Wise Saws and Modern Instances, Volume 2 (of 2)
by Thomas Cooper · English · Gutenberg #39105 · 333,885 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Wise Saws and Modern Instances, Volume 2 (of 2)
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Wise Saws and Modern Instances, Volume 2 (of 2)
Author: Thomas Cooper
Release date: March 11, 2012 [eBook #39105]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39105
Credits: Produced by Bryan Ness, Katie Hernandez and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
book was produced from scanned images of public domain
material from the Google Print project.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WISE SAWS AND MODERN INSTANCES, VOLUME 2 (OF 2) ***
Produced by Bryan Ness, Katie Hernandez and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
book was produced from scanned images of public domain
material from the Google Print project.)
WISE SAWS
AND
MODERN INSTANCES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
Printed by A. SPOTTISWOODE,
New-Street-Square.
WISE SAWS
AND
MODERN INSTANCES.
BY
THOMAS COOPER,
THE CHARTIST,
AUTHOR OF
"THE PURGATORY OF SUICIDES."
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR JEREMIAH HOW,
209. PICCADILLY.
1845.
CONTENTS
OF
THE SECOND VOLUME.
PAGE
THE OLD CORPORATION 7
NED WILCOM; A STORY OF A FATHER'S SACRIFICE OF HIS
CHILD AT THE SHRINE OF MAMMON 25
LONDON 'VENTURE; OR, THE OLD STORY OVER AGAIN 42
THE LAD WHO FELT LIKE A FISH OUT OF WATER 60
THE INTELLECTUAL LEVER THAT LACKED A FULCRUM 84
NICHOLAS NIXON, "GENTLEMAN," WHO COULD NOT UNDERSTAND
WHY, BUT WHO KNEW "IT WAS SO" 111
SIGNS OF THE TIMES; OR, ONE PARSON AND TWO CLERKS 123
DAME DEBORAH THRUMPKINSON, AND HER ORPHAN APPRENTICE,
JOE 150
TOBY LACKPENNY THE PHILOSOPHICAL: A DEVOTEE OF
THE MARVELLOUS 204
THE OLD CORPORATION.
Those words "odd," and "singular," and "eccentric," what odd, singular,
eccentric sort of words they are, reader! How often they mean
nothing,--being thrown out, as descriptions of character, by drivelling
Ignorance, who scrapes them up as the dregs,--the mere siftings left at
the bottom of his vocabulary, when he has expended his scant collection
of more definite images-in-syllables. And how much more often are they
affixed to the memories of the living or dead, who have been real
brothers among men, and have thus earned these epithets from jaundiced
envy, or guilty selfishness, or heartless pride and tyranny. How little
it commends to us, either our common nature, or such corrupt fashioning
as ages of wrong have given it, that, if we would become acquainted with
a truly good man,--a being to love and to knit the heart unto,--we must
seek for him among the class of character which the world--woe worth
it!--calls "odd," or "singular," or "eccentric!"
Yet so it is, the best of mankind, those, most veritably, "of whom the
world was not worthy," have been, in their day, either the butt for the
sneers of silliness, or the object of envy's relentless hate, or they
have toiled and toiled, perhaps unto martyrdom, beneath the withering,
blasting frown of pride and oppression. Ay, and let us be honest with
ourselves, and confess, that though years or hard experience may have
bettered our own natures,--for we are all too much like that kind of
fruit which takes long days and many weathers to ripen it, so as to
bring forth its most wholesome flavour,--let us be honest, I say, with
ourselves, and confess, that we were as foolishly willing as others, in
our youth, to laugh at what the varlet world calls oddness, and
singularity, and eccentricity. Some of us, however, now see matters in a
somewhat different light. We have discovered that there is some marrow
of meaning in many of those old saws we once thought so tiresome and
dry,--such as, "All is not gold that glitters," and, "Judge not a nut by
the shell," and the like; and we say, within ourselves, when we are in a
moralising mood, (as you and I are now, reader,) that, if we were young
again, we would not join the world in laughing as we used to laugh with
it, at certain queer folk who dwell in our memories,--for we begin to
have a shrewd suspicion that they were among the true "diamonds in the
rough" of human character.
And, to be truly candid with ourselves, reader, have not you and I
found out, by this time, that we are, to all intents and purposes, as
"odd," and as "singular," and as "eccentric," as other folk? Is not the
jewel of the truth this,--as pointless as the saying may look at first
sight,--that--All men are singular? Hath not every man his likes and his
dislikes, his whims and his caprices, his fancies and his hobbies, his
faults and his failings? And are not these found so strangely interwoven
in our daily thinkings, and sayings, and doings, that they may well make
observers ponder upon them, if they had not enough of similar employment
at home? Nay, if some one unnatural sort of thought, or impression, or
habit, which each of us have, could be seen, at all times, by every
body, in its true dimensions, would it not look as uncouth as one of
those huge boulders of primary rock tumbled down from the mass, and left
sticking out from some late-formed strata of marl, quite at a distance
from its proper place, that the geologists talk of? Would not the
thought, or impression, or habit, if our most attached friends could see
it in its proper moral bulk, dwarf many of our "excellencies," as their
partiality phrases it, and really render us poor deformed things, in
their judgment?
"What, then, do ye mean to preach us into the belief that it is a crime
for us ever to have a hearty, harmless laugh, at a queer fellow when we
chance to see him?" Not exactly so, my lads; but we ought never to
forget that we are queer fellows ourselves. Nor ought we to fail in the
reflection that, if we were fully acquainted with that queer fellow, it
might happen we should discover him to be of infinitely more moral value
than ten thousand of the smooth-trimmed estimables in the eye of the
world, who conform to all its precepts so obediently that they never
anger it. And, much more, if we know enough of the "queer fellow" to be
aware that a true, warm, glowing, fraternal heart for his
fellow-creatures beats in his bosom, notwithstanding a few outward
traits of somewhat striking difference from the crowd, why, then, it
becomes our bounden duty,--I will not say, never to smile at his
peculiarities, for that sort of puritanism will not make us better
men,--but to dwell upon his virtues and excellencies,--to extol them,
yea, to enthrone them, whenever he is seen, or heard, or talked of, by
those with whom we company.
Perhaps political party is more universal than any other bad influence
without, in misguiding Englishmen into ill-natured, or contemptuous, or
depreciatory judgments of their neighbours and fellow-townsmen. The last
dozen or fifteen years, especially, have engendered a superabundance of
this foul canker;--so many new rivalries have sprung up with the great
changes in political and municipal institutions; and men, from the
mightiest to the meanest, have been caught up, and whirled along, in
many instances so involuntarily, into the rush and torrent of change.
And yet, how the lapse of these dozen or fifteen years hath altered the
judgment of many of us, with regard to some men and their party-cries.
What a wide-spread "liberal" laudation, for instance, there was about
the famous definition of a Tory, in the _Times_,--and yet how soon it
became its own "duck-legged drummer-boy," and all that! Nay, how soon
did some of the very chiefs of the potential reforming party,--from
idols of the multitude,--by their refusal to complete what they had
begun, and, indeed, in some instances, by their open manifestation of a
will to undo what they had done,--become its scoff and scorn, nay, even
its detestation!
And then the old "Guilds," or "Corporations," to which the new
"Town-Councils" have succeeded,--what a general tendency to exaggeration
there was in the mode of judging of them, and in the tone of talking and
writing about them, especially in the public prints. How witty were the
newspaper people in their conceits of conserving, or pickling, or
embalming an alderman, and having him placed in the British Museum, as a
curiosity for antiquaries to form profound speculations upon, some ten
or twelve centuries into futurity! Ay, and how eloquently abusive was
the prevailing Whig strain about "nests of corruption," and "rotten
lumber," and "fine pickings," and "impositions, and frauds, and dark
rogueries of the self-elect!" And how the scale has turned, since, in
the greater share of boroughs, where the poor and labouring classes
threw up their hats for joy at "municipal reform,"--and now mutter
discontent at the pride of upstarts become insolent oppressors,--or
openly curse, as in the poverty-stricken and hunger-bitten manufacturing
districts, at the relentless and grinding tyrannies of the recreant
middle-classes whom municipal honours have drawn off from their
hot-blooded radicalism, and converted into cold, unfeeling, merciless
wielders of magisterial or other local power.
There was, it cannot be denied, in the droll trappings and antiquated
mummeries of the old guilds,--in their ermined scarlet cloaks, and funny
cocked hats, and in their maces and staves,--and above all, in the
starch, and march, and swelling, and strut, and pomposity, with which
these were worn or borne,--much that was calculated to tickle the
spectator into mirth; but, really, when one thinks of it, are the
horse-hair wig of a bishop, a judge, or a barrister, the robe and
coronet of a peer, or the crown and sceptre of a king or queen, less
like playthings for upgrown children than were the "regalia" and antique
habits of the old corporation-men? Was Cromwell so far beside the mark
when he called the Speaker's mace a "fool's bauble?"--and might not the
expression be applied with as much fitness to many other "ensigns of
office," as they are called?
And again: though it is true that a grand uncurtaining of robbery,--for
that is the plain English of it,--was made in some, at least, of the old
boroughs, by the inquest of that parliamentary commission which preceded
the sweeping away of the old corporations,--yet are we not, now, become
conscious, that amid the party heat and animosity of the period, much
private excellence was over-shaded or forgotten in the rage of public
censure, nay, that much virtue was denied, even where it was known to
exist, lest the recognition of it should mar the scheme for overthrowing
the party to which that virtue was attached?
This is a long exordium for a fugitive sketch, and it is time to say it
has sprung from reflections created in the mind of an imprisoned
"conspirator" and "mover of sedition," by the flitting across his cell,
in his imagination, of sundry bygone shapes with whom he was, more or
less, familiar at one period of his changeful life. It is the "Old
Corporation" of the ancient and time-honoured city of Lincoln, of which
the writer speaks;--and though wit might discover among its members many
a foible that would form a picture to "make those laugh whose lungs are
tickled o' the sere," yet generosity, and justice, no less, must
confess, that after the most searching inquiry and exposure, they were
neither individually nor collectively stained with the acts of
peculation and embezzlement, nor application of public funds to
political party purposes, which were so heavily, and, no doubt, truly
charged on some of the old guilds in other parts of the country.
Yet they were, as a body, supporters of the _ancien regime_, as was
natural: they had been inured, the greater part of them, through nearly
the whole of their lives, to look upon the established state of things
as the best and fittest;--and, no doubt, the majority of them
conscientiously believed it to be so,--failing, through the confined and
stinted nature of their social training, to reflect that what was
productive to themselves, the few, of pleasure or comfort, might confer
no benefits on the many,--but rather be a source, to these, of deep and
increasing suffering. Passing by many a picture that starts to memory of
"mayoralty," and its ludicrous airs of greatness, and many a
reminiscence of grave joke and lighter whimsicality,--of burlesque
importance, and mirth-moving earnestness about trifles,--recollection
dwells with consolated interest on more durable limnings of simple,
uncorrupted manners, and warm hearts, and really expansive natures, that
belonged to some of that "Old Corporation."
There is one comes before me, vividly, at this moment,--while that sweet
robin-red-breast hops into my day-room, and bends his neck to look at me
so knowingly and friendlily in my loneliness, as he doth, almost
daily;--and the loved bird's image consorts delightfully with him I was
thinking of,--for, above all things, the fine, noble-hearted, yet meek
and gentle old alderman, loved to be thought and esteemed an
_ornithologist_! That was his pride, his loftiest aim, his highest
ambition,--as far as reputation or a name was the subject of his
thought. As for his charities, and enlarged acts of sympathy for his
suffering fellow-creatures, his deeds of mercy and goodness, he strove
to hide them, performing them often by stealth, and half denying the
performance of them, when admiration of his beneficence kindled praise
of it in his hearing. Ah! it is too true: he relieved wretchedness till
his purse was scanty, and his circumstances were straitened;--and
then,--and then,--in spite of his aldermanic dignity, in spite of his
"respectable" family connections, and even the respectability of his own
practice and profession, as a surgeon,--he was mentioned as the
"odd,"--the "singular,"--the "eccentric" Mr. ----!
_That_ is the world. Who would have dreamt that Alderman----was odd, or
singular, or eccentric, had he kept his money, instead of giving it to
the distressed?
But the kind-hearted old man thirsted for reputation as an
_ornithologist_. Well, and in good sooth, he had some solid claim to it.
Birds were his passion; and you seldom met any one who knew so much
about them. I know not whether his relatives keep the book of drawings
which the good man showed to me, as he had showed it to hundreds, with
so much innocent pride;--taking care to relate how it had been begun
when he was a young apprentice, and had taken him years to complete;
above all, that it was the product of early hours stolen from sleep, and
had never robbed, his professional duties of their proper share of
attention. They ought to keep it, however, and to value it too. Not for
the sake of any surpassing excellence in the portraitures of birds with
which it was filled; for, although the good old man was so proud of the
"_real_ birds," which he used to observe it contained, yet they were
embodied to the eye somewhat in Chinese taste, as clearly as I can
remember: rather with exactitude of pencillings and shades, than with
skill in the "drawing" or attitude of the bird, or observance of rules
of perspective, or "fore-shortening," or any of the intricacies of art.
But the heart--the heart of the good man whose hand performed these
curious and laborious limnings--should stamp a precious value on the
book that contained them.
Nor was it a mere unmeaning hobby, this love of the feathered tribe
which was so strong in the benevolent alderman. He was another Gilbert
White in diligence of observation on their habits in the woods and
fields, and on the heath and the moor. In his rural rides as a surgeon,
he was ever learning some fact relative to their economy, and he most
diligently chronicled it. And at the return of the season, he was as
punctually periodical as the fall of the leaf in acquainting his
friendly circle with his impressions relative to the severity or the
openness of the ensuing winter, from his observations on the feathered
tribe. Many of these "prognostications," as some people called them,
although he never assumed the character of a prophet himself, were
registered in the _Stamford Mercury_, the long-established and
ably-conducted medium of information for the extensive though
thinly-peopled district of Lincolnshire; and they so seldom failed to be
realised, that the ornithological surgeon was often complimented on his
prophecies. "Nay," he would reply, "I am no prophet: I only go by
Nature's books: you may do the same, if you'll read them."
Was it his diligent and loving perusal of these books which imbued him
with that never-failing zeal to relieve the miserable? was it by his
continued drinking of the lessons of bounty and care discoverable in
those books, that kept open, to his latest day, the sluices of his
beneficent heart,--so that the icy influences of the world never froze
them up,--but they were left to well out goodness, and tenderness, and
pity, for the poor, and hungry, and sick, and miserable, to the end of
his life?
One cannot suppress a persuasion of this kind; and it seems next to
impossible but that Gilbert White must have gladdened the poor of his
"Selborne," to the very extent of his means, and, perhaps, sometimes
beyond it,--secretly, humbly, and unobtrusively,--while his amiable
mind was displaying so simply and charmingly, in that correspondence
with Tennant and Barrington, its devoted love and admiration of the
characters in "Nature's books." This thought may be but a prejudice of
the imagination; but such prejudices are less criminal than the
prejudices of the judgment or understanding, and one feels unwilling to
have them removed in a case like this: we have, alas! too many examples
of evil contradictions in the characters we thirst to love,--and our
worship even of the noblest intelligences,--such as Bacon,--is too often
checked by them.
In the devoted reader of "Nature's books," however, of whom we are
immediately speaking, there was a delightful harmony of character. "I
cannot pay you, yet, Mr. ----,"--said a poor woman to him, as I walked by
his side, along the High Street of St. Botolph's parish, listening to
his autumnal chronicle,--"I cannot pay you yet, sir, for my husband is
out of work."--"Pr'ythee, never mind, woman," replied the good man.
"Make thyself easy, and get that poor boy a pair of shoes, before thou
pays me!"--"God bless you, sir!" replied the poor woman, with her ragged
and shoeless lad, and dropped a courtesy, while the grateful tear rolled
down her cheek. I looked, with an impulse of admiration, at the face of
the good alderman, as we passed along, and the tears were coursing each
other adown his face likewise!
