs into the air, and you tumble down a precipice."

His cravat appeared to trouble him. He put his hand to
his throat, and moved his neck from side to side. He was
an old man of a swollen character of face, and his nose was
immoveably hitched up on one side, as if by a little hook
inserted in that nostril. Mr. Goodchild felt exceedingly
uncomfortable, and began to think the night was hot, and
not cold.

"A strong description, sir," he observed.

"A strong sensation," the old man rejoined.

Again, Mr. Goodchild looked to Mr. Thomas Idle; but
Thomas lay on his back with his face attentively turned
towards the One old man, and made no sign. At this time

VOL. IT. 2 F

434 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

Mr. Goodchild believed that he saw threads of fire stretch
from the old man's eyes to his own, and there attach them
selves. (Mr. Goodchild writes the present account of his
experience, and, with the utmost solemnity, protests that he
had the strongest sensation upon him of being forced to look
at the old man along those two fiery films, from that
moment.)

" I must tell it to you," said the old man, with a ghastly
and a stony stare.

"What?" asked Francis Goodchild.

" You know where it took place. Yonder ! "

Whether he pointed to the room above, or to the room
below, or to any room in that old house, or to a room in
some other old house in that old town, Mr. Goodchild was
not, nor is, nor ever can be, sure. He was confused by the
circumstance that the right forefinger of the One old man
seemed to dip itself in one of the threads of fire, light itself,
and make a fiery start in the air, as it pointed somewhere.
Having pointed somewhere, it went out.

"You know she was a Bride," said the old man.

" I know they still send up Bride-cake," Mr. Goodchild
faltered. "This is a very oppressive air."

"She was a Bride," said the old man. "She was a fair,
flaxen-haired, large-eyed girl, who had no character, no
purpose. A weak, credulous, incapable, helpless nothing.
Not like her mother. No, no. It was her father whose
character she reflected.

"Her mother had taken care to secure everything to her
self, for her own life, when the father of this girl (a child at
that time) died — of sheer helplessness; no other disorder —
and then He renewed the acquaintance that had once sub
sisted between the mother and Him. He had been put
aside for the flaxen-haired, large-eyed man (or nonentity)
with Money. He could overlook that for Money. He wanted
compensation in Money.

"So, he returned to the side of that woman the mother,

COMPENSATION IN MONEY. 435

made love to her again, danced attendance on her, and sub
mitted himself to her whims. She wreaked upon him every
whim she had, or could invent. He bore it. And the more
he bore, the more he wanted compensation in Money, and
the more he was resolved to have it.

" But, lo ! Before he got it, she cheated him. In one of
her imperious states, she froze, and never thawed again. She
put her hands to her head one night, uttered a cry, stiffened,
lay in that attitude certain hours, and died. And he had
got no compensation from her in Money, yet. Blight and
Murrain on her ! Not a penny.

"He had hated her throughout that second pursuit, and
had longed for retaliation on her. He now counterfeited her
signature to an instrument, leaving all she had to leave, to
her daughter — ten years old then — to whom the property
passed absolutely, and appointing himself the daughters
Guardian. When He slid it under the pillow of the bed on
which she lay, He bent down in the deaf ear of Death, and
whispered : ' Mistress Pride, I have determined a long time
that, dead or alive, you must make me compensation in
Money."*

" So, now there were only two left. Which two were, He,
and the fair flaxen-haired, large-eyed foolish daughter, who
afterwards became the Bride.

"He put her to school. In a secret, dark, oppressive,
ancient house, he put her to school with a watchful and un
scrupulous woman. 'My worthy lady,' he said, 'here is a
mind to be formed; will you help me to form it?1 She
accepted the trust. For which she, too, wanted compensation
in Money, and had it.

"The girl was formed in the fear of him, and in the con
viction, that there was no escape from him. She was taught,
from the first, to regard him as her future husband — the man
who must marry her — the destiny that overshadowed her —
the appointed certainty that could never be evaded. The
poor fool was soft white wax in their hands, and took the

436 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

impression that they put upon her. It hardened with
time. It became a part of herself. Inseparable from her
self, and only to be torn away from her, by tearing life
away from her.

"Eleven years she had lived in the dark house and its
gloomy garden. He was jealous of the very light and air
getting to her, and they kept her close. He stopped the
wide chimneys, shaded the little windows, left the strong-
stemmed ivy to wander where it would over the house-front,
the moss to accumulate on the un trimmed fruit-trees in the
red-walled garden, the weeds to over-run its green and yellow
walks. He surrounded her with images of sorrow and desola
tion. He caused her to be filled with fears of the place and
of the stories that were told of it, and then on pretext of
correcting them, to be left in it in solitude, or made to shrink
about it in the dark. When her mind was most depressed and
fullest of terrors, then, he would come out of one of the
hiding-places from which he overlooked her, and present
himself as her sole resource.

"Thus, by being from her childhood the one embodiment
her life presented to her of power to coerce and power to
relieve, power to bind and power to loose, the ascendency
over her weakness was secured. She was twenty-one years
and twenty-one days old, when he brought her home to the
gloomy house, his half-witted, frightened, and submissive Bride
of three weeks.

"He had dismissed the governess by that time — what he
had left to do, he could best do alone — and they came back,
upon a rainy night, to the scene of her long preparation.
She turned to him upon the threshold, as the rain was drip
ping from the porch, and said :

" ' O sir, it is the Death-watch ticking for me ! *"

" « Well ! ' he answered. « And if it were ? '

" 4 O sir ! ' she returned to him, ' look kindly on me, and
be merciful to me ! I beg your pardon. I will do anything
you wish, if you will only forgive me ! '

A SUBMISSIVE BRIDE. 437

" That had become the poor fool's constant song : ' I beg
your pardon/ and ' Forgive me ! '

" She was not worth hating ; he felt nothing but contempt
for her. But, she had long been in the way, and he had
long been weary, and the work was near its end, and had to
be worked out.

" ' You fool,' he said. ' Go up the stairs ! '

" She obeyed very quickly, murmuring, < 1 will do anything
you wish ! ' When he came into the Bride's Chamber, having
been a little retarded by the heavy fastenings of the great
door (for they were alone in the house, and he had arranged
that the people who attended on them should come and go
in the day), he found her withdrawn to the furthest corner,
and there standing pressed against the paneling as if she
would have shrunk through it : her flaxen hair all wild about
her face, and her large eyes staring at him in vague terror.

"'What are you afraid of? Come and sit down by me.'

"'I will do anything you wish. I beg your pardon, sir.
Forgive me !' Her monotonous tune as usual.

" ' Ellen, here is a writing that you must write out to-morrow,
in your own hand. You may as well be seen by others, busily
engaged upon it. When you have written it all fairly, and
corrected all mistakes, call in any two people there may be
about the house, and sign your name to it before them.
Then, put it in your bosom to keep it safe, and when I sit
here again to-morrow night, give it to me.'

"'I will do it all, with the greatest care. I will do
anything you wish.'

"'Don't shake and tremble, then.'

"'I will try my utmost not to do it — if you will only
forgive me! '

"Next day, she sat down at her desk, and did as she
had been toid. He often passed in and out of the room,
to observe her, and always saw her slowly and laboriously
writing : repeating to herself the words she copied, in appear
ance quite mechanically, and without caring or endeavouring

438 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

to comprehend them, so that she did her task. He saw her
follow the directions she had received, in all particulars; and
at night, when they were alone again in the same Bride's
Chamber, and he drew his chair to the hearth, she timidly
approached him from her distant seat, took the paper from
her bosom, and gave it into his hand.

" It secured all her possessions to him, in the event of her
death. He put her before him, face to face, that he might
look at her steadily; and he asked her, in so many plain
words, neither fewer nor more, did she know that ?

"There were spots of ink upon the bosom of her white
dress, and they made her face look whiter and her eyes look
larger as she nodded her head. There were spots of ink
upon the hand with which she stood before him, nervously
plaiting and folding her white skirts.

" He took her by the arm, and looked her, yet more
closely and steadily, in the face. ' Now, die ! I have done
with you.'

" She shrunk, and uttered a low, suppressed cry.