And how often have I heard,--what, indeed, well-nigh every citizen of
old Lincoln had either heard, or witnessed,--of his bounteous relief of
famishing and clotheless families he was called to attend during the
sickness of a child or father, or the mother's agony of Nature. One
thought presents itself painfully: it is, that while he manifested so
true a fraternity with man, and lived a life of so much private,
unobtrusive blessing,--he was so frequently the victim of encroaching
and designing knaves. His ready loans of money, in his wealthiest days,
to needy tradesmen, were often punctually and honestly returned; but he
was too often victimised. And there is one image now crosses me, very
legibly,--that used to haunt and pester the good-hearted man, even up to
the period of his straitness,--ever goading him with some plea of
difficulty, and essaying to squeeze out of him another sum, under the
unprincipled name of a loan. He was a "limb of the law," who had been
"done up" in his profession, for his want of honesty. And yet I have
some misgivings whether that human being were so morally culpable as his
life of shuffle, and deceit, and meanness, would lead one to think; for
I remember how often I noticed the large indentation across his bald
head, caused by some accident, in which the bone of the skull had been
bent or broken, and, consequently, the brain injured. His career is at
an end, however; and whatever might be the true solution of the problem
of his idiosyncrasy, one cannot help feeling a regret that the best and
finest natures should so often, in this world, become a prey to the
worst,--as in the case of this vile practiser, who often boasted over
his brandy, in the presence of some base associate, that he had gulled
the alderman again!----
Memory calls up another form less distinctly, since it belonged to one
who was much nearer the end of his course; and the impression of his
identity depends more on what others said of him than on any thing like
personal or intimate acquaintance with his character. From some
unskilfulness of speech, or want of grace in outward demeanour, or some
other mark that the world thought "odd," or "singular," or "eccentric,"
he had gained the odd, singular, and eccentric, but very distinctive
_soubriquet_ of Alderman Lob. He was a bulky sort of man externally,
talked thick, yet talked a great deal; was laid up with the gout often,
and passed his closing years totally within doors as an invalid: but
many a poverty-stricken habitant of Lincoln found weekly relief at his
door; and more than one aged and infirm creature prayed for the
lengthening out of his life, in the fear they would be left destitute,
or be compelled to go into the workhouse, when they could no longer
depend on his weekly charity.----
The master-spirit of that old guild, though too mentally acute, and too
successful in the acquirement of wealth to leave room for the world to
term him odd, or singular, or eccentric, united in his composition some
high qualities that now rise in kindly answer to the record memory gives
of the bitter things spoken of him by party. He had been the
"town-clerk" of the guild, and even then wielded the principal power in
it, being really its master, though nominally its servant; and only laid
aside the black gown and quill to don an alderman's ermined cloak,
because he had become too wealthy either to desire longer to reap the
salary, or undergo the fatigue and labour of his first office.
His attention to every man in whom he discerned superior ability,
without regard to conventional grade, and often in defiance of its
rules; his real liberality in giving aid to honest industry, wherever he
found it; his munificence in assisting either the "charities" which are
the just pride of old Lincoln, or any plan for presenting its citizens
with amusement that combined usefulness: these were among his life-long
acts. And, in spite of the keen raillery with which his shrewd
penetration of character often led him to visit the vulgar conceit or
affectation of some with whom his office brought him into frequent
contact, all bore testimony to his intelligence and honour. Nay,
although he was one who never professed any fervid sympathy with popular
progress, and therefore was not likely to become a favourite with a
people so strongly political as the Lincoln cits were a few years ago,
yet so deeply did they regard him as a man who, by the excellence of
his understanding, had done honour to their city in bearing one of its
chief offices, that a general and reverential sorrow was expressed when
his end approached, for it was seen, in his wasted frame and fading eye,
many months before the fatal moment came.
Perhaps their knowledge of the one bitter draught that was mingled with
his life's chalice, during the concluding years of his course, served
greatly to soften their thoughts towards the intellectual chief of the
old municipal institution, even while many of them rejoiced at the
overthrow of the institution itself. His tenderly beloved and highly
accomplished daughter,--his only child,--faded and died; and, therewith,
the charm of life seemed broken for him. How often was this a subject of
kindly-spirited converse among citizens as he passed; and how
reflectingly did they note what they learnt to be his own poignant
observations on that heart-rending bereavement!--his pithy and thrilling
confessions that he had toiled for nothing!--that life was only a scene
of disappointment!--that he had used unceasing exertion to attain
wealth; but he had, now, neither "chick nor child" to leave it to! So
fertile is life in affording moral nurture and correction to all
hearts!--creating sympathy with the sorrowful brother, with him to whom
the bitter cup is appointed; but infusing a salutary admonition,
meanwhile, not to set our hearts too passionately on things of clay,
lest we doom ourselves also to drink of that bitterness!----
He who was esteemed the most "odd," the most "singular," the most
"eccentric" member of that Old Corporation, lingered long after its
demise; and by the popularity of his character, as the only radical
alderman of the Old, became a town councillor, and eventually a mayor,
under the New municipal institution. How rife were the stories of his
furious attacks upon the "self-elect" of the olden time!--and what a
rich hue of the burlesque was thrown around the pictures that were given
of him in daily conversation! Yet, who did not, in spite of his
slenderness of intellect, love him for his incorruptible honesty, and,
above all, for his unfailing benevolence? Oh! there was not a human
being,--beggar, pauper, distressed stranger, or townsman,--who ever went
from his door unrelieved; nor could he pass, in the street, a
fellow-creature whose appearance led him to suppose he had found a real
sufferer, but he must inquire into it, even unsolicited. The abhorrent
enactments of the New Poor Law,--how he hated them!--and how staggered
he felt in his reforming faith, when the "liberal" administration urged
the passing of the strange Malthusian measure! "I cannot understand it!"
he would exclaim, in the hearing of the numerous participants in his
English hospitality; "I never thought that Reform was to make the poor
more miserable, and the poorest of the poor the most miserable: it is a
mystery to me! Surely it is a mistake in Lord Grey and Lord Brougham!"
So the good old man thought and said; but he did not live to see the
"liberal" lawmakers either correct their mistake, or acknowledge that
they had made one,--though agonised thousands pealed that sad truth in
their ears!
NED WILCOM;
A STORY OF
A FATHER'S SACRIFICE OF HIS CHILD
AT THE
SHRINE OF MAMMON.
"Sirrah! you have nothing to do but to get on in the world. You _may_ do
that, if you will. The way is open for you, as it was for me; so get up
to London, and try. There's twenty pounds for you: I'll give you twenty
thousand, as soon as you show me one thousand of your own; but I won't
give you another farthing till you prove to me that you know the value
of money, and can get it yourself. And mark me, sir! if you haven't the
nouse to make something out in the world, you shall live and die a
beggar, for me; for I'll leave all I have to your sisters, and cut you
off with a shilling. There, sir! there's your road! Good morning!"
And so saying, Mr. Ned Wilcom, senior, pushed Mr. Ned Wilcom, junior,
his only son, out of his counting-house, and shut the door upon him.
That was an awkward way for a rich Leeds merchant to receive a son on
the completion of his apprenticeship as a draper, and at the early age
of twenty. Yet it was no worse than young Ned expected. Nor did it break
his heart, as it would have broken the heart of a lad who had been more
tenderly nurtured. Ned Wilcom never saw his father occupied with any
other thought, act, employ, or pleasure, but what pertained to
money-getting; nor ever heard his father pass an encomium on any human
character in his life, save on such as succeeded in piling together
large fortunes from small beginnings, or enriched themselves by
outwitting their neighbours. From the age of nine to sixteen, he had
only seen his father twice a year--Midsummer and Christmas; and having
lost his mother when a mere infant, he never knew or felt the softening
influences of maternal affection. The artificial life of a
boarding-school, during those seven years, infused a good deal of craft,
and nearly as large a measure of heartlessness, into Ned's nature--for
it was not originally of such tendencies. The master and ushers were
hypocrites and tyrants, only differing in grade; and if there were a lad
with a little more gentleness, humanity, and openness about him than the
rest, Ned observed that he soon "went to the wall" among his
school-fellows. And so, with one influence or other, Ned Wilcom left
school with the firm persuasion that the world was a general
battle-field, where the weak and the virtuous were destined to become
the prey of the strong and the crafty; and, all things considered, Ned
resolved to take sides with the winning party.
Such were Ned's resolves at sixteen; and they were by no means changed
in their direction, or weakened in their vigour, by an apprenticeship in
a dashing and aspiring draper's shop in Liverpool during the succeeding
four years. To that sea-port he was accompanied, per coach, by his
father; whose parting words then were, that he was to remember that "he
was going to be taught how to make money, the only thing worth
learning;" and, until he received the summary benediction already
rehearsed, Ned did not see his father again. It is true, he received
from home a half-yearly letter, but it never harped on more than one
string, and that was the old one; so that, drawing his inferences from
these premises, Ned Wilcom was not surprised to be dismissed in five
minutes, with twenty pounds, and to have the counting-house door shut in
his face by his own father.
Within a week after his arrival in London, Ned Wilcom found a situation;
and it was one to his heart's content--as he told his father in a letter
of five lines, for he knew his parent too well to trouble him with a
longer epistle. The lad's ambition could only have been more highly
gratified by a reception into the establishment of Swan and Edgar, in
the Quadrant, or the superb "Waterloo House" in Cockspur Street, for he
had obtained a place in that immensest of show-shops which attracts the
stranger crowds in St. Paul's Churchyard, where the business was of a
less select nature than in the two rival first-rate shops at the West
End, and was therefore a more fitting field for the exercise of such
knowledge and tact as Ned had acquired in Liverpool. And all went on
exceedingly well with Ned for several weeks. It is true, the discipline
of the establishment was somewhat more rigorous than in the house he had
quitted; but he was prepared to expect it. He was compelled to "look
sharp about him;" but he had heard in the country that that would be the
case. The matter of vianding, the exact minute of remaining out in the
evening, the amount of exertion and energy in discharging his duties,
all was so exactly defined, measured, and timed, that to a mere raw
apprentice from the country, or to one whose mind was less determinately
girt up to make his way, the situation would have seemed any thing but
pleasant. Ned, however, felt quite at home, for he had yoked his will to
his necessities; and in lieu of indulging the slightest disposition to
grumble at his lot, set success before himself, and determined to
achieve it. With a mind so fully made up, a handsome figure, a winning
address, and a fair portion of natural shrewdness, Ned was sure to
conduct himself in such a way as to please his employers. In fact, in
the course of a dozen or fifteen weeks, he became the decided favourite
with the manager of the concern, and, of course, experienced
proportionate pecuniary advancement.
But a woeful change awaited Ned Wilcom, despite these fair prospects.
His eagerness to succeed had urged him to stretch his powers beyond
their strength, and his resolve to economise, so as to win the means of
early independence, induced him to deny himself too rigidly of
under-clothing, and the consequence was, that a nervous lassitude and a
severe cold at once attacked him. He bore up some days; but was a little
shocked to observe a change of look in the manager, and to overhear a
little whispering by way of comment on his lack of energy. Five days had
passed; but on the morning of the sixth, it was with extreme difficulty
he rose from bed, and so lethargic were his faculties, that he felt it
utterly impossible to put on appearances of excessive complaisance, or
to display the customary grimaces of civility. Towards noon, excessive
pains in the head and chest drove him from the shop; and, without saying
a word to any one, he sought his sleeping-room, and threw himself on his
bed. Here he was found in a state of insensibility, in the course of
half an hour was undressed, and put into bed. Ned refused the cool
offers of extra diet made him, when he came to his senses; and when
visited by the manager, said he had no doubt he would be quite well by
the next morning. The manager elevated his brows, said he hoped so, and
walked away immediately.
When the morning came, however, the youth was so weak that he felt he
would be utterly incapable of exertion if he went down stairs; yet he
would have attempted it, had not one who had been much longer in the
establishment than himself--though Ned had passed him by, in
preferment--stepped into his bed-room, and most pressingly persuaded him
not to think of going down. So Ned put off his half resolve to go down,
and threw himself again on the bed. But what was his surprise, grief,
and disgust, on seeing this very individual step again into his room in
the course of five minutes, to announce with the most marble coldness of
look, that the manager desired Mr. Wilcom would get up and make out his
account--for it was against rule for any one to remain on the
establishment who was unable to attend to business. "Immediately," was
the only word the messenger added, turning back as he was about to quit
the room, and then departing with a wicked sneer upon his face. Poor
Ned! he felt he was in a hard case; but his native pride was too great
to permit him to weep, or give way. Indignation strung his nerves for
the nonce; he bounced up--dressed himself--though he trembled like one
in the palsy--made out his account--went down stairs, and presented
it--was paid, by the manager's order--and quitted the premises, in the
lapse of fifteen minutes.
Occupied with the vengeful feeling that was natural after such cruel
treatment--though it was but an every-day fact, with drapers'
assistants, in London--the youth had arrived in Fleet Street ere he
bethought him that he had left his clothes behind him, and had not made
up his mind as to where he was going. Faintness began to come over him,
and he was compelled to cling to a window for support. Two passengers on
the causeway stopped, and began to address him sympathetically; the rest
of the living stream swept on, without staying to notice him. A cabman,
however, less from sympathy than from the hope of employ, speedily
brought his vehicle to the edge of the slabs, and jumping from his seat
with the reins in his hand, asked if he could be of any service to the
gentleman. Ned felt it was not a time for prolonged consideration, and
earnestly, though feebly, desired the cabman to convey him to some
decent boarding-house. One of the persons supporting him saw that his
state did not permit questioning, and prevented the cabman's asking
where he would be driven to, by telling the man to proceed at once to a
number he mentioned in Bolt Court. The same individual walked by the
side of the cab, for the little way that it was to the entry of the
court, and then helped to support Ned to the house. A sick man, however,
was not likely to meet with a very hearty welcome in a London
boarding-house; and, in spite of the entreaties of the person who
accompanied him, the youth would have had the door shut upon him, had he
not roused all his remaining vigour, and assured the keeper of the
establishment, not only that he would soon be well, but that he was able
to pay for what he might need. With such assurances he was reluctantly
received, and supported up stairs to a bed-room. Presence of mind served
him to give order for fetching his portmanteau from the establishment he
had just quitted; and it was well that it was so, for he became
insensible almost immediately. A fever ensued of some weeks'
continuance; and, at the end of it, when Ned regained his consciousness,
he found himself reduced to a state of emaciation, and under medical
attendance, with a deeply reduced purse.
These were concomitants of a nature to bring great pain to the mind of
one like Ned Wilcom; and it was with a severe struggle that he shut out
despair, and encouraged himself to believe that, though so grievously
frustrated in his commencing hopes of independence, the prospect of
success would again bud, and finally blossom. After ascertaining from
his physician that his state would bear a removal to a less expensive
lodging, Ned wrote home to his father, and informed him of his
unfortunate condition, and of what had led to it. Mr. Wilcom, senior,
was a little surprised to receive a second letter from his son so soon,
for "he had no notion," as he used to say, "of lads perpetually writing
home, like unweaned babies that wanted pap;" and he, therefore, broke
the seal of poor Ned's letter with no remarkable degree of good humour.
The length of the letter, when opened, caused the money-getting father
to throw it aside with an indescribable curl of the lip and nose, and a
loud "Pshaw!"--and that was all the attention the poor youth's epistle
received for the five next succeeding days, that is to say, until Sunday
came, and the merchant thought he had time to look at it. The next
morning Ned Wilcom received his father's answer: it was simply--
"Sir,
"Yours came to hand last Monday. If your illness was brought on by
want of caution, it ought to teach you prudence. If you have been
unlucky, you are only like many more; and, as your grandfather used
to say, the best way and the manliest, with troubles, is to grin
and abide by them. Wish you better.
"Your humble servant,
"EDWARD WILCOM, senior.
The letter dropped from Ned's hand like a lump of lead too heavy to
hold. With all his knowledge of his father's nature and habits, he had
not expected this. Indeed, Ned's uninterrupted good health, through the
whole of his brief space of life, had prevented the possibility of his
testing his father's tenderness before. For some hours, the youth
experienced misery he had never known till then; and was so completely
paralysed with the sense of his wretched and deserted state, that the
physician, who made his usual call in the afternoon, could obtain no
intelligent answer to his questions; and though by no means one whose
heart overflowed with the milk of human kindness, felt constrained, in a
sympathising tone, to ask if any thing extraordinary had occurred to his
patient. Ned pointed to the letter which lay on the floor, and in spite
of the hardness of feeling into which he had trained himself, burst into
a flood of tears.
Nature was thus sufficiently relieved to enable the youth to answer the
physician's inquiries as to his father's wealth, habits, and so on, with
a slight but very significant additional query as to the extent of Ned's
remaining stock of money. The conclusion was _not_ any promise of help,
but cool advice to remove, forthwith, to a cheaper lodging; or which,
the physician remarked, would be far more prudent, to an hospital. The
latter alternative Ned could not brook _then_, so he did remove to a
cheaper lodging; but his feebleness disappeared so slowly, and the
contents of his slender purse so rapidly, that he was compelled to enter
an hospital, after discharging his medical attendant's bill, and
finding himself possessed but of one sovereign, at the end of another
fortnight.
For six dreary months Ned Wilcom's feeble state compelled him to remain
an inmate of this charitable establishment; and though his wants were
amply provided for, and his complaints and sufferings were met with
prompt and sympathising kindness and attention, yet his spirit was
greatly soured. He ventured one more letter to his father, but it
received no greater welcome than the former one; and, in the bitterness
of his soul, Ned cursed the parent who could thus treat his child, and
resolved never to write home again, as long as he lived.
At length, he was strong enough to leave his refuge, and without staying
to be told that he must go, he went. Once more, he took a cheap lodging,
but a much cheaper one, as far as price went, than before, and in one of
the purlieus of Lambeth, where he would have scorned almost to set his
foot, when he first arrived in London. Though his scanty sovereign would
have recommended instant search for a situation, his great weakness, and
his looking-glass, told him he must take, at least, one week's further
rest. He took it, and then commenced inquiry for a situation, not at the
establishment where his misfortunes commenced, neither at any of the
first-rate fashionable shops. Sourness of spirit kept him at a distance
from the cathedral churchyard; and the somewhat seedy condition, even of
his best suit, debarred his admission, he believed, at any of the
"tip-top" houses. So he sought to be engaged in some more humble
establishment; but, alas! his pallid face and sunken eye, his hollow
voice and feeble step, were against him; and a shake of the head, or a
hard stare, with a decided negative, was the invariable answer to his
applications.