" ' I am not going to kill you. I will not endanger my
life for yours. Die ! '

"He sat before her in the gloomy Bride's Chamber, day
after day, night after night, looking the word at her when
he did not utter it. As often as her large unmeaning eyes
were raised from the hands in which she rocked her head,
to the stern figure, sitting with crossed arms and knitted
forehead, in the chair, they read in it, ' Die ! ' When she
dropped asleep in exhaustion, she was called back to shuddering
consciousness, by the whisper, ' Die ! ' When she fell upon
her old entreaty to be pardoned, she was answered, 6 Die ! '
When she had out-watched and out-suffered the long night,
and the rising sun flamed into the sombre room, she heard
it hailed with, ' Another day and not dead ? — Die ! '

" Shut up in the deserted mansion, aloof from all mankind,
and engaged alone in such a struggle without any respite, it
came to this — that either he must die, or she. He knew

DEAD AT LAST. 439

it very well, and concentrated his strength against her feeble
ness. Hours upon hours he held her by the arm when her
arm was black where he held it, and bade her Die !

"It was done, upon a windy morning, before sunrise. He
computed the time to be half-past four; but, his forgotten
watch had run down, and he could not be sure. She had
broken away from him in the night, with loud and sudden
cries — the first of that kind to which she had given vent —
and he had had to put his hands over her mouth. Since
then, she had been quiet in the corner of the paneling where
she had sunk down ; and he had left her, and had gone back
with his folded arms and his knitted forehead to his chair.

"Paler in the pale light, more colourless than ever in the
leaden dawn, he saw her coming, trailing herself along the
floor towards him — a white wreck of hair, and dress, and wild
eyes, pushing itself on by an irresolute and bending hand.

" < 6, forgive me ! I will do anything. O, sir, pray tell
me I may live ! '

"'Die!1

" ' Are yoli so resolved ? Is there no hope for me ? '

" < Die !'

" Her large eyes strained themselves with wonder and fear ;
wonder and fear changed to reproach; reproach to blank
nothing. It was done. He was not at first so sure it was
done, but that the morning sun was hanging jewels in her
hair — he saw the diamond, emerald, and ruby, glittering
among it in little points, as he stood looking down at her —
when he lifted her and laid her on her bed.

"She was soon laid in the ground. And now they were
all gone, and he had compensated himself well.

"He had a mind to travel. Not that he meant to waste
his Money, for he was a pinching man and liked his Money
dearly (liked nothing else, indeed), but, that he had grown
tired of the desolate house and wished to turn his back upon
it and have done with it. But,s the house was, worth Money,
and Money must not be thrown, away. He determined to

440 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

sell it before he went. That it might look the less wretched
and bring a better price, he hired some labourers to work in
the overgrown garden ; to cut out the dead wood, trim the
ivy that drooped in heavy masses over the windows and
gables, and clear the walks in which the weeds were growing
mid-leg high.

"He worked, himself, along with them. He worked later
than they did, and, one evening at dusk, was left working
alone, with his bill-hook in his hand. One autumn evening,
when the Bride was five weeks dead.

" < It grows too dark to work longer,1 he said to himself,
' I must give over for the night.'

"He detested the house, and was loath to enter it. He
looked at the dark porch waiting for him like a tomb, and
felt that it was an accursed house. Near to the porch, and
near to where he stood, was a tree whose branches waved
before the old bay-window of the Bride's Chamber, where it
had been done. The tree swung suddenly, and made him
start. It swung again, although the night was still. Looking
up into it, he saw a figure among the branches.

"It was the figure of a young man. The face looked
down, as his looked up ; the branches cracked and swayed ;
the figure rapidly descended, and slid upon its feet before
him. A slender youth of about her age, with long light
brown hair.

" ' What thief are you ? ' he said, seizing the youth by the
collar.

"The young man, in shaking himself free, swung him a
blow with his arm across the face and throat. They closed,
but the young man got from him and stepped back, crying,
with great eagerness and horror, ' Don't touch me ! I would
as lieve be touched by the Devil ! '

" He stood still, with his bill-hook in his hand, looking at
the young man. For, the young man's look was the counter
part of her last look> and he had not expected ever to see
that again.

THE MURDERER PURSUED. 441

"'I am no thief. Even if I were, I would not have a
coin of your wealth, if it would buy me the Indies. You
murderer I '

" fc What ! '

" ' I climbed it,1 said the young man, pointing up into the
tree, 'for the first time, nigh four years ago. I climbed it,
to look at her. I saw her. I spoke to her. I have climbed
it, many a time, to watch and listen for her. I was a boy,
hidden among its leaves, when from that bay-window she
gave me this ! '

"He showed a tress of flaxen hair, tied with a mourning
ribbon.

" ' Her life,' said the young man, ' was a life of mourning.
She gave me this, as a token of it, and a sign that she was
dead to every one but you. If I had been older, if I had
seen her sooner, I might have saved her from you. But, she
was fast in the web when I first climbed the tree, and what
could I do then to break it ! '

" In saying those words, he burst into a fit of sobbing and
crying: weakly at first, then passionately.

"'Murderer! I climbed the tree on the night when you
brought her back. I heard her, from the tree, speak of the
Death-watch at the door. I was three times in the tree
while you were shut up with her, slowly killing her. I saw
her, from the tree, lie dead upon her bed. I have watched
you, from the tree, for proofs and traces of your guilt.
The manner of it, is a mystery to me yet, but I will pursue
you until you have rendered up your life to the hangman.
You shall never, until then, be rid of me. I loved her! I
can know no relenting towards you. Murderer, I loved her ! '

"The youth was bare-headed, his hat having fluttered
away in his descent from the tree. He moved towards the
gate. He had to pass — Him — to get to it. There was
breadth for two old-fashioned carriages abreast; and the
youth's abhorrence, openly expressed in every feature of his
face and limb of his body, and very hard to beara had verge

442 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

enough to keep itself at a distance in. He (by which I
mean the other) had not stirred hand or foot, since he had
stood still to look at the boy. He faced round, now, to
follow him with his eyes. As the back of the bare light-
brown head was turned to him, he saw a red curve stretch
from his hand to it. He knew, before he threw the bill
hook, where it had alighted — I say, had alighted, and not,
would alight; for, to his clear perception the thing was
done before he did it. It cleft the head, and it remained
there, and the boy lay on his face.

" He buried the body in the night, at the foot of the tree.
As soon as it was light in the morning, he worked at
turning up all the ground near the tree, and hacking and
hewing at the neighbouring bushes and undergrowth. When
the labourers came, there was nothing suspicious, and nothing
suspected.

"But, he had, in a moment, defeated all his precautions,
and destroyed the triumph of the scheme he had so long
concerted, and so successfully worked out. He had got rid of
the Bride, and had acquired her fortune without endangering
his life ; but now, for a death by which he had gained nothing,
he had evermore to live with a rope around his neck.

" Beyond this, he was chained to the house of gloom and
horror, which he could not endure. Being afraid to sell it
or to quit it, lest discovery should be made, he was forced
to live in it. He hired two old people, man and wife, for
his servants; and dwelt in it, and dreaded it. His great
difficulty, for a long time, was the garden. Whether he
should keep it trim, whether he should suffer it to fall into
its former state of neglect, what would be the least likely
way of attracting attention to it ?

" He took the middle course of gardening, himself, in his
evening leisure, and of then calling the old serving-man to
help him ; but, of never letting him work there alone. And
he made himself an arbour over against the tree, where he
could sit and see that it was safe.

THE TREE STRUCK BY LIGHTNING. 443

"As the seasons changed, and the tree changed, his mind
perceived dangers that were always changing. In the leafy
time, he perceived that the upper boughs were growing into
the form of the young man — that they made the shape of
him exactly, sitting in a forked branch swinging in the wind.
In the time of the falling leaves, he perceived that they came
down from the tree, forming tell-tale letters on the path, or
that they had a tendency to heap themselves into a church
yard mound above the grave. In the winter, when the tree
was bare, he perceived that the boughs swung at him the
ghost of the blow the young man had given, and that they
threatened him openly. In the spring, when the sap was
mounting in the trunk, he asked himself, were the dried-up
particles of blood mounting with it : to make out more
obviously this year than last, the leaf-screened figure of the
young man, swinging in the wind ?

" However, he turned his Money over and over, and still
over. He was in the dark trade, the gold-dust trade, and
most secret trades that yielded great returns. In ten years,
he had turned his Money over, so many times, that the
traders and shippers who had dealings with him, absolutely
did not lie — for once — when they declared that he had
increased his fortune, Twelve Hundred Per Cent.