To shorten the melancholy story of his deeper descent into
wretchedness--at the end of the tenth week after his departure from the
hospital, he was so far restored to strength as to be able to walk
upright, to speak in his natural tone of firmness, and would have been
competent to have discharged the duties of a draper's assistant in any
shop in the metropolis; but every article of clothing he had possessed,
except two shirts, two pairs of stockings, and the outer suit he
constantly wore, were all in pawn, and he was, now, absolutely--penniless!
It was when the eleventh week began, and the dreaded Monday morning
returned, when his weekly lodging-rent should be paid, that Ned
stealthily descended from his attic, and passed, unobserved by his
landlady, from the front door, to wander he knew not whither--except to
avoid shame. By the Marsh Gate he passed, and through the New Cut, and
over Blackfriars' Bridge, and, losing the remembrance of where he was,
he wandered from street to street, till, suddenly, in Old Street, he was
awoke to the sense of delight--a feeling he had long been a stranger
to--by seeing a half-crown at the edge of the pavement, as he sauntered
along with his head dropped on his chest. He snatched it up with
inconceivable eagerness: no one was near to whom he could suppose it
belonged, had his necessity permitted him to think of asking for its
proper owner; and galled by a complete abstinence of two whole days, he
hurried to the very first appearance of food that met his eye--a stall
of coarse shell-fish.
"How d'ye sell them?--what d'ye call them?" were the questions he put to
the poor ragged man who stood by this stall of strange vendibles that
Ned had seen poverty-stricken children and females stand to eat, but had
never tasted them himself.
"Ve calls 'em vilks, sir," answered the man, "six a penny: shall I open
ye a penn'orth o' fresh uns, sir?"
"Oh! these will do--let me have a dozen," said Ned Wilcom, and seized,
and devoured a couple in a moment.
"La! stop, sir!" cried the man--"you vants winegar to 'em!"--and he took
the old broken bottle of earthenware, with the cork and a hole in it,
and would fain have poured some of the horrible adulteration upon the
shell-fish, but the very smell of it was too much for the youth's
senses. He devoured the dozen; but though the first mouthful had seemed
delicious, he had some difficulty in gulping the last; and had not
proceeded twenty paces from the stall, after receiving the change for
his half-crown, before he felt half overcome with sickness and nausea.
He was about to pass by a dram-shop--but the thought suddenly struck him
that a small glass of brandy would dispel the sickness; and he stepped
in and called for one. An elderly female was sipping a very small glass
of liquor, when Ned crossed the threshold, but passed out immediately,
after giving him a keen glance, as he gave his call, and laid a shilling
on the dram-shop counter. By this woman he was immediately accosted,
when he quitted the dram-shop:--
"Have you taken coffee this morning, sir?" said she, with a short
courtesy: "I shall be happy to accommodate you, if you have not, sir: my
house is just here, sir"--and so saying, she led the way into Bath
Street, at the corner of St. Luke's, and Ned, half-helplessly, followed;
for though the brandy had dispelled the sickness, it seemed to have
given a wolvish strength to his two days' hunger.
A younger female, tawdrily clad, but possessing features of sufficient
power to attract Ned's especial gaze, was the only apparent occupant of
the low habitation into which the elderly woman led the way. Breakfast
was speedily prepared, in a somewhat humble mode, but Ned was too hungry
to be delicate. The younger woman was soon engaged so freely and
familiarly in conversation with the youth, as to venture a mirthful
observation on his good appetite. Ned's heart glowed too warmly with the
fitful delight of having found the half-crown and the means of a
breakfast, to permit him to cultivate secrecy. He told it outright--the
fact that he had fasted two days, and found the half-crown but half an
hour before on the pavement. What will not the tongue tell, when the
heart has been suddenly and unexpectedly unbondaged, though it be but
temporarily, from deep-during sorrow?
And then, of course, that confession led to others, and the whole story
of Ned's life and parentage, of his sickness and harsh treatment, and of
his sufferings and deprivations, till that moment, were unfolded. And
then came the formidable question--What did he now intend to do?--and it
was one that brought back the full sense of his misery, for his
half-crown was reduced already to a shilling; and he knew not what must
become of him when that was spent--unless he stood in the streets to
beg!
The evil moment that was to seal Ned's ruin was come. The elderly female
at a glance given her by the younger, which the youth's misery prevented
his observing, threw on her shawl, and went out.--
She returned--but it was after two hours had passed; and Ned Wilcom,
who, when he entered London, believed himself heir to a gentleman's
fortune and rank, had become the slave of a prostitute, and had pledged
himself to take lessons from her in the practice of dishonesty. That
very afternoon, he entered on his guilty profession: she hung on his
arm, and as they entered a crowded thoroughfare she taught him to
purloin, successively, a handkerchief, a book, and a watch, from the
pockets of passengers.
The perfect security with which his first thefts were accomplished, and
the galling remembrance of his past indignities, added to the new
fascination above mentioned, stifled the reproaches of Ned Wilcom's
conscience, when the hour of reflection came. He advanced in the
downward path, until he became a daring burglar, and a skilful adept at
swindling, under the name of card-playing, in addition to his more petty
practice on pockets. Some idea of his son's fate, at length reached the
brutal and sordid mind of Wilcom the elder. He commissioned a friend,
two or three times, on his London journies, to make strict inquiry as to
the accuracy of the reports concerning Ned. The youth avoided the search
as much as possible, but could not prevent the truth from reaching his
native town.
The catastrophe approached in another year. The papers contained an
account of Ned's apprehension for a series of daring robberies: his
father's acquaintances boldly and honestly reprehended his unparental
cruelty; and though the Mammon-worshipping wretch was unmoved for some
time, at length he dashed up to town to "see what all the noise was
about," as he said. He arrived soon enough to see his son at the bar as
a degraded criminal; and before he had gazed upon him for more than five
minutes, heard him sentenced to transportation for life! Ned was
immediately reconducted to his cell, while his father fell, senseless,
in the Court; and though he was taken home to Leeds the following week,
it was to be a helpless, doting paralytic, and a proverb to the end of
his life.
LONDON 'VENTURE;
OR,
THE OLD STORY OVER AGAIN.
It was in the year '39, a little before the "Dog-cart Nuisance," as it
used to be called, was abolished in London, that Ingram Wilson had some
curious thoughts as he stood looking at a very old and interesting dog,
in one of the by-streets of the Borough.--Ingram Wilson, it ought to
have been first said, was a young man who had forsaken an engagement on
a thriving newspaper in an opulent agricultural district, and had "come
up to London," partly through a slight disagreement with his former
patron, but chiefly through a vivid persuasion, that London was the only
true starting point for "a man of genius," a title to which young Ingram
laid claim. Now, this claim had never been questioned by any one in the
country, and Ingram thought every one would as readily acknowledge it in
the metropolis. How could Ingram Wilson help thinking so, when every
body had asked him, for three years, "why he did not go to London, and
make his fortune?" But, good-lack! when Ingram arrived in London, and
had stared at all the lions for three days, he began to feel himself in
a desert, even amidst thousands. He knew nobody, and nobody knew him. He
stept into two or three newspaper offices, stationers' shops, and
booksellers' little warehouses, asking questions about an engagement;
but people looked at him so suspiciously, that he grew afraid of asking
further. He looked at the Times, and the Herald, and the Chronicle every
morning, in one coffee-house or other--walked to this place and that--or
wrote letters of application, in answer to advertisements, but all was
in vain: two months fled entirely, and he had not received a single
hour's employ, or earned one farthing in London; and he was now reduced
to his last sovereign!
Feeling the necessity of an instant resort to the strictest and most
prudential economy, he quitted his lodgings, and found one, (a beggarly
bed, a chair, and broken table, in a fifth floor,) at eighteen-pence a
week. All day he was out, and sometimes dined on threepenn'orth of
boiled beef and potatoes, and sometimes he didn't: however, he contrived
to make the sovereign last one more month, for he still found no employ.
And now he was come to selling or pawning--what he had never been
driven to before, in his life. His books none of the pawn-brokers would
have: they were an article that could be turned to no account, if not
redeemed. So Ingram pawned his watch; but for so small a sum, that
though he was still more economical, he could only stretch another month
on the "lent money," as he called it, little supposing he would never
see the watch again. And then went extra articles of clothing, till he
could go no farther. And when six months were gone, part of his books
were gone likewise; but they were _sold_ at comparatively waste-paper
price at the second-hand booksellers.
It was then, at the expiration of six months' trial of London, without
having found one hour's employ, and when he had reduced his clothes till
he looked "shabby," and had not half-a-dozen books left that would fetch
him the value of another week's subsistence at the book-stalls;--it was
then that young Ingram Wilson had "some curious thoughts as he stood
looking at a very old and interesting dog, in one of the by-streets of
the Borough."
Ingram had been much disgusted with every dog-cart he had seen before;
for he was driven to moralise, almost by necessity, as he wandered about
from street to street; and he had made many a notch in his mind about
costermongers riding on the front of their dog-carts in a morning,
"four-in-hand," and all in a row, yelping as they galloped under the
lash of the whip; and how much they must resemble Esquimaux emperors
and Kamschatka princes, if there were any; and of the wicked glee of the
rascally young sweeps who would rattle down Blackfriars' Road, and St.
George's Road, and other roads of an evening, racing one against
another--"taking home" the one-dog shay of some cat's meat man or dealer
in greens, who had thus committed his chariot and animals to these sooty
Jehus, while he himself staid at some favourite resort to smoke and
tipple "heavy wet" till midnight. I say, young Ingram Wilson had made
many a notch in his mind about these, and other dog-cart phenomena; but
he had never felt so much melancholy interest in looking at a dog in a
cart, as he felt in looking at this "very old and interesting dog."
There might be something in the way in which his attention was first
aroused to look at the dog. He had just entered this by-street, and was
so much absorbed in reflecting on his own increasingly perilous
circumstances, that he had not even noticed the name of the street
(though this was a practice he usually attended to so punctually, that
he grew quite familiar with numerous localities during the six
months):--he merely saw that it was a street of some length, with a
ground-story room to every house on the right hand, what would be termed
a cellar in the country,--fenced off by neat palisades from the flagged
pavement. His reverie was broken suddenly, by the shrill, and
peculiarly disagreeable, and well-known cry "Cat's m-e-a-t!" and the man
jumped from his vehicle, the dog stood stock still, and almost along the
whole line of the street, cats white, and black, and tabby, and
tortoiseshell, were suddenly at the palisades, of the houses, setting up
their backs and tails, and uttering a shrill "mew!" Ingram was a little
struck with this; but still more with a fine large black tom-cat, that
leaped from the palisade of the house where the cart was standing, and
ran under the old dog's head. Setting up his back and tail, he passed
under the head of the dog again and again, so coaxingly and soothingly,
and uttered so kindly sympathetic a "purr," every time that he passed
backward and forward, and the poor aged dog arched his neck, and hung
his ears forward, and bent down to receive the soft rub of the cat's
back under his chin, and looked so grateful, that Ingram stood still,
and pondered curiously on this display of sympathy between brute
creatures--a quality that he began to think scarce among human beings.
The poor old dog looked almost like a bag of leather, with a collection
of old bones in it: he was so gaunt and worn, and the hair was so much
chafed off, in sundry places with his harness; and, moreover, his back
and limbs were so crooked and bent, that Ingram felt sure the dog had
known no slight portion of slavery in his day. And, perhaps, he had a
hard master, and no one sympathised with him but this black tom-cat,
thought the poverty-stricken philosopher--but who sympathises with me?
That was his only sour thought, but it did not abide with him. The man
returned to the cart, said, "Go on!" and the dog went on; but none of
the other cats came to rub under the old dog's head. Ingram felt he was
attracting the man's frowning notice, by standing to look at the dog,
and so he walked on to think.
"The world is not _all_ misery for that poor old dog," thought Ingram,
as he walked on: "very likely, the few minutes' pleasure he receives
every morning from the gentle sympathy of the black tom-cat renders him
happily forgetful of the labour and hardness of the remaining part of
the day. And yet, the poor old dog looked as if he were poorly fed; and
what a mortification it must be to be carrying food to the cats, and
have so little himself: always in the smell of it, but never or seldom
to taste: almost as bad as Tantalus steeped to the very chin, and most
likely drenched through the skin, and yet dry as a fish! There is a
something that pleases me, however, very much, in this act of the kind,
brotherly tom-cat," said Ingram to himself, "and I'll see this sight
again."
And Ingram saw the sight again, for he took care to walk in the same
neighbourhood for the three mornings following, and felt increasing
pleasure in witnessing the black tom-cat rub his back under the poor
old dog's chin, while the dog looked each morning as richly gratified as
ever. Ingram Wilson was satisfied that if those few minutes' pleasure
did not form a compensation for the poor dog's every day's pain, they
went very far towards it.
But the circumstance of a pale, handsome young man, though rather
seedily dressed, coming through that particular street every morning,
for four mornings, at the same hour, and standing to look at that old
dog and tom-cat, was an occurrence not likely to go unnoticed in London,
where people notice every minute circumstance in a way that much
surprised Ingram Wilson, when he first began to find it out, for he had
calculated on a very different sort of feeling in that respect. Nothing,
indeed, annoyed him so much as the keen impudent stare of strangers,
full in his face, and for several seconds: for Ingram did not reflect
that he must be staring equally hard, or he would not know that other
people were staring at him. And nothing pestered him more than to
observe passengers smile and talk to their companions, as they observed
Ingram's lips move, when some thought passed through his mind earnestly;
and yet he forgot how much he had been struck with that circumstance,
above every thing, when he first walked along Cheapside, and Ludgate and
Fleet Streets, and the Strand: the very great number of people who
talked to themselves as they walked alone, and even motioned with their
hands in the most earnest manner.
Ingram had been closely observed, and the observance, on the fourth
morning, produced him an adventure. He was turning to move on, at the
end of his fourth soliloquy on the dog-and-cat spectacle, when a tall
gentlemanly person, with a cane, stepped from the house where the
tom-cat ran in, and seemed bent on walking along the street in Ingram's
company.
"A fine morning, sir," said the gentleman: "you seemed to be interested
with our fine old cat and his way of saying, 'How d'ye do?' to the old
dog, every morning."
"Yes, sir, I was," answered Ingram, somewhat pleased with the pretty
expression, as he thought it, of the gentleman, and the silvery voice in
which he spoke.
"Ay, sir, there's more kindness among dumb creatures than we think of,"
rejoined the gentleman: "much more, I'm inclined to think, than amongst
human beings."
"Do you think so, sir?" asked Ingram; for the observation awoke a vague
painfulness that he did not like, at once, to express to a stranger.
"Why, have _you_ found nothing but kindness, young man, in the world,
hitherto?" said the stranger, with a look that Ingram thought so
benevolent as to be completely melted by it. "Have you found nothing
but kindness, now, in London, permit me to ask? You are from the
country, I think?"
"Yes," answered Ingram, feeling too much at work with regret within to
say more.
"Seeking for a situation, and finding none, perhaps?" continued the
gentleman; "and--but I shall, perhaps, be obtruding where I have no
right--perhaps, beginning to feel it difficult to subsist?"
Ingram looked volumes, but could not reply: he had lived on two cups of
muddy coffee and a roll, daily, for the last month, and this was the
first and only human being who had troubled himself to ask him a
question relative to his circumstances. Ingram was next invited, very,
very kindly, to return to the stranger's house; and he could not muster
pride enough to refuse. There was one face at the window, which had been
there every one of the four mornings that Ingram had passed, although he
had not seen it; but he saw it now, and he thought it the sweetest he
had ever seen; and, indeed, it was looking very angelically just then,
when he caught the first glimpse of it. 'Twas an expression that said,
"Oh! he's come back, just as I wished!"--if Ingram could have read it.
Ingram Wilson had found a friend: not a rich one, as he speedily found,
but a human being with a heart--a _real_ heart--and Ingram could not
have found any thing more valuable had he searched the world over. After
partaking a good plain breakfast--for, although the forenoon was
advanced, the poor young fellow had not, till then, broken his
fast--Ingram composed his spirits, and, at the request of his new
friend--his first London friend--related the cause and intent of his
leaving the country. His course of suffering in London he touched upon
but slightly at first; but the gentleman gradually and winningly drew
the entire truth from him, and then proceeded, with a paternal look, to
give Ingram some little advice as to the future.
"You have only erred as hundreds have erred before you," he
said:--"hundreds! I might have said thousands; for it is not merely
through the persuasion that they shall be able to attain eminence in
literature that the young come on adventure to London. A sort of
universal romantic idea pervades the minds of most young people with
regard to the capital; and, indeed, it is the same almost all over
Europe, and, for any thing I know to the contrary, all over the world. I
am sure, however, that the feeling is equally strong, and I think
stronger in France. All young French people have an idea that Paris is
the only place wherein to attain their wishes. With the same impression,
all young people imagine, if they can only struggle up to London, they
shall make something out in the world. Alas! thousands reach this
overgrown hive, merely to starve and die in it; and they are fortunate
who can find their way back into the country without falling victims to
their own romance. Now, permit me to ask--and yet, your own account of
the little rupture of good feeling between your former patron and
yourself almost answers the question beforehand--did you bring with you
any note of introduction or recommendation to any person in London?"
Ingram answered, that the thought had presented itself before he left
the country, that a note of introduction from his patron to certain
newspaper offices might be serviceable, but pride and temporary anger
had prevented his asking the favour.
Ingram's new friend shook his head, but looked compassionately upon the
lad, and told him nothing could be done without an introduction in
London: it was what every one looked for who received an application,
and what every body must be furnished with who made one.
The youth caught eagerly at the information, and said he could yet
obtain a note of introduction--and he thought more than one--from the
country:--such notes, too, as he thought must certainly be available in
procuring him an engagement on some of the leading periodicals: or,
perhaps, an offer for an independent work; and he had several tales and
romances begun.
The gentleman smiled, but soon warned Ingram, in a serious tone, not to
depend so sanguinely on what he had not tried. "I said that nothing
could be done without an introduction," he continued; "but I did not
tell you that introductions were always successful in bringing benefits
to those who presented them."
However, Ingram's constitution did not permit him to sober down without
experience, when once an idea had seized him. The gentleman quickly
perceived it; for he had partaken of the same temperament in youth,
although he had cooled down by age and disappointment. He did not use
further dissuasion, then; but permitted Ingram to retire to his lodgings
to write the letters he began to talk about, with hope beaming so
lucidly in his face, and only pressed him cordially to sup with him in
the evening. Ingram retired, shaking hands fervently and gratefully with
the gentleman and his elderly lady, and then with the daughter--and saw
nothing, mentally, all the way to his lodgings, but the sweet face of
her whose hand he had last shaken. A thousand visions succeeded during
that day as he wrote the letters--thought again and again of the
beautiful face--took the letters to the post-office--and, in the
evening, again saw the sweet face, and talked with the sensible
gentleman, and received his kind hospitality.
The gentleman ventured to give a hint that he himself had influence
enough to help Ingram to some occasional employs a copyist at the
British Museum; but Ingram had, all along, most romantically resolved to
aim at something more dignified; and, in his present sanguine mood, in
spite of his poverty, he gave no ear to the gentleman's hint. So the
gentleman did not repeat his hint; but reserved it, for an occasion
when, he feared, it would become but too acceptable to the young man.
A week passed, and Ingram breakfasted at ten, and supped at eight, every
morning and evening of the term, with the gentleman and his wife and
daughter. The week was one of immense anxiety to Ingram when he was at
his own lodgings, or wandering in the street; but it was productive of
real pleasure, in the shape of solid information and advice from the
kind gentleman; and it gave a commencement to a mutual and avowed
attachment between the youth and the gentleman's beautiful and gentle
daughter.
At the end of a week, two letters of introduction arrived: one to the
M.P. who represented the borough in which Ingram had resided, and to
whose cause he had rendered some service in his former newspaper
capacity; the other was from a baronet, Ingram had also served in a
similar mode, to a literary man of some eminence; in fact, the M.P. was
also an eminent _litterateur_, so that Ingram's hopes grew large and
fervid. The gentleman advised moderation; but Ingram _could_ not observe
it: his constitution, as yet, was master of his reason. He was smilingly
received by the literary man; but he could not help observing that the
literary man smiled more as he read the baronet's letter, than at his,
Ingram's, application. He was begged politely to call again. He _did_
call again--and again---and again--before he found the literary man once
more "at home." The event was a recommendation to wait on a small
publisher, who had commenced a small periodical, and wanted a young man
of genius, and all that, to edit it. Ingram went to work in that
quarter:--helped to bring out four weekly numbers of the
periodical--received one sovereign for his month's labour--and then the
thing was stopped, like hundreds of similar ephemera, because "it did
not sell."
The same literary man was visited again, when this engagement failed;
but Ingram left his door in wrath, and never called again; because _he
saw_ the literary man enter his own house, while he, Ingram, was but at
a dozen yards' distance from it; and yet the servant affirmed "he was
not at home."
Ingram's better and more magnificent hopes, however, were yet
undissipated. During his month's harassing and ill-paid labour on the
unsuccessful magazine, he was awaiting an important decision: at least
he believed so. The literary M.P. had also received him with
smiles--smiles that Ingram had been inured to at election seasons; but
which, as green as he was, he always _felt_ to be assumed; for it is the
heart, not the understanding, that really judges of the genuineness of a
smile. Yet, on the occasion of Ingram's first call at the town residence
of the legislator, the smile was so prolonged, that Ingram conceived it
to be more like a _real_ smile, than the evanescent and valvular-like
changes of skin and muscle that the M.P. always seemed to have at such
delightful and momentary command while "canvassing" or "returning
thanks," in the borough he represented. And then the M.P. entered, of
his own accord, on the inquiry as to _what_ Ingram had written, and
begged he would entrust a little manuscript or two, to his, the M.P.'s,
care, and _he_ would place them in the hand of _his own_ publisher, with
_his own_ recommendation, _if_ he believed they possessed merit.
The _if_ shook Ingram a little; but he, next day, took his best
manuscript, and left it at the M.P.'s house, for _he_ was "_not_ at
home," like the other literary man, although Ingram really thought he
heard his voice, when the servant took in the name of the caller; but
the valet said, "Not at home, sir," when he returned, and so Ingram left
the manuscript, and called again next day. To make the story as short as
possible, he called fifteen times during the four weeks, but had only
one more interview with the literary M.P. during that term; and this was
the product of it: the M.P. assured Ingram that his manuscript possessed
merit, much merit; that he had left it with his own publisher; and
begged Ingram would call again in a few more days, and he would tell him
whether the publisher received it.
This seemed to Ingram Wilson a very solid foundation for most
magnificent hopes. How could a publisher refuse a manuscript which was
so highly recommended? and how could the M.P. fail, very highly, to
recommend what he himself said "possessed merit, much merit?" Such were
Ingram's questions; and he was a little shocked to see his friend, the
kind gentleman, shake his head and give a silent look, when they were
proposed in the gentleman's hearing.
Another month passed, and the dream was dissipated! Ingram was always
answered, "Not at home," when he called at the M.P.'s: his friend, the
kind gentleman, called at the publisher's, and learned, most
unequivocally, that the publisher had never had such a manuscript
presented to him, either by the M.P. or any other person: Ingram wrote to
the M.P., and received his manuscript by a messenger, for an answer; and
was only prevented from writing back to tell the M.P. he was a rascal,
by the advice, or, rather, _authority_, for it amounted to that, of his
friend, the kind gentleman.
And now, Ingram, spirit-broken and humbled with what he conceived to be
his sanguine and foundationless folly, vowed to his friend that he would
never believe promises in future, and would copy at the Museum, or "do
any thing" as a means of obtaining a mere livelihood, till he could
finish one of his works entirely, and try a publisher by his own
application, and solely on the merits of his production. The gentleman
cheered the youth, as well as he was able, but Ingram drooped from that
time.
A winter of heartache, inward grief, mortified pride, colds and coughs,
and, eventually, consumption, succeeded. And then the sweet face of his
beloved faded; and when the spring returned, it did not bring back the
roses to her cheek.
A summer of toil for little pecuniary reward succeeded that winter, and
Ingram received, at length, the appalling information from his friend,
the kind gentleman, that he had embarrassed himself by entertaining him,
for the gentleman was merely a retired half-pay naval officer. A look,
depicturing such agony as Ingram never saw before, in the face of man,
accompanied this declaration on the part of his friend, and Ingram never
felt so truly miserable, since he was born, as he felt while witnessing
it.
There was no room for hesitation: Ingram never tasted food in the kind
gentleman's house after that avowal. Yet he called every day to exchange
words of grateful friendship with the gentleman, words and looks of love
with the beautiful being that was fast journeying to the tomb. In
mid-winter she died: her delicate constitution, her sensitive fears and
griefs for Ingram's fate, combined, were too much for her endurance.
Ingram drooped, and became a dependent on charity, in an hospital for
six weeks; and then the kind gentleman and his wife followed his corpse
to the grave, which was dug beside that of their daughter--the beloved
of the unfortunate young man of genius!
Will the story prevent or check romance and adventure in others? Ah! no:
more Chattertons will perish, more Otways be choked with a crust, unless
human nature becomes unlike its former and present self; ay, and more
Shakespeares will prosper, in the ages to come, or, otherwise, the true
glory and vigour of the human mind have all gone by, and the future must
feed on its dregs!
THE LAD WHO FELT LIKE A FISH OUT OF WATER.
Diggory Lawson was not fond of his baptismal name, and often wondered
what in the world had put it into his father's head to give him such a
one. But where was the use of grumbling, now the name was inevitably his
own?--was a sensible thought which often passed through the brain of Dig
(for his mother used to shorten the awkward name into that still more
awkward one of three letters), where was the use of grumbling about it?
His name could not mend him if Nature had marred him, nor could it mar
him if Nature had made him fit for any good and useful purpose of
existence.
With such thoughts, though but a very little lad, Diggory used to
ramble, when school was up, about pleasant Nottingham, where he was
born, and about its charming neighbourhood. His father was only a poor
lace-weaver; but an affectionate and almost overweening fondness for
their only child rendered his parents prompt to sacrifice any personal
comfort, in order to secure him a respectable portion of education. The
lad was, therefore, kept steadily at school. But his father mingled no
little of the eccentric in his constitution, as may be guessed from the
name he gave his child, for he had no "family reason" for it; and so it
happened, which was not at all the worse, that the lad was not left to
gather his knowledge simply from the dry and barren teaching of a
day-school. His father was a dabbler in the mathematics, in astronomy,
in dialling, in botany and floriculture, in history and antiquities; and
so Dig Lawson caught a tincture of each of these knowledges, at such
seasons as his father felt disposed to communicate what he knew of them.
Nor did the irregularity of communication in his father's fragmentary
hints prevent the lad's mind and its stores from taking a regular form.
That form was somewhat unique, perhaps, but a true philosopher would
have thought it symmetrical. The lad did not forget his humble
condition: he was never proud: but his thinkings were far more exalted
than those of the majority of the children who were, at times, his
playmates. The greater part of his leisure was spent in lonely
wanderings. And if any locality in England can tend to elevate the
sentiments of its young habitants, one would think it to be Nottingham.
Such was its effect, however, on the mind of young Dig Lawson: he became
a vehicle of noble, though somewhat romantic thinkings, while wandering
in the meadows by the beautiful Trent, and watching, alternately, the
ripple of the stream, or the unfolding of some beautiful flower that
grew on its border; or rambling over the wildernesses of the
Forest-ground, so classically English, and giving himself up, for the
nonce, to day-dreams of Robin Hood, till he half imagined he saw the
merry band tripping over the hill-side among the furze and stunted
trees, clad in their Lincoln green, and heard the real sound of bold
Robin's bugle; or climbing the rocks that project round the beautiful
park, and looking up at "Mortimer's Hole" in the castled cliff, and
picturing the chivalrous attack on the concealed traitor by the mailed
bands of the third Edward; or creeping among the strange-looking Druid
caves on the border of the silver Lene, and conjuring up in his
imagination the white-bearded priests crowned with oak, and bearing the
"mistletoe bough," and chanting the hymn to the sun or moon, while a
crowd of painted Britons struck up the chorus "Derry-down." Less florid
but more substantial thinkings often occupied him, when he watched the
last rays of the setting sun tint up the windows of the modern building
called "the Castle" (the unruly Radicals had not blackened it then,) and
remembered how, on its memorable rock, the fated Stuart first unfurled
the standard of war against his own people and parliament, and how
unweariedly the high-souled and incorruptible Hutchinson sustained the
harassments of petty faction so long on the same spot. These more
weighty thoughts, especially, visited him as his boyhood began to ripen
into youth. And as soon as his understanding began to mature, and he
became capable of combining the useful with the comely, in his delights
and preferences, he could derive almost as much pleasure from a walk
round the splendid area of the market-place of his native town, as from
a stroll in the park, or by the Trent. He was often told there was no
market-place like it in England; and he felt as proud of its superb
space and neat ornamental piazzas, as if he were a man, and owner of
half the buildings round it. Diggory Lawson, therefore, had not yet
become "the lad who felt like a fish out of water."
Neither did Dig at all resemble such an unfortunate animal for the three
years, that is to say, from fourteen to seventeen, that he passed at his
father's humble trade. Every leisure season was spent in literature; and
he had not only read some hundreds of volumes by the time that he had
reached the age of seventeen, but he had made some attempts at original
composition that were by no means contemptible. The lad was happy
enough, and was likely to make a happy and useful man, had "Luck"--that
spirit with so questionable a name--kept out of his father's way, and
thereby prevented the father from placing himself in Dig's way.
The brilliant but evanescent "Bobbin-net" speculation sprung up, like a
forest of mushrooms--with an immense surface of promise, but very
slender stalk for continuance--in the town of Nottingham. Diggory's
father was just the man to jump into a new scheme; and he really jumped
into the bobbin-net speculation to some purpose, apparently, for he
realised a thousand pounds' profit in twelve months. Such "luck," of
course, determined him to continue in the pursuit of money, in the same
line; but he was seized, alas! with a vehement resolution to make Dig
into a gentleman!
The large admixture of whimsicality in his father's composition,
however, left Diggory's destiny in a very nondescript condition for some
time; since his ideas of the exactest, best, and fittest way of making
his lad into the thing he thought of were none of the clearest, and most
fixed. One step, and one only, could Dig's father determine upon--and
that was--that Dig should work no more! No: he could work himself, and
could make as much money as ever Dig would want as long as he lived: but
Dig shouldn't work; and his mother said, "No, _that_ he shouldn't," when
she heard her husband say so; and so Dig was compelled, as the
neighbours said, to "drop it"--and to lay aside his every-day clothes,
and put on his Sunday ones, and to consider that, from that day forth,
he had done working with his hands--to the end of his life.
Well: for a lad of seventeen, who was so fond of books and of
sentimentalising by the Trent, and in the Park, and as far as Clifton
Grove, this was, certainly, for the first week, a glorious state of
existence. But, somehow or other, the second holyday week, in Sunday
clothes every day, was not so happy as the first; and when the third
arrived--then Diggory Lawson, for the first time in his life, became
"the lad who felt like a fish out of water." The river did not look so
beautiful and silvery, nor the flowers so lovely, nor the Park so green;
in brief, Dig was tired of all he saw, and all he read, and tired even
of himself; and he told his father and mother so outright. But la! the
mother had an answer for Dig so nicely opportune that she was in
ecstacies to tell it--for she was sure it was a piece of such excellent
"luck." Mrs. Strutabout, the lace-merchant's lady (who had a large
family of unmarried daughters), had sent so politely to say that she
would be very happy to see _young_ Mister Lawson to tea that
afternoon--and they were such respectable people! Dig's father said,
"Capital! just the thing!" when he heard it; for he felt instantaneously
sure--and indeed all his convictions ran by fits and starts--that _that_
was certainly a step towards making Dig into a gentleman. An
introduction to genteel society, to "respectable" company--what could be
finer?
Diggory himself, however, hung his head, and felt shy about it, for he
had never been "out to tea" before, in his life. But his father said,
"Pshaw! you young shame-face! you must shake all that off: remember I
intend you to be as respectable a man as any of 'em!" And the mother
reminded Diggory that he would be sure to hear some music, for the young
ladies Strutabout were thumping away on the piano from morning to night;
you might hear them any hour of the day that you went by the front-room
windows. It was the last hint that enabled Diggory to master his
bashfulness; for although he knew not a note scientifically, nor could
he play on any instrument, yet his love of music amounted to a passion.
And so, at five o'clock in the afternoon, Dig knocked, with a heart
pit-a-pat, at the front-door of the merchant Strutabout, and was
immediately welcomed in, and received, in the best room, by Mrs.
Strutabout herself, so smilingly--and by the half dozen Misses
Strutabout, so sweetly--that he hardly knew where he was with the
novelty of so much genteel welcome. One of the young ladies, so gently
and winningly, took his hat, saying, "Pray let me take your hat,
_Mister_ Lawson!"--for poor Diggory, in his plainness, had brought it
into the room, and, for the life of him did not know where to put it!
And then "the infinite deal of nothings" that the young ladies talked
for a full half hour--Mrs. Strutabout herself retiring, and saying so
politely, "She hoped Mister Lawson would excuse her a short time,"--and
poor Diggory's difficulty in framing answers about nothing! If they had
talked of anybody he knew from books, either of Socrates or Alexander,
of Cicero or Caesar, of Wat Tyler or John of Gaunt, of Hampden or Lord
Chatham, of Marlborough or Napoleon; or of anybody that was "worth
talking about," as he said to himself; or of any thing, or place, or
substance, of which any thing could be said that was sensible, Diggory
could have talked, ay, and in good, thundering, long-syllabled words,
too, as well as any man or youth in the three kingdoms. But to take up a
full half-hour in prattling about--Lord! he could not describe it when
he returned home, it was such infantile sort of stuff as he had never
supposed mortals uttered in "respectable" or any other sort of society!