"He possessed his riches one hundred years ago, when
people could be lost easily. He had heard who the youth
was, from hearing of the search that was made after him ;
but, it died away, and the youth was forgotten.

" The annual round of changes in the tree had been repeated
ten times since the night of the burial at its foot, when there
was a great thunder-storm over this place. It broke at
midnight, and raged until morning. The first intelligence
he heard from his old serving-man that morning, was, that
the tree had been struck by Lightning.

"It had been riven down the stem, in a very surprising
manner, and the stem lay in two blighted shafts : one resting
against the house, and one against a portion of the old red

444 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

garden-wall in which its fall had made a gap. The fissure
went down the tree to a little above the earth, and there
stopped. There was great curiosity to see the tree, and,
with most of his former fears revived, he sat in his arbour
— grown quite an old man — watching the people who came
to see it.

"They quickly began to come, in such dangerous numbers,
that he closed his garden-gate and refused to admit any
more. But, there were certain men of science who travelled
from a distance to examine the tree, and, in an evil hour,
he let them in — Blight and Murrain on them, let them in !

" They wanted to dig up the ruin by the roots, and closely
examine it, and the earth about it. Never, while he lived !
They offered money for it. They ! Men of science, whom
he could have bought by the gross, with a scratch of his
pen ! He showed them the garden-gate again, and locked
and barred it.

"But they were bent on doing what they wanted to do,
and they bribed the old serving-man — a thankless wretch
who regularly complained when he received his wages, of
being underpaid — and they stole into the garden by night
with their lanterns, picks, and shovels, and fell to at the
tree. He was lying in a turret-room on the other side of
the house (the Bride's Chamber had been unoccupied ever
since), but he soon dreamed of picks and shovels, and got up.

"He came to an upper window on that side, whence he
could see their lanterns, and them, and the loose earth in a
heap which he had himself disturbed and put back, when it
was last turned to the air. It was found! They had that
minute lighted on it. They were all bending over it. One
of them said, 'The skull is fractured;' and another, 'See
here the bones;1 and another, 'See here the clothes;' and
then the first struck in again, and said, ' A rusty bill-hook ! '

"He became sensible, next day, that he was already put
under a strict watch, and that he could go nowhere without
being followed. Before a week was out, he was taken and

THE TWO OLD MEN. 445

laid in hold. The circumstances were gradually pieced
together against him, with a desperate malignity, and an
appalling ingenuity. But, see the justice of men, and how
it was extended to him ! He was further accused of having
poisoned that girl in the Bride's Chamber. He, who had
carefully and expressly avoided imperilling a hair of his head
for her, and who had seen her die of her own incapacity !

"There was doubt for which of the two murders he should
be first tried ; but, the real one was chosen, and he was found
Guilty, and cast for Death. Bloodthirsty wretches ! They
would have made him Guilty of anything, so set they were
upon having his life.

"His money could do nothing to save him, and he was
hanged. / am He, and I was hanged at Lancaster Castle
with my face to the wall, a hundred years ago ! "

At this terrific announcement, Mr. Goodchild tried to rise
and cry out. But, the two fiery lines extending from the
old man's eyes to his own, kept him down, and he could not
utter a sound. His sense of hearing, however, was acute,
and he could hear the clock strike Two. No sooner had
he heard the clock strike Two, than he saw before him Two
old men !

Two.

The eyes of each, connected with his eyes by two films of
fire: each, exactly like the other: each, addressing him at
precisely one and the same instant : each, gnashing the same
teeth in the same head, with the same twitched nostril above
them, and the same suffused expression around it. Two old
men. Differing in nothing, equally distinct to the sight,
the copy no fainter than the original, the second as real as
the first.

"At what time," said the Two old men, "did you arrive
at the door below ? "

"At Six."

" And there were Six old men upon the stairs ! "

446 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

Mr. Goodchild having wiped the perspiration from his
brow, or tried to do it, the Two old men proceeded in one
voice, and in the singular number :

" I had been anatomised, but had not yet had my skeleton
put together and re-hung on an iron hook, when it began
to be whispered that the Bride's Chamber was haunted. It
was haunted, and I was there.

" We were there. She and I were there. I, in the chair
upon the hearth; she, a white wreck again, trailing itself
towards me on the floor. But, I was the speaker no more,
and the one word that she said to me from midnight until
dawn was, ' Live ! '

"The youth was there, likewise. In the tree outside the
window. Coming and going in the moonlight, as the tree
bent and gave. He has, ever since, been there, peeping in
at me in my torment ; revealing to me by snatches, in the
pale lights and slatey shadows where he comes and goes,
bare-headed — a bill-hook, standing edgewise in his hair.

^ In the Bride's Chamber, every night from midnight until
dawn — one month in the year excepted, as I am going to tell
you — he hides in the tree, and she comes towards me on the
floor ; always approaching ; never coming nearer ; always
visible as if by moonlight, whether the moon shines or no;
always saying, from midnight until dawn, her one word,
6 Live ! '

"But, in the month wherein I was forced out of this life
— this present month of thirty days — the Bride's Chamber is
empty and quiet. Not so my old dungeon. Not so the
rooms where I was restless and afraid, ten years. Both are
fitfully haunted then. At One in the morning, I am what
you saw me when the clock struck that hour — One old man.
At Two in the morning, I am Two old men. At Three, I
am Three. By Twelve at noon, I am Twelve old men, One
for every hundred per cent, of old gain. Every one of the
Twelve, with Twelve times my old power of suffering and
agony. From that hour until Twelve at night, I, Twelve

WAITING FOR TWO LIVING MEN. 447

old men in anguish and fearful foreboding, wait for the coming
of the executioner. At Twelve at night, I, Twelve old men
turned off, swing invisible outside Lancaster Castle, with
Twelve faces to the wall !

"When the Bride's Chamber was first haunted, it was
known to me that this punishment would never cease, until I
could make its nature, and my story, known to two living
men together. I waited for the coming of two living men
together into the Bride's Chamber, years upon years. It was
infused into my knowledge (of the means I am ignorant)
that if two living men, with their eyes open, could be in the
Bride's Chamber at One in the morning, they would see me
sitting in my chair.

"At length, the whispers that the room was spiritually
troubled, brought two men to try the adventure. I was
scarcely struck upon the hearth at midnight (I come there as
if the Lightning blasted me into being), when I heard them
ascending the stairs. Next, I saw them enter. One of them
was a bold, gay, active man, in the prime of life, some five
and forty years of age; the other, a dozen years younger.
They brought provisions with them in a basket, and bottles.
A young woman accompanied them, with wood and coals
for the lighting of the fire. When she had lighted it, the
bold, gay, active man accompanied her along the gallery out
side the room, to see her safely down the staircase, and came
back laughing.

"He locked the door, examined the chamber, put out the
contents of the basket on the table before the fire — little
recking of me, in my appointed station on the hearth, close
to him — and filled the glasses, and ate and drank. His com
panion did the same, and was as cheerful and confident as he :
though he was the leader. When they had supped, they
laid pistols on the table, turned to the fire, and began to
smoke their pipes of foreign make.

"They had travelled together, and had been much
together, and had an abundance of subjects in common. In

448 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

the midst of their talking and laughing, the younger man
made a reference to the leader's being always ready for
any adventure ; that one, or any other. He replied in these
words :

" ' Not quite so, Dick ; if I am afraid of nothing else, I
am afraid of myself.'

" His companion seeming to grow a little dull, asked him,
in what sense ? How ?

" c Why, thus,' he returned. ' Here is a Ghost to be dis
proved. Well ! I cannot answer for what my fancy might
do if I were alone here, or what tricks my senses might play
with me if they had me to themselves. But, in company
with another man, and especially with you, Dick, I would
consent to outface all the Ghosts that were ever told of in
the universe.'

"'I had not the vanity to suppose that I was of so much
importance to-night,' said the other.

"'Of so much,' rejoined the leader, more seriously than he
had spoken yet, 'that I would, for the reason I have given,
on no account have undertaken to pass the night here alone.'

" It was within a few minutes of One. The head of the
younger man had drooped when he made his last remark, and
it drooped lower now.

" ' Keep awake, Dick ! ' said the leader, gaily. ' The small
hours are the worst.'

"He tried, but his head drooped again.

" * Dick ! ' urged the leader. * Keep awake ! '

" ' I can't,' hs indistinctly muttered. ' I don't know what
strange influence is stealing over me. I can't.'