Diggory Lawson was, indeed, during that half-hour, "the lad that felt
like a fish out of water."
At length, Mrs. Strutabout sailed in with her high turban cap, and her
wide-spread swelling dress, more smilingly than ever, and the tea was
brought in, and Mr. Strutabout arrived from the counting-house, and
places began to be taken, and _Mister_ Lawson was "begged" to come to
the table, "unless he chose to take a cup where he was." Diggory stared
at the addition to the invitation. And it was well for him that Mr.
Strutabout jumped up, and began to urge him to the table, for had they
handed Dig a cup of tea with cake, as he sat in the recess by the
window, he would have been in a woeful pucker, no doubt. As it was, he
was in trouble enough. Poor Diggory! he took his tea every day in a
basin at home, and held up a book before it, devouring the contents of
the volume far more eagerly than his food; and it was a cruel piece of
ambition in his mother and father to thrust him upon "respectable"
society so unthinkingly. It may seem strange to fine drawing-room
people, but with all Dig's knowledge, and as old as he was, the silver
tea-spoon bothered him so indescribably, in the cup, that he knew not
what to do; yet he durst not put it out upon the tray, because he saw,
by peeping aside with his head down, that no one else did so. The eldest
Miss Strutabout saw this, and would have liked to show him how to place
the spoon neatly under the side of his forefinger, but then, it would be
so strange a thing to tell him at table. As for the younger misses they
were much disposed to giggle at poor Dig's awkwardness, only the mother
looked gentle daggers at them, and restrained their lightness. The good
lady strove to hide Diggory's blunders, and the merchant engaged the
youth in general talk on trade and business, so as to enable him to get
through with the appearance that he was too much taken up with the
conversation to attend to table etiquette. But for all this good service
and kindly interference, Diggory Lawson, while at Mrs. Strutabout's
tea-table, was indeed, and of a truth, "the lad who felt like a fish out
of water."
The mortal agony was at last ended; and Diggory began to hope that he
would reap some little enjoyment from his stay the remainder of the
evening, since the piano was mentioned. But, lackadaisy! the young
ladies thumped and rattled, till Dig thought it was any thing but music;
and as for their singing--so unlike the simple ditties of the milkmaids,
under the cows, which he used to listen in the early summer mornings by
the "pasture Trent," with the skylark carolling overhead--so much like
the midnight melody of some stray grimalkin was the singing of the
Misses Strutabout, that it made Dig wish himself, over and over again,
five miles out of hearing of it. He must endure it, however, since he
dare not offend the family by suddenly withdrawing, they were so
"respectable:" nay, more, he was compelled to praise, for at the end of
every overture, or solo, or duet, he was asked "how he liked that?" or
"what he thought of that?" and the poor lad was compelled to torture his
tongue into the utterance of commendations on what he began actually to
loathe, until the announcement of supper gave a momentary suspension to
his discontent. And merely momentary was his ease, for the confounded
ceremoniousness of the supper plagued him worse than the etiquette of
the tea-table; and passing over the mention of all his blushes and
throbbings, under the consciousness that he knew nothing about the
niceties of this second eating process, let us come at once to the end
of the adventure, and say that when he had fairly stepped into the
street at ten o'clock, and when, after unnumbered polite adieus, the
door of the merchant Strutabout was closed behind him, Diggory Lawson
drew in a full breath of air with a feeling of thankfulness similar to
that of one who passes out of a prison after a twelvemonth's
confinement.
Very gleefully did Dig's mother salute her boy when he came home, and
his father not less proudly; but how queer they felt, when the poor lad
told them he had "felt like a fish out of water!" And when Diggory had
given them such a brief account of his treat, as his dislike would
permit, they looked at each other, and began to think, and to remember,
that "they ought to have known that the lad would meet with fine manners
that he was unused to at home." But Dig's father told him to "cheer up,"
for he would know better how to go on another time. But Diggory,
inwardly, felt indisposed to try another time; yet he did not say so,
and so the affair passed over.
Now Diggory's mother knew no more about the right way of making the lad
into a gentleman than the father; but she began to grow greatly
distressed at observing the lad's restlessness and disquietude, for the
hours and days went over Diggory's head more heavily the longer he was
idle. So she seriously took her husband to task, as they say in
Nottinghamshire, about his delay in determining how Dig was to begin to
be a gentleman. Her discourse would have rendered the poor man very
uneasy, indeed, had not "luck" extricated him from his dilemma on the
next day succeeding the curtain lecture.
In his new manufacture, Diggory Lawson's father did business with a
Londoner: this personage made his quarterly call at the very moment when
his customer was so much intent on the great problem as to display much
concern in his face. A shrewd question was put: Dig's father told his
trouble, and the cockney gave most instantaneous advice how the thing
was to be done, as soon as he had been informed of what was so much
desired. "The young man must be had out to travel," he said; "_he_ would
procure him a 'highly respectable' situation as a genteel commercial
traveller for a house in town: _that_ was the way to set him off in the
world, and make a real gentleman of him, for he would be thrown into the
very best society!"
Such was the cockney's advice; and it was sincere, too, for the pert
little man really believed there was nothing in the world more "highly
respectable" than that morsel of vanity--himself! And then his prate was
so fluent, so glib, so high sounding, he was such a walking vocabulary
of commercial phrases, that he completely enfevered Dig's father with
the persuasion of his cleverness; and the countryman yielded to the
advice of the Londoner, believing he had been shown the very best way in
the world for beginning to make his son into a gentleman. The lad was,
it is true, willing to go, he was so weary of the insipidity of his
present idleness, and besides, he wanted to see London, and other parts
of the country, never having yet quitted his native shire; but yet his
common sense was a little suspicious, that this was _not_ exactly the
way to make him a gentleman. Still this suspicion on the part of Diggory
was no impediment in the way of a trial--for the lad did not so much
wish to be a gentleman as a man--and he thought a little knowledge of
the world would not prevent his progress towards that better climax.
"Mr. Lawson, the bobbin-net manufacturer," would have had his son
fashionably clothed ere he started for town; but the cockney turned up
his nose at the very idea. "It was a thing quite out of character," he
told Mr. Lawson: "all the country tailors' fits were reckoned only
dresses for scarecrows by the best tailors in town: it wouldn't do at
all: he was against it, most decidedly!"
Young Diggory, therefore, was impursed with a handsome sum, more than
sufficient to purchase an outfit in London; for his father well knew he
could trust to his prudence, and was despatched, per mail, to town, in
company with the all-sufficient Londoner. A week, or so, was spent, in
visiting the various public exhibitions, and seeing the sights,--a
change of neat suits was purchased (for the lad was too sensible to be
fooled into the kickshaw dandy habits which the cockney recommended),--a
situation, a "highly respectable" situation, (although but at very low
remuneration, a thing of no consequence to Diggory,) was procured by the
all-sufficient gentleman; and off started the new adventurer into Kent,
to canvass for orders for a citizen and dry-salter of London.
The merchant, his employer, had had but one interview with him, having
engaged him chiefly through a quick impression of his solid
intelligence, rather than from the cockney's florid recommendation; but
the cockney gave him a regular "drill," as it might be called in his new
profession, before he started out; and, although the tradesmen upon whom
he called perceived that he was a "new beginner," yet his good sense
prevented his experiencing any insurmountable difficulty in making his
way as a commercial traveller. In fact, Diggory had a much larger stock
of theoretical knowledge to enable him to eke out his deficiencies in
what was practical, than most young fellows who go out, for the first
time, on similar engagements; and, therefore, it was not as a
"greenhorn" among tradesmen, that he was likely to feel "like a fish out
of water:" that was not the sort of uneasiness that newly awaited
Diggory Lawson.
What was it then?--Nothing less than the old pest in a new
form:--etiquette. He had been most cogently admonished by the cockney to
take up his quarters at the very best commercial inns in his prescribed
route,--or it would let down his employer, disgust customers, and injure
his patron's business; nor had he been less earnestly warned to avoid
deporting himself in any way contrary to the rules and customs of
gentlemen he would meet with, who were "on the road" like himself, and
who had their "highly respectable" established usages. Diggory, like an
obedient son, followed his father's monitions, and strove to conduct
himself exactly as the Londoner advised and directed. At the first-rate
commercial inn in each town he stopped, hasted to canvass the tradesmen,
and punctually returned to the inn at the hour when he was told dinner
would be on the table in the "Commercial Room." Diggory, too, being a
sharp lad, as the reader knows by this time, bought a book on
"Etiquette" and all that sort of thing, while in London: but though he
imagined he would be a match for his new compeers "of the road," he
found himself sorely mistaken, in the very outset, at Maidstone.
At four, exactly, returned Diggory to his inn, having despatched
considerable business for a mere beginner, and entered the "Commercial
Room." A buzz and a general whisper went round, as he entered, and no
one returned his courteous movement (for he followed his book) when he
performed it! The company was large, well-dressed, and from the
"bang-up" appearance of the numerous leather portmanteaus under the
side-tables in the room, and the dashing whips and proud cloaks on the
hooks, Diggory was sure they were, indeed, what the cockney would call
"highly respectable" commercial gentlemen, or "gentlemen on the road."
It was strange, he thought, that they should be so uncourteous. Yet,
Diggory observed, that every new comer was received in the same way; and
so he set it down in his memory that it was the wrong time of the day
for bows of courtesy among "commercial gentlemen;"--and that was not a
bad idea, either, for so green an observer,--especially as the gentlemen
had not dined.
Dinner was brought in, and a tolerably sumptuous affair it was.
"Commercial gentlemen," even at the "first-rate commercial inns," don't
"cut it quite so fat" (for so vulgar a phrase may be allowed since it
will apply to the dinners) now-a-days, as they did then,--since we are
speaking of something more than twenty years bygone; and the last twenty
years, with their wonderful innovations of railway travelling and
increased competition, have made woeful alterations among your princely
commercial travellers: they were the innkeeper's grandees then: the case
is altered now. Diggory, with all his intellectuality and sentimentalism
and so forth, was pleased to see the goodly provisions of the table,
for he was very hungry; and he began to muster up his recollections of
"the book of etiquette."
But, behold!--a single moment threw all his calculations out of order.
He was the youngest in the room; and by the rules of the road, he must,
therefore, take the post of vice-president at the dinner! Diggory's book
said nothing about this; for it was not written expressly for
"commercial gentlemen," but for "good society" generally. Poor Dig took
the post, however, but felt in a strange perturbation as the gentleman
at his right hand intimated a wish for a little mutton, and looked at
him, "the Vice!" The chairman was already helping his end of the table
to slices of a sirloin, and so Diggory drew the piece of hot mutton near
him, and was beginning to cut, but did it so awkwardly that the
gentleman at his right-hand, who was somewhat of a gourmand, cried out,
"Oh dear, sir! not that way!" Diggory stopped,--stared,--blushed: but
the chairman, an elderly and fatherly-looking man, put on an encouraging
smile, and said, "Lengthwise, sir, if you please; not across: the other
way keeps in the gravy best." Diggory's heart cleaved to the man who
told him this so kindly and handsomely, and he thanked the chairman,
adding, in his simplicity, that he was unused to carving mutton,
especially a shoulder, he added, looking at it, and thinking it could
not be a leg.
"A shoulder!" exclaimed the gentleman on his right hand, staring like
one who was horror-struck; "why, God bless me, 'tis a saddle!"
Diggory blushed worse than before, for there was a perceptible laugh
round the table; but he made no reply, and tried to proceed with his
work of carving. Trembling as he did, there was no wonder that he
spattered the right-hand gentleman with gravy until the gentleman grew
angry. And then Diggory apologised; but the gentleman, still more
indignantly, besought him to go on, and not keep the company
waiting,--meaning himself. How glad was the lad when he had succeeded in
filling the man's plate, and silencing him! The rest whom he had to
accommodate were of less irritable natures; but no one offered to
relieve him, until each had despatched their first plate, and _then_
Diggory's appetite was gone, for he had not been able to eat a mouthful
up to that time, through the throng of his new and difficult employment.
The next course increased poor Diggory's trouble: he knew no more about
carving a fowl than conducting a ship to China; and when he had cut off
a blundering slice at a venture, and put it on the right-hand
gentleman's plate, the irritable gourmand stared ferociously in his
face, shovelled the clumsy slice off the plate into the dish, cried
aloud, "Mangling done here!" and to Diggory's consternation seized the
carving-knife and fork, to cut for himself.
And now the chairman interfered. "He trusted he should be supported by
the company, sitting there as he did: if the young gentleman was an
improficient in the duties of the table, perhaps he might be allowed to
say that they all knew what it was to be young at one time in their
lives, and he _did_ think--though he was the last man in the world to
wish to give the slightest offence--that the gentleman to the right of
the vice-president of that table had not acted so courteously as he
might have done." And then there was a pretty general "Hear, hear!" But
quickly uprose the irritable gentleman, and rejected the admonition of
the president with scorn, and thumped the table during his delivery of a
most energetic oration of half a minute, until he shook the glasses so
that they rang changes against each other.
The irritable gentleman no sooner sat down than another arose, and
another, and another, each demanding that he should apologise to the
president for his want of courtesy, and the irritable gentleman yielded
to apologise--though it was far more from eagerness to eat, than a
return of good-nature.--Diggory was "assisted" in cutting up the fowl by
one on his left, who began to be warmed with sympathy for the youth, now
the sympathiser's stomach was allayed in some small degree by sundry
hearty slices of mutton. To the drawing of the cloth Diggory experienced
no further mortification: but the past was enough, in any conscience;
and during the season in which that company of "highly respectable
gentlemen" were masticating their viands, poor Diggory, who did not eat
three mouthfuls, might most aptly be styled "the lad who felt like a
fish out of water."
And now the wine was pushed about; and whether it was the little "tiff"
which had taken place during the dinner, or whatever might be the cause,
considerable difficulty was felt, for some time, by all the company, in
attaining that sense of freedom, that warm hilariousness, which an
Englishman always looks for, over the bottle, and by the charm of which,
and not by the animal gust for the liquor, drinking usages have become
so widely established. This uneasy feeling, however, was dissipated by
degrees; and then, by the natural reaction of the human spirits, the
zest for good-fellowship grew unbounded. And yet this over-heated,
steamy sort of boon companionship manifested itself exactly as might be
expected among "highly respectable commercial gentlemen," though poor
Diggory was too ignorant of the genus to make the proper calculation.
They neither called each other by familiar names, nor sang, nor shouted,
nor huzzaed, nor laughed, till they hiccupped. Compliments, that
out-heroded Herod in their gorgeousness of dress and brilliancy of
colouring,--good-wishes,--mighty, vast, profound, coming from the
"bottom of their hearts,"--for the prosperity of each other in their
undertakings,--testimonies to each other's "respectability" (_always_
first), honour, candour, probity, (take the first catalogue of the
virtues you find, and supply all the rest,)--flowed out of the smiling,
bubbling, fountain of their wine-warmed hearts, and wreathed itself so
fantastically into the vaporous shapes of words (if that be nonsense,
take it for a specimen of their speeches),--that Diggory Lawson was
puzzled to determine whether they were more lunatic or tipsy.
Luckily, he found a little relief, both corporeally and mentally in
nibbling at the remnant of the dessert, which the whole company forgot
for wine and speechifying. Yet he had but a torturous time of it, and
was still "the lad who felt like a fish out of water."
It should scarcely be omitted, that by the natural way of ascending from
the mediocre to the sublime, so genial to the minds of "highly
respectable commercial gentlemen," the last hour of the speechifying was
entirely occupied by that grand problem,--that question of
questions,--that important and absorbing interrogation of "_the_
commercial room,"--"Is it not time to smoke?"
Now the president insisted, that eight o'clock being the established
hour for "permitting to smoke" in _that_ room, he, as president of
_that_ company, sitting there as he did, could not grant permission to
smoke, since it was but just seven. And then arose the irritable little
gentleman who talked so politely about "mangling" when Diggory spoilt
the fowl. He really felt that he _must_ claim the indulgence of the
company: but he would appeal to every gentleman in the room, and he,
most conscientiously, felt that he _could_ safely and confidently appeal
to them, and he was sure they would bear testimony that no one was more
observant than himself of the rules of _that_ room, (and then there was
a general "Hear, hear!" though Diggory, in spite of his timidity, could
not forbear saying "Hem!")--and he would feel it beneath him to infringe
on the necessary regulations for the preservation of comfort in good
society; but yet,--but yet, on the present occasion,--feeling as they
all did, that warmth of esteem, and union of sentiment and feeling,
and--(we omit a page here)--he thought the president of that company
might take it upon him to dispense with the peculiar rule relative to
smoking on _that_ occasion.
_Pro_ and _con_--the arguments were equally laborious, equally long, and
equally senseless; and the president, being one of the oldest "gentlemen
on the road," and though very bland in his nature, yet a stickler for
custom, stuck to his point to the last, and was only worsted by the
clock. Truly, Diggory Lawson, during the smoke discussion, was "the lad
who felt like a fish out of water." Much more did he resemble the said
unlucky fish when the smoking began, insomuch that he was compelled to
seize an early opportunity of retiring to bed.
Diggory Lawson completed his journey, but returned to London with a
complete mental nausea of the cockney's plan for making him into a
gentleman. Torn entirely from his beloved books, he was infinitely more
miserable than when their only companionship subjected him to weariness.
His mind hurried with anxiety, dissipated by the unintellectual nature
of his engagement, annoyed and disgusted with the manners of those he
was compelled to regard as the proper associates of his leisure, he
wrote home to his father entreating permission to return. One paragraph
will show the character of his letter:--
"Not a single thought or habit of my short life has prepared me for such
an engagement as that procured me by your friend. It was misery enough
to listen to the prattle of 'unidea'd girls,' as Dr. Johnson expressed
himself on a similar occasion; but of all the tortures in the world,
deliver me from the company of empty, conceit-blown mortals, who have
such large notions of their own importance as these 'highly respectable
commercial gentlemen.' I entreat your permission to return home, for I
am 'like a fish out of water.'"
The boon was readily granted,--for Diggory's mother, having never been
separated from her child before, had wept every day since she parted
with him. The very next month, Dig's father gave up the notion of
making him into a gentleman,--for the bobbin-net speculation waned,--and
there was an end to making an immense fortune in a twinkling. He
embarked the little capital he had gained in the more staple manufacture
of the town, took Diggory into the trade, and associating with plain,
sensible men, and cultivating knowledge in his leisure hours, Diggory
Lawson was happier every day, and was no longer "the lad who felt like a
fish out of water."
THE INTELLECTUAL LEVER THAT LACKED A FULCRUM.
Mr. Mortimer had suddenly inherited an estate of something more than
five hundred a year, by the death of an uncle, and was persuaded by his
Whig acquaintances in the metropolis, since he had just jumped into "a
qualification," to set himself in earnest about getting into Parliament:
for a seat then, when Lord Melbourne's premiership seemed to be held by
a very frail tenure, might--his cockney friends entreated him to
remember--enable him to "_save_ the country" for, at least, another
year, from the "merciless grasp" of the Tories. So Mr. Mortimer set his
wits to work, to find out how the seat was to be gained. He hunted for
opinions wherever he went; but none "took his fancy" so much as a shrewd
hour's advice given him one day, without a fee, by a lawyer, or a person
who said he was one, and with whom he fell into conversation on board
one of the Richmond steamers.
"Start a newspaper, sir; that's your only sure card, for cheapness,"
said the earnest talking man who called himself "a solicitor:" "the
press gives a man a power that is irresistible."
Mr. Mortimer was struck with the words, and wondered that he had never,
by his own unassisted thought, alighted on so "tangibly-intelligent an
idea," as he inwardly and emphatically termed it. But the "legal
gentleman's" next words made him feel still more confident that he was
talking to a man who was worth listening to:--a solid matter-of-fact
man, and not a mere fanciful idealist:--one who surveyed his ground
before he either trod upon it himself, or recommended others to set
their feet upon it.
"And, if I were asked," the said legal gentleman continued, _without_
being asked,--"if I were asked _where_ would you start it? I should say
'Kent,' in one word. You desire to serve the present administration.
Well: there's Greenwich, and Deptford, and Woolwich: the naval and
military establishments give the government full sweep there: Chatham,
the same: Deal and Sandwich, no difference: Dover, as beforesaid:
Hythe--there Marchbanks (that's the genteel way of pronouncing his name)
can put you in if he likes, for he's a Whig: Canterbury: Lord Albert
Conyngham's going out, and a Whig's sure to be returned there. In fact,
there is but old Rochester where the Tories are sure; and Maidstone
where the Conservatives can't easily be got out. Start a paper on Whig
principles in Kent, sir; and--this is autumn of Eighteen-Forty--and, my
word to a thousand pounds! before Forty-one is out, you will be returned
for one or other of the Kentish boroughs."
Mr. Mortimer was quite decided: he declared he was. And so he buttoned
up the breast of his surtout, and put on his gloves, after pulling them
off very suddenly,--and began to walk, very energetically, about the
deck of the little packet. The "solicitor" took care to keep close to
his elbow, suggesting, and then answering, a hundred questions on hops,
and cherries, and wheat, and sanfoin, and clover, and smuggled spirits
and tobacco; and the scores of "houses to let" at the watering-places,
and the company there, and how it differed at Margate and Ramsgate, and
Dover and Gravesend, respectively; and, in short, on "all and sundry,"
the natural and manufactured productions of "Kent, the first English
county in point of rank," as the legal gentleman assured Mr. Mortimer it
was always esteemed to be.
Mr. Mortimer was quite decided: he declared he was!
"Egad! now I recollect," said the legal gentleman. "A friend of mine in
one of the streets leading into Cheapside, has, at this very time, a
large assortment of type, with a small handy machine-press, a most neat
affair, I'll assure you! in fact, every thing that would be suitable for
a commencement: they came into his hands for a bad debt, and might be
had amazingly cheap."
Mr. Mortimer looked just as eager as the solicitor wished him to look.
"And, if you like," continued the solicitor; "if you like,--but 'tis of
no consequence if you prefer new type,--only that would be most
confoundedly expensive,--but, if you like,--I have no doubt I could get
the whole lump,--I had almost said, dirt-cheap for you."
Mr. Mortimer commissioned the legal gentleman, in a twinkling, to make
the purchase; for he was decided: he declared he was. So Mr. Mortimer
gave the gentleman his card; and the "solicitor" (who swore, when he
discovered that he had "lost his card-case") gave Mr. Mortimer his
address; and as the packet was at Westminster Stairs by this time, Mr.
Mortimer got out, and bade "good day," with a grateful smile, to the
"solicitor," who remained in the boat to land at London Bridge, for the
city.
Mr. Mortimer dined very heartily, and in most speechless silence; for he
was exceedingly full of thought, and exceedingly pleased with his
good-fortune. Every thing had fallen out so exceedingly, so wonderfully
lucky. The advice of the legal gentleman was so intelligent,--so
sensible,--so deeply distinguished by common sense, which Dean Swift
(Mr. Mortimer remembered) always said was of more value than all other
kinds of sense put together. In fact, the man he (Mr. Mortimer) could
clearly see was "up to snuff," and knew all about the mysteries of
government influence, and where it lay, and what the county produced;
and--every thing! But to complete his good fortune, to put the crowning
mark upon it, this very man knew where type and a machine-press was to
be had for a mere trifle! so that he (Mr. Mortimer) had nothing to do
but to write out an advertisement for the Chronicle; and he _would_
write it out that very afternoon, and take it to the office himself; and
to-morrow morning, within three hours of the paper being published, no
doubt, half-a-score literary men would be at the door, as corrivals and
competitors for the new editorship.
Thus was Mr. Mortimer ruminating over his third glass of claret, when
the servant's announcement that Mr. ---- had called,--the very legal
gentleman whom Mr. Mortimer left at Westminster Stairs but two hours
before,--caused him to open his eyes very wide, and ask the gentleman's
name again. The gentleman was introduced, however, and, with a world of
apologies, but another world of assurances that it resulted from his
zeal to serve Mr. Mortimer, regretted that he should have intruded at
such a time; but he had bought the machine-press and the type, for he
had run upon his friend in Cheapside before he reached his own
residence, and snapped up the whole thing before any one else found it,
and it was now actually at the door!
"At the door!" cried Mr. Mortimer,--"what door?"
"My dear sir," answered the legal gentleman, with singular suavity, "I
regret exceedingly, as I have just observed, that I should have intruded
at this particular time; but I knew the highly important object,--the
national object, as I may say,--that you had fixed your mind
upon--admitted of no delay, and so I went to work _instanter_. To a
gentleman who is rather unused to these things----"
Mr. Mortimer confessed he _was_ unused to these things, and felt that he
_ought_ to feel grateful, exceedingly grateful, to the gentleman.
The gentleman begged there might be no apology.--But Mr. Mortimer really
felt he ought to apologise.--Yet the gentleman most particularly begged
there might be no apology; and--there was the little bill!--and--where
would Mr. Mortimer have the goods put, since they were in a van--the
very first thing, in the shape of a conveyance, that the gentleman could
see when he had bargained for the type and the machine-press--in a van,
at the door!
The bill was something more than one hundred pounds, and--and--Mr.
Mortimer was staggered, for he had not calculated on half the sum; but,
what could he say? It would be so disrespectful, so ungrateful, so
ungentlemanlike, to demur to the price or the purchase; so Mr. Mortimer
thanked the gentleman "most heartily:" he was under very deep
obligations to him: it was what he ought not to expect from a mere
stranger: he would retain a most grateful sense of the gentleman's
kindness. And he begged the gentleman would be seated; and would the
gentleman take claret, or did he prefer Burgundy?
The gentleman reminded Mr. Mortimer that the van was at the door, and it
was necessary to say what was to be done with the goods. He (the "legal
gentleman") had an unoccupied office just now on his hands, and it was
at Mr. Mortimer's service if----
An English thought shot across Mr. Mortimer's mind, and he rang the
bell, and summoned his landlady. "Did she know of any upholsterer, or
other tradesman in the neighbourhood, who could take care of a little
furniture that was in the van at the door?" The landlady replied that
she did, and Mr. Mortimer begged she would see it taken care of, in her
own name.
The legal gentleman looked very sharply and earnestly at his
watch,--when the landlady withdrew, and Mr. Mortimer again mentioned the
wine. He, the "legal gentleman," really could not stay at that
particular time: he had acted thus promptly in order to serve Mr.
Mortimer, for he was aware of the vast importance of promptitude in
national affairs, and Mr. Mortimer's particular business might most
emphatically be termed a national affair, when its ultimate purpose was
considered.
Mr. Mortimer could not press the gentleman under such circumstances, so
began to write out a cheque for the amount of the bill. A sudden thought
struck him, however, just as he had handed it to the gentleman.
"We must talk one point over, my dear sir," he said, "and that is,
_where_ must the paper be published? for you observed that there were
already several small papers of an insignificant character in the
county, and that they were published at different towns. Now _where_
must my new paper be published, so as best to compete with one of them?"
The legal gentleman looked as if taken aback for a moment, but speedily
answered, "Why not in London?"
"Hum!" replied Mr. Mortimer, musingly: "would not that be rather out of
character? Might not the Kentish people deny that the paper was a
Kentish paper at all, then?"
"Your plan, sir, is this," answered the solicitor, with the same air of
unanswerable decision and discernment which he wore in the
steamer;--"take a trip of observation through the whole county for
yourself: it will cost you little, if you go shrewdly to work; and you
will learn much, by the way, that will be of immense service to you, in
the great undertaking itself: that's the likeliest way to find your
fulcrum, as a clever mechanical friend of mine always says, and then
plant your intellectual lever; and may it prove successful, sir, is my
heart's best wish, in raising you speedily to the House of Commons!"
The legal gentleman rounded with a smile; but his speech needed no
gilding for Mr. Mortimer: it went to the inmost chamber of his brain,
with the speed and power of instant and undisturbable conviction; and he
shook his adviser most fervently by the hand, and regretted, again and
again, that the gentleman could not stay and spend the evening, but
hoped he would have the pleasure of his company again, when he, Mr.
Mortimer, had completed the little projected tour. The legal gentleman
assured Mr. Mortimer he would feel honoured in accepting the invitation,
and, with great politeness, withdrew.
Mr. Mortimer's Kentish tour was commenced the very next morning. He was
in the street at Greenwich, as soon as the first train could arrive
there, in its fifteen minutes' journey from the foot of London Bridge.
Mr. Mortimer could, of course, think of no step so likely to be taken
with a view to obtaining information, as calling at a respectable
business-like inn. He had made a little inquiry in the railway carriage;
and "The Mitre" and "The Greyhound" were recommended as highly
respectable resorts of company. Mr. Mortimer bent his steps towards the
Greyhound. He found the landlord to be a person of very frank and
pleasing appearance, and of very courteous manners; but it was too
early for company, so the tourist intimated that he would require dinner
at such an hour, and went out to saunter a few hours about the Hospital
and the Park. There seemed to be much that a person might be pleased
with, he thought, amidst all that he saw; but his mind was fixed on
obtaining information, and he could see no one walking in the Park, nor
about the Hospital colonnades, that was at all likely, in his judgment,
to tell him any thing about the desirableness or propriety of starting a
newspaper at Greenwich. He passed several old pensioners, while in this
discontented mood, sitting under the shade of the noble chestnut trees,
some recounting their naval adventures while turning the quid, or
smoking, and others reading. Suddenly, he observed that a veteran who
was reclining alone was reading a newspaper; and the whim seized him to
make a little inquiry in the line of his own pursuit, though he thought
it a somewhat unlikely quarter from whence to obtain the information he
was seeking.
"You are busy, I see, my friend," said Mr. Mortimer: "any particular
news, just now?"
"Why no, sir?" answered the veteran, looking through his spectacles at
the person who asked him the question: "every thing seems very dull, but
you know they always fill the newspapers up with something,--what with
things that happen and things that never did happen, and what with
things that they invent, and things that they borrow."
"Do you read the papers much?" asked Mr. Mortimer, thinking the old man
displayed shrewdness enough to deserve another question.
"Why, sir, I might read 'em more than I do, if I would," answered the
veteran; "but I don't think it worth the trouble. This is a London
paper, and I see it weekly. They publish two papers in Greenwich here,
but they're neither of 'em worth looking at, according to my thinking.
How they get supported I can't make out, for nobody thinks any thing of
'em; yet I heard a person say that there was strong talk of another
being started by some gentleman that's disposed to fool his money away.
'Tis a pity but what somebody or other would advise him different, for
it's the wildest scheme in the world, I think, to imagine that any
newspaper can prosper in a place like this, that's so near London."
Mr. Mortimer felt as if he would have dropped into the earth, and had
but just presence of mind left to bid the old pensioner "good morning,"
before he walked away to recover the blow thus given to his hopes. But
he consoled himself by reflecting that it was a "mere vulgar old man"
who had delivered this opinion,--one who was not at all likely to know
what chance there was for the success of a newspaper enterprise, into
which so many commercial and political interests and considerations must
needs be woven. It must be a matter altogether beyond the scope and
reach of a mere Greenwich pensioner. After restoring his own confidence
in some degree, the tourist returned to his inn, dined, read the papers,
and at length had the pleasure of seeing the evening company begin to
gather. But Mr. Mortimer was resolved to make longer preliminary
observation this time, ere he introduced the subject that most nearly
concerned him. He was pleased to find, by attending to the tone of
remarks, as the current subjects of Mahomet Ali, and Napier, and the
Syrian question, were being discussed, that the two great parties of
Whigs and Tories were fully represented in the room. He thought this a
fortunate circumstance for himself, since he would be less likely to
gather a biassed decision among the company, on his great newspaper
question, when he thought the time was come for his introduction of it.
And after waiting long, he _did_ introduce it, cautiously concealing, as
he thought, the fact, that he himself was desirous of commencing a
Kentish paper. But Mr. Mortimer was not the cunningest man in the world,
and more than one member of the company perceived his purpose before the
close of the conversation.
"Vy, sir, you understand,"--began a very elderly person, of a portly
figure, who seemed to be held in great respect by his companions, but
who, by his dialect, had evidently been thrown among the least
cultivated portion of the metropolitan population,--"you understand,
that's a vay o' hembarking cappitle, as it vere, vich I vouldn't
recommend, for von: for, by the same rule, you understand, another
gen'lmans a-been thinking of it, and I said the same, you understand, to
him."
But Mr. Mortimer did _not_ understand; and he therefore made no reply.
"But it depends a good deal on the particular object the individual has
in view who embarks the capital," observed a thin, keen-looking man: "if
Captain Dundas, now, were to start a paper in Greenwich, it could not
fail to answer his purpose."
"By the same rule," interjected the elderly person, "that's quite
another affair, as it vere. The Captain, you understand,--and success to
him say I, vith all my 'art!--the Captain, you understand, by the same
rule, vouldn't care about the paper paying."
"Exactly," observed the bland landlord, reconciling the apparent
difference of his guests; "so that that does not disprove your point."
"But pray, gentlemen," asked Mr. Mortimer, "may I ask what would be the
particular object of Captain Dundas, if he were to start a new paper in
your town?"
"O! Parliament, sir!--Parliament, of course!" quickly replied the thin,
keen-looking man, with a very significant shake of the head.
Mr. Mortimer's blood beat quick with a rush of thoughts; but he
resolved to be prudent, and so he said nothing; but he felt more than
ever assured of the legal gentleman's intelligence who had first
recommended his present errand, and he sank gently back, when he had
sipped largely at his brandy and water, and pulled away vehemently at
his cigar. "It is indeed the intellectual lever, as the gentleman said,"
reflected Mr. Mortimer within himself, "whereby a man may raise himself
to the House of Commons: every intelligent man thinks so: but
then--where to plant the fulcrum?"