" His companion looked at him with a sudden horror, and
I, in my different way, felt a new horror also ; for, it was on
the stroke of One, and I felt that the second watcher was
yielding to me, and that the curse was upon me that I must
send him to sleep.

" ' Get up and walk, Dick ! ' cried the leader. ' Try ! '

"It was in vain to go behind the slumberer's chair and

A USELESS CONFESSION. 449

shake him. One o'clock sounded, and I was present to the
elder man, and he stood transfixed before me.

"To him alone, I was obliged to relate my story, without
hope of benefit. To him alone, I was an awful phantom
making a quite useless confession. I foresee it will ever be
the same. The two living men together will never come to
release me. When I appear, the senses of one of the two
will be locked in sleep ; he will neither see nor hear me ; my
communication will ever be made to a solitary listener, and
will ever be unserviceable. Woe ! Woe ! Woe ! "

As the Two old men, with these words, wrung their hands,
it shot into Mr. Goodchild's mind that he was in the terrible
situation of being virtually alone with the spectre, and that
Mr. Idlers immoveability was explained by his having been
charmed asleep at One o'clock. In the terror of this sudden
discovery which produced an indescribable dread, he struggled
so hard to get free from the four fiery threads, that he
snapped them, after he had pulled them out to a great width.
Being then out of bonds, he caught up Mr. Idle from the
sofa and rushed down-stairs with him.

"What are you about, Francis?" demanded Mr. Idle.
"My bedroom is not down here. What the deuce are you
carrying me at all for ? I can walk with a stick now. I
don't want to be carried. Put me down."

Mr. Goodchild put him down in the old hall, and looked
about him wildly.

" What are you doing ? Idiotically plunging at your own
sex, and rescuing them or perishing in the attempt ? " asked
Mr. Idle, in a highly petulant state.

« The One old man ! " cried Mr. Goodchild, distractedly,
—"and the Two old men !"

Mr. Idle deigned no other reply than "The One old
woman, I think you mean," as he began hobbling his way
back up the staircase, with the assistance of its broad
balustrade.

VOL. n. 2 G

450 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

"I assure you, Tom," began Mr. Goodchild, attending at
his side, "that since you fell asleep "

" Come, I like that ! " said Thomas Idle, " I haven't closed
an eye ! "

With the peculiar sensitiveness on the subject of the dis
graceful action of going to sleep out of bed, which is the lot of
all mankind, Mr. Idle persisted in this declaration. The same
peculiar sensitiveness impelled Mr. Goodchild, on being taxed
with the same crime, to repudiate it with honourable resent
ment. The settlement of the question of The One old man
and The Two old men was thus presently complicated, and
soon made quite impracticable. Mr. Idle said it was all
Bride-cake, and fragments, newly arranged, of things seen
and thought about in the day. Mr. Goodchild said how
could that be, when he hadn't been asleep, and what right
could Mr. Idle have to say so, who had been asleep? Mr.
Idle said he had never been asleep, and never did go
to sleep, and that Mr. Goodchild, as a general rule, was
always asleep. They consequently parted for the rest of the
night, at their bedroom doors, a little ruffled. Mr. Good-
child's last words were, that he had had, in that real and
tangible old sitting-room of that real and tangible old Inn
(he supposed Mr. Idle denied its existence ?), every sensation
and experience, the present record of which is now within a
line or two of completion ; and that he would write it out
and print it every word. Mr. Idle returned that he might if
he liked — and he did like, and has now done it.

CHAPTER V.

Two of the many passengers by a certain late Sunday evening
train, Mr. Thomas Idle and Mr. Francis Goodchild, yielded
up their tickets at a little rotten platform (converted into
artificial touchwood by smoke and ashes), deep in the
manufacturing bosom of Yorkshire. A mysterious bosom it
appeared, upon a damp, dark, Sunday night, dashed through
in the train to the music of the whirling wheels, the panting
of the engine, and the part-singing of hundreds of third-class
excursionists, whose vocal efforts " bobbed arayound " from
sacred to profane, from hymns, to our transatlantic sisters the
Yankee Gal and Mairy Anne, in a remarkable way. There
seemed to have been some large vocal gathering near to every
lonely station on the line. No town was visible, no village
was visible, no light was visible ; but, a multitude got out
singing, and a multitude got in singing, and the second
multitude took up the hymns, and adopted our transatlantic
sisters, and sang of their own egregious wickedness, and of
their bobbing arayound, and of how the ship it was ready
and the wind it was fair, and they were bayound for the sea,
Mairy Anne, until they in their turn became a getting-out
multitude, and were replaced by another getting-in multitude,
who did the same. And at every station, the getting-in
multitude, with an artistic reference to the completeness of
their chorus, incessantly cried, as with one voice while scuffling
into the carriages, " We mun aa* gang toogither ! "

452 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

The singing and the multitudes had trailed off as the
lonely places were left and the great towns were neared, and
the way had lain as silently as a train's way ever can, over
the vague black streets of the great gulfs of towns, and
among their branchless woods of vague black chimneys.
These towns looked, in the cinderous wet, as though they had
one and all been on fire and were just put out — a dreary and
quenched panorama, many miles long.

Thus, Thomas and Francis got to Leeds ; of which enter
prising and important commercial centre it may be observed
with delicacy, that you must either like it very much or not
at all. Next day, the first of the Race- Week, they took train
to Doncaster.

And instantly the character, both of travellers and of
luggage, entirely changed, and no other business than race-
business any longer existed on the face of the earth. The
talk was all of horses and " John Scott.1' Guards whispered
behind their hands to station-masters, of horses and John
Scott. Men in cut-away coats and speckled cravats fastened
with peculiar pins, and with the large bones of their lega
developed under tight trousers, so that they should look as
much as possible like horses1 legs, paced up and down by twos,
at junction-stations, speaking low and moodily of horses and
John Scott. The young clergyman in the black strait-waist
coat, who occupied the middle seat of the carriage, expounded
in his peculiar pulpitr accent to the young and lovely Reverend
Mrs. Crinoline, who occupied the opposite middle-seat, a few
passages of rumour relative to "Oartheth, my love, and
Mithter John Eth-coTT." A bandy vagabond, with a head
like a Dutch cheese, in a fustian stable-suit, attending on a
horse-box and going about the platforms with a halter hang
ing round his neck like a Calais burgher of the ancient period
much degenerated, was courted by the best society, by reason
of what he had to hint, when not engaged in eating straw,,
concerning "t'harses and Joon Scott." The engine-driver
himself, as he applied one eye to his large stationary double-

HORSES AND JOHN SCOTT. 453

•eye-glass on the engine, seemed to keep the other open,
sideways, upon horses and John Scott.

Breaks and barriers at Don caster Station to keep the crowd
•off; temporary wooden avenues of ingress and egress, to help
the crowd on. Forty extra porters sent down for this present
blessed Race- Week, and all of them making up their betting-
•books in the lamp-room or somewhere else, and none of them
to come and touch the luggage. Travellers disgorged into
an open space, a howling wilderness of idle men. All work
but race- work at a stand-still ; all men at a stand-still. " Ey
my word ! Deant ask noon o' us to help wi1 tluggage.
Bock your opinion loike a mon. Coom ! Dang it, coom,
t^harses and Joon Scott ! " In the midst of the idle men, all
the fly horses and omnibus horses of Doncaster and parts
adjacent, rampant, rearing, backing, plunging, shying —
apparently the result of their hearing of nothing but their
own order and John Scott.

Grand Dramatic Company from London for the Race-
Week. Poses Plastiques in the Grand Assembly Room up
the Stable-Yard at seven and nine each evening, for the
Race- Week. Grand Alliance Circus in the field beyond the
bridge, for the Race- Week. Grand Exhibition of Aztec
Lilliputians, important to all who want to be horrified cheap,
for the Race- Week. Lodgings, grand and not grand, but at
all grand prices, ranging from ten pounds to twenty, for the
Grand Race-Week !

Rendered giddy enough by these things, Messieurs Idle
and Goodchild repaired to the quarters they had secured
beforehand, and Mr. Goodchild looked down from the window
into the surging street.