So Mr. Mortimer rejoined the conversation, which was now in full tide
respecting the relative chances of a new Whig, and a new Tory paper; and
pressed the question very closely, whether, in the whole county of Kent,
Greenwich were the more likely place to start a new paper. To this
question there were many answers: one said it was a better place than
Woolwich, where a new paper had just started; and another compared it
with Gravesend; and others with Canterbury, and Dover; but there was a
fair majority in the room for Greenwich;--yet, what chiefly puzzled Mr.
Mortimer was the fact, that when he subjected his own doubt to the
consideration of the company, as to whether the immediate proximity of
Greenwich to London would not militate against the chances of prosperity
for a new Greenwich paper, there were equal numbers, for and against.
One circumstance particularly gratified Mr. Mortimer: the thin,
keen-looking man strenuously maintained that the contiguity of Greenwich
to London would be, and was, and must necessarily be, the strongest, the
most advantageous point of view in which the whole question to be solved
could be entered upon. The thin, keen-looking man said a great deal
more,--but, somehow or other, Mr. Mortimer understood him less, the more
he talked; and as the hour was advancing on midnight, Mr. Mortimer
withdrew, resolving to turn the whole conversation over, and make up his
mind in bed.
But Mr. Mortimer did _not_ turn the conversation over there, for he had
smoked and drank too much, in his earnestness, to keep awake one minute
when he was fairly abed. Yet he dreamt wonderful things about the
"Intellectual Lever,"--things that warmed and enraptured his fancy when
he woke the next morning;--but nothing about the "fulcrum,"--so that he
gained no help by his dreams towards making up his mind about publishing
at Greenwich. It was "all right," however, Mr. Mortimer reflected, as he
sat down to breakfast,--it was all right, that he did not make up his
mind at the outset: it was most judicious to keep himself, mentally, in
equilibrio, until he had been round the country, completed his tour of
observation, and then put the merits and advantages of each town side by
side,--so as to enable himself to draw a correct judgment.
If all Mr. Mortimer's thinkings were to be related, his story would be
a very long one. Suffice it to say, that he, forthwith, set out for
Lewisham, when he had breakfasted, and paid his bill, and bidden the
landlord good-morning. From Lewisham Mr. Mortimer strode on to Bromley;
and from Bromley, per stage-coach, he went to Sevenoaks, and the next
day to Tunbridge, and to the Wells the following day. This was the route
Mr. Mortimer had most sagaciously chalked out for himself,--he being
thoroughly bent on making the complete circuit of the county. The
"Intellectual Lever" he took care to mention whereever he went,--for he
had now fully resolved to give his projected newspaper that name,--and
he thought every one looked as pleased with it as he felt himself.
Indeed, every one was delighted during the whole of this part of Mr.
Mortimer's tour with the idea of a newspaper that was to take up the
interests of parts of the county which, they assured him, had been so
much neglected, notwithstanding they were so highly important.
Equal delight and similar assurances greeted the ears of the
projector at Cranbrook, and Tenterden, and Ashford, and Hythe, and
Folkestone,--insomuch that Mr. Mortimer began to feel more than ever
puzzled with the task of arranging, in his own mind, the astounding
claims of importance preferred by the respectable denizens of the towns
through which he passed,--ever announcing his design of planting the
"Intellectual Lever"--when he should have found a "fulcrum."
At Dover, Mr. Mortimer made a longer halt, finding a most agreeable
lodging at the Gun Hotel, and meeting, moreover, advisers of a
determined character for "planting the Intellectual Lever" there: it was
the key of England, these counsellors assured Mr. Mortimer: it was,
really, the only natural "fulcrum" for the lever, seeing that it
received the first continental news: it was, anciently, of so much
importance; it was about to become of so much importance, by the
formation of a grand new harbour, and by its new railway connection with
London; and, above all, it sent two members to parliament. Mr. Mortimer
was troubled, for the Dover counsellors assured him _they_ would have
nothing to do with a Greenwich paper: Greenwich was nothing to them; and
as for the other towns through which the projector had passed, they only
laughed to hear them mentioned.
"It must be Dover," thought Mr. Mortimer;--yet he had resolved to act
prudently, and so he did not positively say so; but bidding his earnest
advisers a very earnest farewell, mounted a daily conveyance for Deal
and Walmer. There, he was assured by all with whom he conversed, that
the "Intellectual Lever" must be published at Dover,--and then--and
then--it could not fail to secure the _entire_ patronage of Deal and
Walmer! Mr. Mortimer thought the Deal and Walmer people talked somewhat
inflatedly anent their straggling sea-side villages,--for so he was
inclined to call them: but then, he reflected again, that they shared
with Sandwich in returning two members to Parliament. To Sandwich he
went, next day; but--what was the importance of any town he had visited
compared with Sandwich--in the eyes of its little population? Mr.
Mortimer was perplexed--greatly perplexed--for the little old town
looked, to him, so very unimportant, and the claims of its inhabitants
to political consideration were so lofty! Dover? yes, they thought Dover
might do,--or Canterbury; but the "lever" must be planted in _their_
neighbourhood. In fact, Mr. Mortimer perceived, clearly enough, that the
Sandwichers would have liked to tell him, plainly, that Sandwich was the
proper "fulcrum" for the "Intellectual Lever," but very shame withheld
them.
The next day, the traveller went on in the same kind of daily
conveyance--half-cab, half-cart--to Ramsgate. The journeying was very
pleasant, in the neighbourhood of the sea, and the company very
cheerful; but they were not of a character to understand much about
levers and fulcrums,--so Mr. Mortimer said nothing about either, but
listened rather than conversed.
Mr. Mortimer had been perplexed before,--but what could describe his
perplexity, when he had spent a day each in Ramsgate and Margate? He was
lectured rather than told,--by every company he joined,--on the
absolute, the imperative necessity of regarding "the Isle of Thanet" in
its proper light: every body was neglecting it: no one attended to it:
their interests were vanishing: property was becoming of no value: any
petty village in Kent could have its puffs and its praises, while their
towns--the two most respectable watering-places in all England--were
forgotten! Dover?--nonsense!--Canterbury was the place--if the gentleman
did not like to venture on taking the Isle of Thanet for a fulcrum. But
the gentleman must remain another day, and attend the grand "annual
dinner of the Isle of Thanet," at the "Ranelagh Gardens;"--a delightful
spot, Mr. Mortimer was assured it was: the gentleman would then be able
to draw some more accurate conclusion as to the real importance of their
distinct part of Kent. So Mr. Mortimer staid, and attended the dinner,
and was much pleased, for a time. A London editor of a newspaper was
there, it is true; and drew a little more attention than Mr. Mortimer
was pleased to see; but then, the editor belonged to a daily paper, and
Mr. Mortimer consoled himself with the belief that that would not stand
in the way of his weekly "lever," when he had found the fulcrum, and
planted it. But, alack! poor Mr. Mortimer--how did he feel during the
last three hours of the feast;--for it was a protracted midnight affair,
according to custom, elsewhere, in similar "annual" meetings;--how did
poor Mr. Mortimer feel when, after all the usual "loyal toasts" had been
drunk,--and the grand toast of the evening, the "prosperity" toast, came
on,--an ambitious Ramsgate-man dared to put the name of _his_ town
before the name of Margate! Thunder and lightning! Etna and
Vesuvius!--Was there ever any thing comparable to the rage that
followed, and the denunciation, and the eloquent invective, so far
transcending Chatham and Grattan and Brougham, and all the wielders of
scathing sarcasm that ever breathed! Ten?--no! nor twenty pages--would
not hold the speeches:--so 'tis to no purpose making more words about
it: Mr. Mortimer was--to use a very expressive slang phrase or two--Mr.
Mortimer was completely _flummaxed_ and _flabbergasted_; or, as Jonathan
would say--he was "struck all of a heap!" Mr. Mortimer's head reeled,
and he said nothing,--no! not a word, as they crammed him into a
carriage with half-a-dozen more, at midnight, to go back to Margate;
though the reason might, partly, be, that he had tippled two bottles of
sherry, and was asleep: but, suffice it to say, that, the next morning,
Mr. Mortimer left Margate for Canterbury, more than ever puzzled with
the immense problem of the "relative importance" of towns in Kent,--more
than ever in a quandary as to where the true and indisputable "fulcrum"
existed for "planting the intellectual lever."
Canterbury,--ah! Canterbury was a city he had often longed to see,
and he had, more than once, half made up his mind to visit it, for
mere curiosity. But, _now_, when his brains were in such a whirl
with thinking about the lever, and finding such alarming difficulty
in discovering the fulcrum--why he forgot Becket, and the Black
Prince, and St. Augustine, and deferred all historical inquiries
and all sight-seeing, and asked about nought but newspapers.
"Newspapers, sir!"--exclaimed the landlord of the inn at which he
alighted,--"newspapers!--why, Lord love ye! we have _four_ published
here in Canterbury, already!"
Mr. Mortimer stared more than ever he had stared in his life. "Four!" he
echoed; "four! What sort o' papers are they, pray?"
"Sort o' papers, sir!" answered the landlord, "why very capital papers:
three of 'em at least,--them as is heddited by Mr. Mudford, a werry
clever man, sir."
"Mudford!--what--Mudford that used to edit the Courier?"
"The werry same gen'lman, sir," answered the cockney landlord.
Mr. Mortimer turned pale. "And the other paper?" he said, by way of
question.
"Oh! that, sir, is a low radical affair--"The Kent Herald;"--but I don't
belong to that party, though they're werry strong here; and the paper
sells well, they say."
Mr. Mortimer sat down, and tried to think. He sipped a pint of sherry,
and munched a couple of biscuits, and he _did_ think; for the result
was, that he took coach in another hour, and set off for Chatham and
Rochester.
And now, Mr. Mortimer, singularly enough, rose from zero to fever heat,
in his hopes and resolves about the fulcrum and the intellectual lever.
"The four towns," as the Chatham people told him,--Strood, Rochester,
Chatham, and Brompton, united as they were, lying around the basin of
the Medway, filled with trading enterprise, blending so many great
interests,--the dockyard, the soldiers' barracks, the hulks, the
Dissenters, so all-powerful in Chatham, the Jew brokers, the cigar
smugglers (or makers rather), the corporation of Rochester and its two
members, and Chatham and its one member of Parliament, the cathedral,
and the castle in ruins,--were all thrown upon Mr. Mortimer in such
clustered phrases of inviting importance, that he completely lost his
"rules of prudence," and proclaimed in a tone very like a shout, and
very like Archimedes, only he didn't speak Greek,--"I have found it!"
Yes: Mr. Mortimer declared he had found it; found the fulcrum for the
lever, and the new newspaper _should_ be published at Chatham: the forty
thousand inhabitants of the four towns, he said, were surely able to
support a paper themselves. He was decided, he declared he was.
Mr. Mortimer's resolution was confirmed beyond the possibility of
change, he felt assured, by a little voyage in the steamer to Sheerness.
Chatham was "just the place," the Sheerness people assured him, for the
publication of a paper, and _they_ would support it; in fact, it would
have the support of "the _whole_ Isle of Sheppy!" Mr. Mortimer was
exhilarated,--nay, he was exultant; and, although he had determined only
to stay an hour in Sheerness, and then get on board a steamer for
returning up the Thames, he was so pleased that he remained all day, and
drank as hard, in his earnestness, as he had at the "Ranelagh Gardens"
in the Isle of Thanet.
Mr. Mortimer had but _one_ call now to make, in order to complete the
line of Kentish survey,--circle, rather, which he had so sagaciously
laid down for himself; and he, accordingly, got out at Gravesend, the
next morning, as he was proceeding in the packet on the Thames. Not that
Mr. Mortimer thought Gravesend of great importance, but it might be as
well, he said within himself, to call there. Unfortunate Mr. Mortimer!
what did he know of the "relative importance" of the towns of Kent?
Landlords, company, shopkeepers, loungers of all grades, in fact, every
body, insisted that Gravesend was the _only_ place in Kent where a paper
could possibly prosper! People little thought of the real worth of
Gravesend. "But you have no member of parliament," said poor Mr.
Mortimer, feeling all his old tribulation returning. What then? it was
answered: they had a corporation, and two piers, and two packet
companies, with eternal war between the piers and the companies,--war
that shook the whole bank of the Thames, and was even perceived to have
caused sundry vibrations in London bridge itself, where "the companies'"
packets landed their passengers. Besides, they had had a paper in
Gravesend once,--"The Journal,"--and _it_ prospered; but no sooner was
it removed to Greenwich than it became worthless. _That_ ought to be a
convincing proof to Mr. Mortimer that Gravesend was the proper, the
_only_ fulcrum for his intellectual lever. Above all,--Gravesend was now
become "London in parvo,"--a fine, well-fed and well-dressed gentleman
observed: genteel people,--he meant prosperous merchants,--removed their
families thither for the entire summer season, and just took the run
with the steamers to London and back, morning and evening, to transact
business: the metropolis possessed its finest suburb in the rising and
extending and rapidly-improving town of Gravesend!--and the company
cheered the gentleman's speech most enthusiastically,--and, poor Mr.
Mortimer! he was, more than ever, confounded, puzzled, bothered,
perplexed, flummaxed, and flabbergasted! He could not return to London
that day: that was as clear as the sun at noon,--although the "fulcrum"
question was become so disastrously dim, since he left Chatham and
Sheerness. Nay, Mr. Mortimer staid at Gravesend even the whole of the
following day; and the more people he saw--(and he saw no end of new
faces,--in fact, they appeared to him, in his puzzled condition, to
spring out of the earth--though the fact was they came in fresh shoals
by the packet every morning, noon, and night, from town,)--the more
people he saw, the more he was told that Gravesend was the place wherein
he ought to publish "The Intellectual Lever:" that _there_ he could lift
all Kent, and get himself returned,--the conclusion, he thought, ought
to be,--for any Kentish borough _he chose_ to represent!
"Well," said Mr. Mortimer to himself, as he was dressing on the fourth
morning of his stay in Gravesend: "it _is_ strange--certainly."
Mr. Mortimer would have said more to himself,--but he just then happened
to be glancing down into the street, as he was tying his neckerchief,
and seeing an omnibus going by,--one of the regular and frequent
conveyances from Gravesend to Chatham,--that run the eight miles with
passengers,--he read upon one of its sides--"Meets conveyances to
MAIDSTONE."
"Why, what in the world has possessed me, all this time?" exclaimed Mr.
Mortimer, aloud, although he was alone,--"what in the world has
possessed me, that I have been going round Kent, and calling at every
little hole without thinking of Maidstone,--the county town, where the
assizes are held,--in the very core and centre of the shire?"
There was no one to answer Mr. Mortimer,--but he was down stairs in
another minute,--besought the landlord to stop the omnibus,--paid his
bill,--and set off, breakfastless, for Maidstone, by way of Chatham. Mr.
Mortimer was resolved he would have his own unbiassed judgment this
time, and so called on no one at Chatham or Rochester.
Maidstone--finished Mr. Mortimer! A _new_ newspaper for Kent?--why,
every one assured him it was of all schemes the most foolish. The
"Maidstone Gazette," on the Whig side, was edited by Mr. Whiting, a
gentleman of real talent, swarmed with advertisements, and had a good
circulation: the "Maidstone Journal," on the Conservative side, was
rising into favour and patronage, with its own party: these were the two
_real_ representatives of Kent: there was no room for another paper:
fools might speculate, in any corner, to please knaves, and throw their
money away: there was no full growth of radicalism, as in the
manufacturing districts: London was so near at hand that its daily
papers and literary periodicals supplied every want:--in short, every
man of any pretensions to common sense assured Mr. Mortimer, if he
desired to throw away his fortune, his projected "lever" was the very
instrument to enable him to throw it away effectually,--if he chose Kent
for the "fulcrum!"
Mr. Mortimer returned to London an altered man. He believed he had been
"humbugged;" and so it proved. He tried to find "the solicitor," but no
such person was to be found at the house he had pencilled down on his
tablets. "Ah!" thought Mr. Mortimer, as he returned towards the West
end,--"how lucky it was that I bethought me not to let the fellow place
the types and the press in his 'office,' as he called it!" Mr. Mortimer
resolved to sell the materials, get back his hundred pounds, and give up
the scheme. He sent for an appraiser. The press was only fit to burn,
and the types had to be sold for old metal!!--
Mr. Mortimer is _not_ in parliament yet.
NICHOLAS NIXON, "GENTLEMAN,"
WHO COULD NOT UNDERSTAND WHY, BUT WHO KNEW "IT WAS SO."
Dullness was well nigh at the meridian of her reign in old Lincoln.
In the solemn "precincts" of the cathedral the humble bees seemed
almost afraid to disturb the solitude by a hum; and venerable maiden
ladies had no vicissitude of existence, save an occasional scold at
their servants, or a grumbling complaint of "short measure" to the
coalman as he made his weekly call. And, indeed, the rest of the city
was most autumnally tame and uninteresting. The fashionables were at the
watering-places,--the throng of the working population was in the
fields,--and while one tradesman complained, with a yawn, to his
neighbour, that there was "nothing doing, and no money stirring," the
other invariably rejoined, "No, nor won't be, till after harvest!"--and
then imitated his neighbour in stretching his mouth from ear to ear.