" By Heaven, Tom ! " cried he, after contemplating it, " I
am in the Lunatic Asylum again, and these are all mad
people under the charge of a body of designing keepers ! "

All through the Race- Week, Mr. Goodchild never divested
himself of this idea. Every day he looked out of window,
with something of the dread of Lemuel Gulliver looking down

454 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

at men after he returned home from the horse-country ; and
every day he saw the Lunatics, horse-mad, betting-mad,
drunken-mad, vice-mad, and the designing Keepers always
after them. The idea pervaded, like the second colour in
shot-silk, the whole of Mr. Goodchild's impressions. They
were much as follows :

Monday, mid-day. Races not to begin until to-morrow,
but all the mob-Lunatics out, crowding the pavements of the
one main street of pretty and pleasant Doncaster, crowding
the road, particularly crowding the outside of the Betting
Rooms, whooping and shouting loudly after all passing vehicles.
Frightened lunatic horses occasionally running away, with
infinite clatter. All degrees of men, from peers to paupers,
betting incessantly. Keepers very watchful, and taking all
good chances. An awful family likeness among the Keepers,
to Mr. Palmer and Mr. Thurtell. With some knowledge of
expression and some acquaintance with heads (thus writes Mr.
Goodchild), I never have seen anywhere, so many repetitions-
of one class of countenance and one character of head (both
evil) as in this street at this time. Cunning, covetousness,,
secrecy, cold calculation, hard callousness and dire insensi
bility, are the uniform Keeper characteristics. Mr. Palmer
passes me five times in five minutes, and, as I go down the
street, the back of Mr. ThurtelFs skull is always going on
before me.

Monday evening. Town lighted up; more Lunatics out
than ever ; a complete choke and stoppage of the thorough
fare outside the Betting Rooms. Keepers, having dined,,
pervade the Betting Rooms, and sharply snap at the moneyed
Lunatics. Some Keepers flushed with drink, and some not,
but all close and calculating. A vague echoing roar of
"fharses" and "fraces" always rising in the air, until mid
night, at about which period it dies away in occasional
drunken songs and straggling yells. But, all night, some
unmannerly drinking-house in the neighbourhood opens its
mouth at intervals and spits out a man too drunk to be

THE GONG-DONKEY. 455

retained : who thereupon makes what uproarious protest may
be left in him, and either falls asleep where he tumbles, or is
carried off in custody.

Tuesday morning, at daybreak. A sudden rising, as it
were out of the earth, of all the obscene creatures, who sell
" correct cards of the races." They may have been coiled in
corners, or sleeping on door-steps, and, having all passed the
night under the same set of circumstances, may all want to
circulate their blood at the same time; but, however that
may be, they spring into existence all at once and together,
as though a new Cadmus had sown a race-horse^s teeth. There
is nobody up, to buy the cards ; but, the cards are madly
cried. There is no patronage to quarrel for ; but, they madly
quarrel and fight. Conspicuous among these hyaenas, as
breakfast-time discloses, is a fearful creature in the general
semblance of a man : shaken off his next-to-no legs by drink
and devilry, bare-headed and bare-footed, with a great shock
of hair like a horrible broom, and nothing on him- but a
ragged pair of trousers and a pink glazed-calico coat — made
on him — so very tight that it is as evident that he could
never take it off, as that he never does. This hideous appari
tion, inconceivably drunk, has a terrible power of making a
gong-like imitation of the braying of an ass: which feat
requires that he should lay his right jaw in his begrimed
right paw, double himself up, and shake his bray out of him
self, with much staggering on his next-to-no legs, and much
twirling of his horrible broom, as if it were a mop. From
the present minute, when he comes in sight holding up his
cards to the windows, and hoarsely proposing purchase to My
Lord, Your Excellency, Colonel, the Noble Captain, and Your
Honourable Worship — from the present minute until the
Grand Race- Week is finished, at all hours of the morning,
evening, day, and night, shall the town reverberate, at
capricious intervals, to the brays of this frightful animal the
Gong-donkey.

No very great racing to-day, so no very great amount of

456 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

vehicles : though there is a good sprinkling, too : from farmers'
carts and gigs, to carriages with post-horses and to fours-in-
hand, mostly coming by the road from York, and passing on
straight through the main street to the Course. A walk in
the wrong direction may be a better thing for Mr. Goodchild
to-day than the Course, so he walks in the wrong direction.
Everybody gone to the races. Only children in the street.
Grand Alliance Circus deserted ; not one Star-Rider left ;
omnibus which forms the Pay-Place, having on separate panels
Pay here for the Boxes, Pay here for the Pit, Pay here for
the Gallery, hove down in a corner and locked up; nobody
near the tent but the man on his knees on the grass, who is
making the paper balloons for the Star young gentlemen to
jump through to-night. A pleasant road, pleasantly wooded.
No labourers working in the fields ; all gone " traces." The
few late wenders of their way "tYaces," who are yet left
driving on the road, stare in amazement at the recluse who
is not going " tVaces." Roadside innkeeper has gone " tYaces."
Turnpike-man has gone "fraces." His thrifty wife, washing
clothes at the toll-house door, is going "fraces" to-morrow.
Perhaps there may be no one left to take the toll to-morrow ;
who knows ? Though assuredly that would be neither turn
pike-like nor Yorkshire-like. The very wind and dust seem
to be hurrying " fraces," as they briskly pass the only way
farer on the road. In the distance, the Railway Engine,
waiting at the town-end, shrieks despairingly. Nothing but
the difficulty of getting off the Line, restrains that Engine
from going " fraces," too, it is very clear.

At night, more Lunatics out than last night — and more
Keepers. The latter very active at the Betting Rooms, the
street in front of which is now impassable. Mr. Palmer as
before. Mr. Thurtell as before. Roar and uproar as before.
Gradual subsidence as before. Unmannerly drinking-house
expectorates as before. Drunken negro-melodists, Gong-
donkey, and correct cards, in the night.

On Wednesday morning, the morning of the great St.

THE GREAT ST. LEGER. 457

Leger, it becomes apparent that there has been a great influx
since yesterday, both of Lunatics and Keepers. The families
of the tradesmen over the way are no longer within human
ken ; their places know them no more ; ten, fifteen, and twenty
guinea-lodgers fill them. At the pastry-cook's second-floor
window, a Keeper is brushing Mr. Thurtell's hair — thinking
it his own. In the wax-chandler's attic, another Keeper is
putting on Mr. Palmer's braces. In the gunsmith's nursery,
a Lunatic is shaving himself. In the serious stationer's best
sitting-room, three Lunatics are taking a combination-break
fast, praising the (cook's) devil, and drinking neat brandy in
an atmosphere of last midnight's cigars. No family sanctuary
is free from our Angelic messengers — we put up at the Angel
— who in the guise of extra waiters for the grand Race-
Week, rattle in and out of the most secret chambers of every
body's house, with dishes and tin covers, decanters, soda-water
bottles, and glasses. An hour later. Down the street and
up the street, as far as eyes can see and a good deal farther,
there is a dense crowd; outside the Betting Rooms it is like
a great struggle at a theatre door — in the days of theatres ;
or at the vestibule of the Spurgeon temple — in the days of
Spurgeon. An hour later. Fusing into this crowd, and
somehow getting through it, are all kinds of conveyances,
and all kinds of foot-passengers ; carts, with brick-makers and
brick-makeresses jolting up and down on planks; drags, with
the needful grooms behind, sitting cross-armed in the needful
manner, and slanting themselves backward from the soles of
their boots at the needful angle; postboys, in the shining
hats and smart jackets of the olden time, when stokers were
not ; beautiful Yorkshire horses, gallantly driven by their own
breeders and masters. Under every pole, and every shaft, and
every horse, and every wheel as it would seem, the Gong-
donkey — metallically braying, when not struggling for life, or
whipped out of the way.

By one o'clock, all this stir has gone out of the streets, and
there is no one left in them but Francis Goodchild. Francis

458 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

Goodchild will not be left in them long ; for, he too is on his
way " t'races."

A most beautiful sight, Francis Goodchild finds "t'racesn
to be, when he has left fair Doncaster behind him, and comes
out on the free course, with its agreeable prospect, its quaint
Red House oddly changing and turning as Francis turns, its
green grass, and fresh heath. A free course and an easy one,
where Francis can roll smoothly where he will, and can choose
between the start, or the coming-in, or the turn behind the
brow of the hill, or any out-of-the-way point where he lists
to see the throbbing horses straining every nerve, and making
the sympathetic earth throb as they come by. Francis much
delights to be, not in the Grand Stand, but where he can see
it, rising against the sky with its vast tiers of little white dots
of faces, and its last high rows and corners of people, looking
like pins stuck into an enormous pincushion — not quite so
symmetrically as his orderly eye could wish, when people
change or go away. When the race is nearly run out, it is
as good as the race to him to see the flutter among the pins,
and the change in them from dark to light, as hats are taken
off and waved. Not less full of interest, the loud anticipation
of the winner's name, the swelling, and the final, roar ; then,
the quick dropping of all the pins out of their places, the
revelation of the shape of the bare pincushion, and the
closing-in of the whole host of Lunatics and Keepers, in the
rear of the three horses with bright-coloured riders, who have
not yet quite subdued their gallop though the contest is over.

Mr. Goodchild would appear to have been by no means free
from lunacy himself at " t'races," though not of the prevalent
kind. He is suspected by Mr. Idle to have fallen into a
dreadful state concerning a pair of little lilac gloves and a
little bonnet that he saw there. Mr. Idle asserts, that he
did afterwards repeat at the Angel, with an appearance of
being lunatically seized, some rhapsody to the following effect :
" O little lilac gloves ! And O winning little bonnet, making
in conjunction with her golden hair quite a Glory in the

LOSSES AND GAINS. 459

sunlight round the pretty head, why anything in the world
but you and me! Why may not this day's running — of
horses, to all the rest: of precious sands of life to me — be
prolonged through an everlasting autumn-sunshine, without
a sunset ! Slave of the Lamp, or Ring, strike me yonder
gallant equestrian Clerk of the Course, in the scarlet coat,
motionless on the green grass for ages ! Friendly Devil on
Two Sticks, for ten times ten thousands years, keep Blink-
Bonny jibbing at the post, and let us have no start ! Arab
drums, powerful of old to summon Genii in the desert, sound
of yourselves and raise a troop for me in the desert of my
heart, which shall so enchant this dusty barouche (with a
conspicuous excise-plate, resembling the Collectors door-plate
at a turnpike), that I, within it, loving the little lilac gloves,
the winning little bonnet, and the dear unknown- wearer with
the golden hair, may wait by her side for ever, to see a Great
St. Leger that shall never be run ! "

Thursday morning. After a tremendous night of crowd
ing, shouting, drinking-house expectoration, Gong-donkey, and
correct cards. Symptoms of yesterday's gains in the way of
drink, and of yesterday 's losses in the way of money, abundant.
Money-losses very great. As usual, nobody seems to have
won ; but, large losses and many losers are unquestionable
facts. Both Lunatics and Keepers, in general very low. Several
of both kinds look in at the chemist's while Mr. Goodchild
is making a purchase there, to be " picked up."" One red-eyed
Lunatic, flushed, faded, and disordered, enters hurriedly and
cries savagely, " Hond us a gloss of sal volatile in wather, or
soom dommed thing o"* thot sart ! " Faces at the Betting
Rooms very long, and a tendency to bite nails observable.
Keepers likewise given this morning to standing about solitary,
with their hands in their pockets, looking down at their boots
as they fit them into cracks of the pavement, and then
looking up whistling and walking away. Grand Alliance
Circus out, in procession ; buxom lady-member of Grand
Alliance, in crimson riding-habit, fresher to look at, even in

LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

her paint under the day sky, than the cheeks of Lunatics
or Keepers. Spanish Cavalier appears to have lost yesterday,
and jingles his bossed bridle with disgust, as if he were
paying. Reaction also apparent at the Guildhall opposite,
whence certain pickpockets come out handcuffed together, with
that peculiar walk which is never seen under any other circum
stances — a walk expressive of going to jail, game, but still of
jails being in bad taste and arbitrary, and how would you like
it if it was you instead of me, as it ought to be ! Mid-day.
Town filled as yesterday, but not so full; and emptied as
yesterday, but not so empty. In the evening, Angel ordinary
where every Lunatic and Keeper has his modest daily meal of
turtle, venison, and wine, not so crowded as yesterday, and
not so noisy. At night, the theatre. More abstracted faces in
it, than one ever sees at public assemblies ; such faces wearing
an expression which strongly reminds Mr. Goodchild of the
boys at school who were " going up next," with their arithmetic
or mathematics. These boys are, no doubt, going up to-morrow
with their sums and figures. Mr. Palmer and Mr. Thurtell
in the boxes O. P. Mr. Thurtell and Mr. Palmer in the
boxes P. S. The firm of Thurtell, Palmer, and Thurtell, in
the boxes Centre. A most odious tendency observable in these
distinguished gentlemen to put vile constructions on suffi
ciently innocent phrases in the play, and then to applaud
them in a Satyr-like manner. Behind Mr. Goodchild, with a
party of other Lunatics and one Keeper, the express incar
nation of the thing called a "gent.*" A gentleman born; a
gent manufactured. A something with a scarf round its neck,
and a slipshod speech issuing from behind the scarf; more
depraved, more foolish, more ignorant, more unable to believe
in any noble or good thing of any kind, than the stupidest
Bosjesman. The thing is but a boy in years, and is addled
with drink. To do its company justice, even its company is
ashamed of it, as it drawls its slang criticisms on the represen
tation, and inflames Mr. Goodchild with a burning ardour to
fling it into the pit. Its remarks are so horrible, that Mr.

DRIFT OF LUNATICS AND KEEPERS. 461

Goodchild, for the moment, even doubts whether that is a
wholesome Art, which sets women apart on a high floor before
such a thing as this, though as good as its own sisters, or its
own mother — whom Heaven forgive for bringing it into the
world ! But, the consideration that a low nature must make
a low world of its own to live in, whatever the real materials,
or it could no more exist than any of us could without the
sense of touch, brings Mr. Goodchild to reason : the rather,
because the thing soon drops its downy chin upon its scarf,
and slobbers itself asleep.

Friday Morning. Early fights. Gong-donkey, and correct
cards. Again, a great set towards the races, though not so
great a set as on Wednesday. Much packing going on too,
upstairs at the gunsmith's, the wax-chandler's, and the serious
stationer's; for there will be a heavy drift of Lunatics and
Keepers to London by the afternoon train. The course as
pretty as ever; the great pincushion as like a pincushion,
but not nearly so full of pins ; whole rows of pins wanting.
On the great event of the day, both Lunatics and Keepers
become inspired with rage; and there is a violent scuffling,
and a rushing at the losing jockey, and an emergence of the
said jockey from a swaying and menacing crowd, protected
by friends, and looking the worse for wear; which is a
rough proceeding, though animating to see from a pleasant
distance. After the great event, rills begin to flow from the
pincushion towards the railroad; the rills swell into rivers;
the rivers soon unite into a lake. The lake floats Mr.
Goodchild into Doncaster, past the Itinerant personage in
black, by the way-side telling him from the vantage ground
of a legibly printed placard on a pole that for all these
things the Lord will bring him to judgment. No turtle
and venison ordinary this evening; that is all over. No
Betting at the rooms ; nothing there but the plants in pots,
which have, all the week, been stood about the entry to give
it an innocent appearance, and which have sorely sickened
by this time.

462 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

Saturday. Mr. Idle wishes to know at breakfast, what
were those dreadful groanings in his bedroom doorway in
the night? Mr. Goodchild answers, Nightmare. Mr. Idle
repels the calumny, and calls the waiter. The Angel is very
sorry — had intended to explain; but you see, gentlemen,
there was a gentleman dined down-stairs with two more, and
he had lost a deal of money, and he would drink a deal of
wine, and in the night he " took the horrors," and got up ;
and as his friends could do nothing with him he laid himself
down and groaned at Mr. Idlers door. " And he DID groan
there," Mr. Idle says; "and you will please to imagine me
inside, ' taking the horrors ' too ! "

So far, the picture of Doncaster on the occasion of its
great sporting anniversary, offers probably a general repre
sentation of the social condition of the town, in the past as
well as in the present time. The sole local phenomenon of
the current year, which may be considered as entirely un
precedented in its way, and which certainly claims, on that
account, some slight share of notice, consists in the actual
existence of one remarkable individual, who is sojourning
in Doncaster, and who, neither directly nor indirectly, has
anything at all to do, in any capacity whatever, with the
racing amusements of the week. Ranging throughout the
entire crowd that fills the town, and including the inhabi
tants as well as the visitors, nobody is to be found altogether
disconnected with the business of the day, excepting this one
unparalleled man. He does not bet on the races, like the
sporting men. He does not assist the races, like the jockeys,
starters, judges, and grooms. He does not look on at the
races, like Mr. Goodchild and his fellow-spectators. He does
not profit by the races, like the hotel-keepers and the trades
people. He does not minister to the necessities of the races,
like the booth-keepers, the postilions, the waiters, and the
hawkers of Lists. He does not assist the attractions of the
races, like the actors at the theatre, the riders at the circus,

A MODERN HERMIT. 463

or the posturers at the Poses Plastiques. Absolutely and
literally, he is the only individual in Doncaster who stands
by the brink of the full-flowing race-stream, and is not swept
away by it in common with all the rest of his species. Who
is this modern hermit, this recluse of the St. Leger-week,
this inscrutably ungregarious being, who lives apart from the
amusements and activities of his fellow-creatures? Surely,
there is little difficulty in guessing that clearest and easiest
of all riddles. Who could he be, but Mr. Thomas Idle ?

Thomas had suffered himself to be taken to Doncaster,
just as he would have suffered himself to be taken to any
other place in the habitable globe which would guarantee
him the temporary possession of a comfortable sofa to rest
his ankle on. Once established at the hotel, with his leg
on one cushion and his back against another, he formally
declined taking the slightest interest in any circumstance
whatever connected with the races, or with the people who
were assembled to see them. Francis Goodchild, anxious that
the hours should pass by his crippled travelling-companion as
lightly as possible, suggested that his sofa should be moved
to the window, and that he should amuse himself by looking
out at the moving panorama of humanity, which the view
from it of the principal street presented. Thomas, however,
steadily declined profiting by the suggestion.

" The farther I am from the window," he said, " the better,
Brother Francis, I shall be pleased. I have nothing in
common with the one prevalent idea of all those people who
are passing in the street. Why should I care to look at
them?"

" I hope I have nothing in common with the prevalent
idea of a great many of them, either," answered Goodchild,
thinking of the sporting gentlemen whom he had met in the
course of his wanderings about Doncaster. " But, surely,
among all the people who are walking by the house, at this
very moment, you may find "

"Not one living creature," interposed Thomas, "who is

464 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

not, in one way or another, interested in horses, and who is
not, in a greater or less degree, an admirer of them. Now,
I hold opinions in reference to these particular members of
the quadruped creation, which may lay claim (as I believe) to
the disastrous distinction of being unpartaken by any other
human being, civilised or savage, over the whole surface of
the earth. Taking the horse as an animal in the abstract,
Francis, I cordially despise him from every point of view."

"Thomas," said Goodchild, "confinement to the house has
begun to affect your biliary secretions. I shall go to the
chemises and get you some physic."

" I object," continued Thomas, quietly possessing himself
of his friend's hat, which stood on a table near him, — "I
object, first, to the personal appearance of the horse. I
protest against the conventional idea of beauty, as attached
to that animal. I think his nose too long, his forehead too
low, and his legs (except in the case of the cart-horse)
ridiculously thin by comparison with the size of his body.
Again, considering how big an animal he is, I object to the
contemptible delicacy of his constitution. Is he not the
sickliest creature in creation ? Does any child catch cold as
easily as a horse? Does he not sprain his fetlock, for all
his appearance of superior strength, as easily as I sprained
my ankle ! Furthermore, to take him from another point of
view, what a helpless wretch he is ! No fine lady requires
more constant waiting-on than a horse. Other animals can
make their own toilette: he must have a groom. You will
tell me that this is because we want to make his coat
artificially glossy. Glossy ! Come home with me, and see
my cat, — my clever cat, who can groom herself! Look at
your own dog ! see how the intelligent creature curry-combs
himself with his own honest teeth ! Then, again, what a
fool the horse is, what a poor, nervous fool ! He will start
at a piece of white paper in the road as if it was a lion.
His one idea, when he hears a noise that he is not accustomed
to, is to run away from it. What do you say to those two

MR. IDLE'S OPINION OF THE HORSE. 465

common instances of the sense and courage of this absurdly
overpraised animal ? I might multiply them to two hundred,
if I chose to exert my mind and waste my breath, which I
never do. I prefer coming at once to my last charge against
the horse, which is the most serious of all, because it affects
his moral character. I accuse him boldly, in his capacity of
servant to man, of slyness and treachery. I brand him
publicly, no matter how mild he may look about the eyes,
or how sleek he may be about the coat, as a systematic
betrayer, whenever he can get the chance, of the confidence
reposed in him. What do you mean by laughing and
shaking your head at me ? "

"Oh, Thomas, Thomas!" said Goodchild. "You had
better give me my hat ; you had better let me get you that
physic.1'

" I will let you get anything you like, including a
composing draught for yourself," said Thomas, irritably
alluding to his fellow-apprentice's inexhaustible activity, "if
you will only sit quiet for five minutes longer, and hear me
out. I say again the horse is a betrayer of the confidence
reposed in him ; and that opinion, let me add, is drawn from
my own personal experience, and is not based on any fanciful
theory whatever. You shall have two instances, two over
whelming instances. Let me start the first of these by
asking, what is the distinguishing quality which the Shetland
Pony has arrogated to himself, and is still perpetually
trumpeting through the world by means of popular report
and books on Natural History? I see the answer in your
face : it is the quality of being Sure-Footed. He professes to
have other virtues, such as hardiness and strength, which you
may discover on trial ; but the one thing which he insists on
your believing, when you get on his back, is that he may be
safely depended on not to tumble down with you. Very
good. Some years ago, I was in Shetland with a party of
friends. They insisted on taking me with them to the top
of a precipice that overhung the sea. It was a great distance

VOL. II. 2 II

466 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

off, but they all determined to walk to it except me. I was
wiser then than I was with you at Carrock, and I determined
to be carried to the precipice. There was no carriage-road
in the island, and nobody offered (in consequence, as I suppose,
of the imperfectly-civilised state of the country) to bring me
a sedan-chair, which is naturally what I should have liked
best. A Shetland pony was produced instead. I remembered
my Natural History, I recalled popular report, and I got on
the little beast's back, as any other man would have done
in my position, placing implicit confidence in the sureness of
his feet. And how did he repay that confidence? Brother
Francis, carry your mind on from morning to noon.
Picture to yourself a howling wilderness of grass and bog,
bounded by low stony hills. Pick out one particular spot in
that imaginary scene, and sketch me in it, with outstretched
arms, curved back, and heels in the air, plunging headfore
most into a black patch of water and mud. Place just behind
me the legs, the body, and the head of a sure-footed Shetland
pony, all stretched flat on the ground, and you will have
produced an accurate representation of a very lamentable
fact. And the moral device, Francis, of this picture will be
to testify that when gentlemen put confidence in the legs of
Shetland ponies, they will find to their cost that they are
leaning on nothing but broken reeds. There is my first
instance — and what have you got to say to that ? "

" Nothing, but that I want my hat," answered Goodchild,
starting up and walking restlessly about the room.

"You shall have it in a minute,"" rejoined Thomas. "My
second instance " — (Goodchild groaned, and sat down again) —
" My second instance is more appropriate to the present time
and place, for it refers to a race-horse. Two years ago an
excellent friend of mine, who was desirous of prevailing on
me to take regular exercise, and who was well enough
acquainted with the weakness of my legs to expect no very
active compliance with his wishes on their part, offered to
make me a present of one of his horses. Hearing that the

A GIFT-HORSE. 467

animal in question had started in life on the turf, I declined
accepting the gift with many thanks; adding, by way of
explanation, that I looked on a race-horse as a kind of
embodied hurricane, upon which no sane man of my character
and habits could be expected to seat himself. My friend
replied that, however appropriate my metaphor might be as
applied to race-horses in general, it was singularly unsuitable
as applied to the particular horse which he proposed to give
me. From a foal upwards this remarkable animal had been
the idlest and most sluggish of his race. Whatever capacities
for speed he might possess he had kept so strictly to himself,
that no amount of training had ever brought them out. He
had been found hopelessly slow as a racer, and hopelessly lazy
as a hunter, and was fit for nothing but a quiet, easy life of
it with an old gentleman or an invalid. When I heard this
account of the horse, I don't mind confessing that my heart
warmed to him. Visions of Thomas Idle ambling serenely
on the back of a steed as lazy as himself, presenting to a
restless world the soothing and composite spectacle of a kind
of sluggardly Centaur, too peaceable in his habits to alarm
anybody, swam attractively before my eyes. I went to look
at the horse in the stable. Nice fellow ! he was fast asleep
with a kitten on his back. I saw him taken out for an airing
by the groom. If he had had trousers on his legs I should
not have known them from my own, so deliberately were
they lifted up, so gently were they put down, so slowly did
they get over the ground. From that moment I gratefully
accepted my friend's offer. I went home ; the horse followed
me — by a slow train. Oh, Francis, how devoutly I believed
in that horse ! how carefully I looked after all his little
comforts ! I had never gone the length of hiring a man
servant to wait on myself; but I went to the expense of
hiring one to wait upon him. If I thought a little of myself
when I bought the softest saddle that could be had for money,
I thought also of my horse. When the man at the shop after
wards offered me spurs and a whip, I turned from him with

468 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

horror. When I sallied out for my first ride, I went purposely
unarmed with the means of hurrying my steed. He proceeded
at his own pace every step of the way ; and when he stopped,
at last, and blew out both his sides with a heavy sigh, and
turned his sleepy head and looked behind him, I took him
home again, as I might take home an artless child who said
to me, 'If you please, sir, I am tired.' For a week this
complete harmony between me and my horse lasted undis
turbed. At the end of that time, when he had made quite
sure of my friendly confidence in his laziness, when he had
thoroughly acquainted himself with all the little weaknesses
of my seat (and their name is Legion), the smouldering
treachery and ingratitude of the equine nature blazed out
in an instant. Without the slightest provocation from me,
with nothing passing him at the time but a pony-chaise
driven by an old lady, he started in one instant from a state
of sluggish depression to a state of frantic high spirits. He
kicked, he plunged, he shied, he pranced, he capered fearfully.
I sat on him as long as I could, and when I could sit no
longer, I fell off. No, Francis ! this is not a circumstance to
be laughed at, but to be wept over. What would be said of
a Man who had requited my kindness in that way? Range
over all the rest of the animal creation, and where will you
find me an instance of treachery so black as this ? The cow
that kicks down the milking-pail may have some reason for
it ; she may think herself taxed too heavily to contribute to
the dilution of human tea and the greasing of human bread.
The tiger who springs out on me unawares has the excuse of
being hungry at the time, to say nothing of the further jus
tification of being a total stranger to me. The very flea who
surprises me in my sleep may defend his act of assassination
on the ground that I, in my turn, am always ready to murder
him when I am awake. I defy the whole body of Natural
Historians to move me, logically, off' the ground that I have
taken in regard to the horse. Receive back your hat, Brother
Francis, and go to the chemist's, if you please; for I have

USUAL ORDER RESTORED. 469

now done. Ask me to take anything you like, except an
interest in the Doncaster races. Ask me to look at any
thing you like, except an assemblage of people all animated
by feelings of a friendly and admiring nature towards the
horse. You are a remarkably well-informed man, and you
have heard of hermits. Look upon me as a member of that
ancient fraternity, and you will sensibly add to the many
obligations which Thomas Idle is proud to owe to Francis
Goodchild."

Here, fatigued by the effort of excessive talking, dispu
tatious Thomas waved one hand languidly, laid his head back
on the sofa-pillow, and calmly closed his eyes.

At a later period, Mr. Goodchild assailed his travelling
companion boldly from the impregnable fortress of common
sense. But Thomas, though tamed in body by drastic
discipline, was still as mentally unapproachable as ever on
the subject of his favourite delusion.

The view from the window after Saturday's breakfast is
altogether changed. The tradesmen's families have all come
back again. The serious stationer's young woman of all work
is shaking a duster out of the window of the combination
breakfast-room ; a child is playing with a doll, where Mr.
Thurtell's hair was brushed ; a sanitary scrubbing is in pro
gress on the spot where Mr. Palmer's braces were put on. No
signs of the Races are in the streets, but the tramps and the
tumble-down-carts and trucks laden with drinking- forms and
tables and remnants of booths, that are making their way
out of the town as fast as they can. The Angel, which has
been cleared for action all the week, already begins restoring
every neat and comfortable article of furniture to its own
neat and comfortable place. The Angel's daughters (pleasanter
angels Mr. Idle and Mr. Goodchild never saw, nor more
quietly expert in their business, nor more superior to the
common vice of being above it), have a little time to rest,
and to air their cheerful faces among the flowers in the

470 LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES.

yard. It is market-day. The market looks unusually natural,
comfortable, and wholesome; the market-people too. The
town seems quite restored, when, hark ! a metallic bray —
The Gong-donkey !

The wretched animal has not cleared off with the rest, but
is here, under the window. How much more inconceivably
drunk now, how much more begrimed of paw, how much
more tight of calico hide, how much more stained and daubed
and dirty and dunghilly, from his horrible broom to his
tender toes, who shall say ! He cannot even shake the bray
out of himself now, without laying his cheek so near to the
mud of the street, that he pitches over after delivering it.
Now, prone in the mud, and now backing himself up against
shop-windows, the owners of which come out in terror to
remove him ; now, in the drinking-shop, and now in the
tobacconist's, where he goes to buy tobacco, and makes his
way into the parlour, and where he gets a cigar, which in half-
a-minute he forgets to smoke ; now dancing, now dozing, now
cursing, and now complimenting My Lord, the Colonel, the
Noble Captain, and Your Honourable Worship, the Gong-
donkey kicks up his heels, occasionally braying, until suddenly,
he beholds the dearest friend he has in the world coming
down the street.

The dearest friend the Gong-donkey has in the world, is a
sort of Jackall, in a dull mangy black hide, of such small
pieces that it looks as if it were made of blacking bottles
turned inside out and cobbled together. The dearest friend
in the world (inconceivably drunk too) advances at the Gong-
donkey, with a hand on each thigh, in a series of humorous
springs and stops, wagging his head as he comes. The Gong-
donkey regarding him with attention and with the warmest
affection, suddenly perceives that he is the greatest enemy
he has in the world, and hits him hard in the countenance.
The astonished Jackall closes with the Donkey, and they roll
over and over in the mud, pummelling one another. A Police
Inspector, supernaturally endowed with patience, who has

CLOSE OF THE GRAND RACE-WEEK. 471

long been looking on from the Guildhall-steps, says, to a
myrmidon, " Lock 'em up ! Bring 'em in ! "

Appropriate finish to the Grand Race- Week. The Gong-
donkey, captive and last trace of it, conveyed into limbo,
where they cannot do better than keep him until next Race-
Week. The Jackall is wanted too, and is much looked for,
over the way and up and down. But, having had the good
fortune to be undermost at the time of the capture, he has
vanished into air.

On Saturday afternoon, Mr. Goodchild walks out and looks
at the Course. It is quite deserted ; heaps of broken crockery
and bottles are raised to its memory ; and correct cards and
other fragments of paper are blowing about it, as the regu
lation little paper-books, carried by the French soldiers in
their breasts, were seen, soon after the battle was fought,
blowing idly about the plains of Waterloo.

Where will these present idle leaves be blown by the idle
winds, and where will the last of them be one day lost and
forgotten ? An idle question, and an idle thought ; and with
it Mr. Idle fitly makes his bow, and Mr. Goodchild his, and
thus ends the Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices.

NOTES ON CHRISTMAS' STORIES.

DOCTOR MARIGOLD.
CHAPTER II.

" I know the ... Bookseller of Berlin."

This was Monsieur Nicolai, who, being in bad health, had a number
of subjective hallucinations, on which he wrote a report. He occupies
an illustrious place in all the chapters on illusions, in Manuals of Psy
chology, in company with an uncertain Mrs. A. The usual argument
has been that no hallucinations have an objective cause (as, for instance,
in the action of another mind), because there was no such cause in the
case of the Berlin bookseller. Dickens's bank manager contributes an
instance on the other side ; but there is no reason to suppose that his
narrative is founded on fact.

" The change in him was so startling when I touched him."

Dickens was probably acquainted with the very old Highland belief
that a second-sighted man can communicate his vision by placing his
hand on the shoulder, and his foot on the foot, of a companion. Dr.
Stewart (Nether Lochaber) gives a recent instance ; and the belief is
mentioned by Kirk (1690) in his Secret Commonwealth, and in earlier
works. The experiment was unsuccessful when tried by a seer on the
present annotator.

THE END.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.

PR Dickens, Charles
4550 Works Oadshill ed.
E97
v.32

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