In fact, the only interesting people you met were those who endeavoured
to keep you awake by collecting and pouring out several dull,
disagreeable, or doleful subjects in a breath; such as the relation of
the robbery of such a tradesman's shop at noon-day,--the thieves having
taken advantage of the extreme dullness of the time to effect their
villainous scheme;--or, the accident of the poor-fellow, the
bricklayer's assistant, falling from the top of his ladder, with the hod
on his head, and being taken up to the hospital;--coupled with the
"remarkable fact" that he was the second husband of a poor woman whose
first fell from a pear-tree, and was killed, leaving her with a large
family;--with an additional half-score of disasters, if your nerves or
inclination would permit you to stay and learn the sum-total of the
catalogue.
Nicholas Nixon, "gentleman," had dwelt threescore years in the venerable
city; that is to say, the whole of his life, and had kept decent state
as a householder among the genteel people of the Minster-yard, for at
least half of the term. Living "retired," on a yearly income, and
passing each successive day of his existence in an almost unvaried
routine of eating, washing, dressing, walking, and sleeping, one would
have thought that all seasons of the year would have become equally
agreeable or indifferent to him. But Mr. Nixon was too true a
Minster-yard cit either to feel or to affect indifference in a matter
that, he knew, drew forth so much dull comment among his
fellow-citizens, as did the dullness of the autumn season.
"Really, Mr. Subdean," said he to that cathedral dignitary, as he
overtook him, by the County Hospital, at the top of the "Steep Hill," in
the forenoon of one of these drowsy days, "I think our autumns grow
duller and duller every year: I'm sure you must feel it to be a bore
that you are in residence this latter end."
"I feel it to be a little dull to be among you, at this time of the
year, Mr. Nixon," replied the subdean, "but still it is an agreeable
change."
"I am glad you can think so, sir," rejoined Gentleman Nixon;--for that
was the mode by which he was usually distinguished from the several
tradesmen Nixons who inhabited the city,--"I am glad you can bring
yourself to think so: for my own part, I feel it to be very dull, very
dull, indeed!--Are you for a walk to the Bar, sir?"
"I am, Mr. Nixon: shall I have the pleasure of your company?" was the
rejoinder of the courteous and kind-natured clergyman.
"I shall be most happy, Mr. Subdean: I feel very highly honoured, sir:
I----"
"And what is the best news, stirring, Mr. Nixon?" asked the subdean,
desirous of cutting short the retired gentleman's flourish of
politeness.
"Well, sir," answered Mr. Nicholas, very quickly, "I think the best news
is that the poor freemen have had the spirit to stop this mushroom
scheme of the town council to turn the West Common into a botanical
garden. They are a mischievous set, these Below-hill Whig-radicals,
depend upon it, Mr. Subdean: we shall have need to look sharp after
'em."
The churchman was full well acquainted with Gentleman Nixon's
undeviating adherence to the "Pink" partisanship,--that is to say,
Sibthorpian, or "House-of-Canwick" side of politics, which was most
prevalent "Above-hill"--the division of old Lincoln comprising the
habitations situate around the ancient castle and magnificent cathedral,
and beyond which the Roman city did not extend. The subdean, I say, knew
well that Mr. Nixon was among the most unchanging of the well-nigh
changeless denizens in this elevated region: he knew that Mr. Nicholas
professed the highest, the most exclusive toryism; and therefore he
showed no signs of surprise at the uncharitable manner in which Mr.
Nicholas chose to express himself upon the question of the political
morality displayed by the citizens dwelling in the lower region; and yet
the clergyman, by one gentle word, excited great surprise in Mr.
Nicholas Nixon.
"I really don't think the new corporation are intentionally
mischievous," said he; "I have no doubt they mean well: 'tis reckoned to
be an age of improvements, you know, Mr. Nixon, and they must be in the
fashion."
"'Pon my honour, sir, I don't understand the rule by which you
distinguish between mischievous deeds and intentions," sharply observed
Mr. Nicholas: "I always think that when a number of men deliberately
attempt mischief they mean it."
"I think their scheme would have been less objectionable had they
proposed that each of the poor freemen should have cultivated a little
plot of garden ground for himself on the common," observed the
churchman, by way of parrying the citizen's strong remark.
"But the law would not permit that, in my opinion, any more than the
other," said the retired gentleman: "besides, the fact is just this,
sir: once permit these reforming gentry to begin their schemes of
improvement, and one acre after another would disappear from the
corporate tenure of the freemen,--until, the property becoming
individual, it would quickly be bought for a dog's price, by one or
other of these liberals who have longer purses and more knavish heads
than the rest of their neighbours."
"I hope none of the new corporation are such men as you are speaking
of," said the subdean: "you know, Mr. Nixon, I neither go along with
them nor their party; but I do not like to be uncharitable."
"Uncharitable! nonsense, sir!" exclaimed the exclusive cit, forgetting
his courtesy, through bigoted partisanship: "I do not hold these fellows
to be at all deserving of a charitable opinion, for I believe them
capable of any wickedness. Why, sir, as Mr. Christopher shrewdly
observed on the hustings in the castle-yard at the last county contest,
while he pointed to the venerable Minster, 'These fellows would turn
that sacred and time-hallowed building into a cotton-mill to-morrow if
they had the power.' I believe he hit the mark there, sir, for he made
the liberals very sore, I assure you," and Mr. Nicholas Nixon chuckled
with a vindictive pleasure as he ended.
"If I did not excuse Mr. Christopher from a knowledge of the rash
speeches which excitement and opposition impel country gentlemen to
deliver on the hustings," rejoined the clergyman, looking somewhat
grave, "I could not hesitate to censure him for making so offensive a
remark. I do not see any good to be done by this fierce spirit of
quarrel--but much evil."
"Pardon me, Mr. Subdean," persisted Gentleman Nixon, "but I really must
say that I think if all of us were as tamely disposed as yourself, the
church would soon tumble over your ears."
"I think nothing can tend to build it up so securely, Mr. Nixon,"
returned the dignitary, with a smile, "as showing the world that we, as
ministers of the church, are the truest friends of mankind,--the
readiest and most cheerful toilers for human happiness. You know I never
like to talk politics, in any shape; I would much rather hear you and
other gentlemen propose some plan for making the poor more comfortable
in their circumstances,--or join you in any little scheme for amusing
them. Do you attend the concerts of these young working-men in St.
Peter's church, Mr. Nixon?"
"Sir, I take the liberty to tell you plainly," persevered the heated
"Pink" partisan, "that the easy good-nature of such kind-hearted people
as yourself, and the indolence of our most respectable citizens
Above-hill, go far to make it nearly impossible, already, to recover any
degree of influence in city affairs. We are almost a lost party: the
Blues have it all their own way,--and although you must be aware they
are bent on ruining the poor entirely, under the mask of helping them,
yet you will not lend a hand to oppose them----"
"But am I not telling you, my dear sir," interrupted the subdean, "that
I think all the quarrels in the world can never convince mankind--the
poor as well as the rest--that the quarrellers are the friends of
mankind? If the Blue party be so bitterly bent on ruining the poor, as
you say they are--let us carry relief into the houses of the poor always
in the spirit of benevolence, and never as an act to oppose a party. If
we look at the very persons we have to relieve, I think we may learn to
do this,--for indeed, Mr. Nixon, there is no denying but that the poor
are much more skilful in discerning the motives of those who visit them
with charitable professions, than they were some years ago."
"Why, sir, what with Methodist cant on the one hand, and demagoguism on
the other, the poor are spoilt," replied Mr. Nicholas, in the same tart
spirit: "they have the impudence, now-a-days, to pry into the conduct of
all ranks and conditions: your cloth does not screen you from their
envious inquisitiveness; and they make all kinds of offensive and
sneering remarks on respectable people. And then, their pride! Why now,
Mr. Subdean, here we are, nearly at St. Botolph's bar, and not a single
poor man has paid you a mark of respect, all the way we have walked!
Take my word for it, sir,--forty years ago if I had been honoured to
walk down the street with a cathedral dignitary, I should have seen
every poor man that we met touch his hat to him! I ask you, sir, what is
to come of such a state of things?" concluded Mr. Nicholas, in a very
earnest and emphatic tone.
The churchman fairly burst into laughter; and had it been any other than
a Minster grandee, Gentleman Nixon would have been highly irritated by
his mirth. As it was, he began to suspect himself of folly, for having
carried his opposition to such an extremity in a merely friendly
dialogue.
"Come now, Mr. Nixon," resumed the subdean, in a tone of pleasant
expostulation, "does not this very circumstance, of the striking change
in manners that you have alluded to, convince you that the hostile
course is unwise? Do you expect, now, that the poor can be brought to
observe the same outwardly submissive courtesies that their fathers
practised when you and I were young?"
"Well, I must confess, I do not," tardily--but perforce of
conviction--Mr. Nicholas made answer.
"It would be foolish to expect it, Mr. Nixon," continued the clergyman;
"and as they will continue to keep the course they have commenced
outwardly, so will they grow in the habit of scrutinising the conduct of
those above them. I think the time is nearly at hand when neither Blues
nor Pinks, nor any other shade of political party, will be able to raise
excitements by attempting to persuade the poor, that these are designing
to cheat them, while those are their disinterested and sympathising
friends. The times are changed, for the English people are changed: we
cannot deny it, since we have here a proof of it, Mr. Nixon."
"That we have, too truly, Mr. Subdean!" echoed Mr. Nicholas, and sighed
very dolorously.
"Nay, I do not think there is any cause for regret, in all this,"
observed his cheerful and more enlightened acquaintance; "whatever
severe causes may have operated to produce it, no philanthropist can
regret that there is discernible the commencement of a spirit of
self-respect on the part of the poor. We are all equal in the sight of
our Maker, you know, my friend; and for my part I assure you, I do not
desire that the old usages of servility should be resumed, and the great
first law of human brotherhood be again lost sight of--for, I suspect,
that was too often the fact while the brother in superfine cloth
received such frequent obeisance from the brother in ragged linen."
"I must again say you surprise me greatly, sir," observed Gentleman
Nixon, beginning again to recover his belligerent humour.
"But _do not_ be surprised, Mr. Nixon," answered the churchman,
instantly and persuasively: "the world has changed, though you remain an
honest Tory, and----"
"And you have become a Whig, sir, I fear," observed Mr. Nicholas, while
his face and throat began to assume the hue of a distempered
turkey-cock.
"No, Mr. Nixon, a Conservative, if you please."
"All the same," said the retired gentleman, but with a subsidence of his
mettle; "scarcely any thing but a distinction without a difference."
"To speak the broad truth," resumed the clergyman, "there are but very
few now, who boast themselves,--as you do, Mr. Nixon, most honestly,--to
be Tories. Nor are you very far from right in your belief of the
resemblance of some other parties,--for the old Whig and the modern
Conservative are nearly akin. The modern Whig would also have been a
Radical some few years ago, while the hotter advocates for change have
also considerably enlarged their demands."
"And do you pretend to tell me, Mr. Subdean," asked Mr. Nicholas, very
impatiently, "that you and others are any other than madmen to yield to
this jacobinical spirit of change?--I say jacobinical--the plain word
that my father used, and that I believe to be the best word."
"But I do _not_ believe it to be the best word, my dear sir," repeated
the subdean, and took the hand of the retired gentleman with a
smile,--seeing they were about to separate; "I believe we should be
madmen indeed if we did not yield wisely to this spirit of change. You
will never find me among the advocates of rash and hasty changes, Mr.
Nixon; but I repeat--change has begun,--and if we do not yield to it
wisely, it will speedily proceed more rashly and hastily than any of us
would wish to see. All parties are amalgamating, for they are blending
names; and all ranks are converging to a common point, where rank will
be forgotten. Forty years ago you could not have imagined that a
cathedral dignitary would have walked from the 'Chequer Gate to St.
Botolph's Bar, and not one of the hundreds of poor men he met ever touch
their hat to him;--and yet you have walked with me every inch of the way
this morning, and seen every poor man pass by without showing the
subdean any more respect than he shows to one of his ragged
neighbours:--you have seen this, Mr. Nixon, and you cannot deny that _it
was so_. Good morning, sir!"
"Good morning, sir!" echoed Mr. Nicholas Nixon, though it was somewhat
vacantly. And thrice he turned to look after the clergyman when they had
separated,--stunned and confounded as he felt at what the dignitary had
said; and then wondered how it could be! But the more Mr. Nicholas
wondered, the less he could comprehend what he wondered at. He knew that
he himself was what he was thirty years ago,--the same old-fashioned
Tory, who, even then, lived each day alike, in the same house in the
Minster-yard; but as for the subdean and many others, though he
perceived they had changed, he could not comprehend why:--all that he
could comprehend was,--that _it was so_.
SIGNS OF THE TIMES;
OR,
ONE PARSON AND TWO CLERKS.
It was at the very time,--for History is notoriously fond of
synchronisms for her greatest events,--witness Mycale and Plataea, fought
and won on the self-same day,--it was at the very time that Papineau and
the Canadian rebels took up swords and guns to resist Sir John Colborne
and the English troops,--that the old women of Stow, in the parts of
Lindsey, took up eggs to pelt the parish parson!
All the world knows, or if it doth not know it has profited but little
by the industry of antiquarians, that Stow, in the division of Lindsey,
and eight miles north-and-by-west of Lincoln, was an ancient Roman
station, under the euphonic appellation of _Sidnacester_; that under
that name it was the seat of a Saxon bishopric; that although Remigius
de Feschamp, one of the Norman tyrant's fighting churchmen, transferred
the seat of the diocese to Lincoln, yet when the stately cathedral which
he founded was finished, while they placed his episcopal effigy on one
of the grand pinnacles of the imposing west front, they fixed the
grotesque image of "the Swineherd of Stow" (holding in his hand the horn
which he gave filled with silver pennies, towards building the Minster,)
on the other; that the episcopal palace of Stow was the favourite
residence of the bishops of Lincoln down to the close of the fourteenth
century, and that Stow still gives title to an archdeacon; lastly, that
its venerable-looking church, dedicated to the blessed Virgin,
constructed in the form of the Holy Rood, and adorned with a west door
of decayed Gothic grandeur, is, to this day, called "the Mother of
Lincoln Minster."
Now such being the distinctions of Stow itself, of course the "Perpetual
Curate" of Stow, on receiving the awful impressment of episcopal hands,
and the mysterious investiture of canonical habits, together with the
comfortable appointment of the patron to the vacant curacy, entered on
the discharge of his spiritual functions with strong notions of the
altitude of his office, and of the plenary powers attached thereto. The
ideas of the governed, however, in these days, somehow or other, don't
happen to preserve an equal altitude, respecting office, with those of
the governors; and the new Perpetual Curate of Stow, the successor to
the once vice-regal priests of Sidnacester, was stricken with ghostly
astonishment at finding that sundry rustics of his parish cared not a
bodle for his new authority; that they snapped their fingers at his
counsel and reproofs; and, setting at nought his college learning,
preferred lending their ears to the unlearned Wesleyan local
preachers,--a race of heretics who are so vulgar and unfashionable as to
follow the example of Paul, and other vulgar workers of old, who earned
their bread with the labour of their own hands, and yet, occasionally,
ministered in word and doctrine. In the very nature of things this was
unsavoury to a clergyman,--especially to a young one,--but more
especially to one who actually stood in the shoes, speaking spiritually,
of the princely and potential bishops of Sidnacester: it was not for
him, above all established teachers in the shire, to endure such
contemptuous preferences, and by that endurance permit heresy to bud and
blossom unchecked.
Now, a neighbouring reverend brother of his, the fox-hunting shepherd of
Willingham, was also very grievously pestered with these energetic
heretics,--and he had resorted to the ancient evangelical custom of
thundering forth anathemas against them from his pulpit: but that only
seemed to render the pestiferous teachers more successful,--so the
Perpetual Curate of Stow resolved to exert the whole power of his wit in
discovering some effectual way of doing, what his zealous and pious
brother of Willingham could not do,--driving out heresy, and subduing
the rebellious spirit of his flock. So to work the Perpetual Curate went
with his wit, and a profound mine he wrought: such a mine as would, no
doubt, have blown up heresy for ever in his parish, had he ever been
able to put the match to it: so profound, that, since his scheme was
frustrated, no one has ever been able to fathom it, and, therefore,
_nobody_ can tell _anybody_ what it really was. But how was it that a
scheme so profound, so workmanlike, so masterly, did not succeed? Alas!
how often in this frail humanity of ours do the most exalted enterprises
fail, yea, often by the unexpected resistance of the very instruments on
which we think we can most unerringly and safely depend! And thus it was
with the great Perpetual Curate: he was most magnanimously bent on
subduing revolt and heresy, when, lo! even Sir Amen, his clerk, lifted
up his heel against him!
Now this was a notable event of a very auspicious character for the
revolters. Clerk William Middleton was no ordinary clerk. Gervase
Middleton, his father, had been clerk before him. Clerk William
Middleton had, therefore, an important hereditary stamp upon him. And
then, he was a _schollard_, as the old women called it, and was so
gentle, that he was never known to hurt a worm; so moral, that he was
never seen drunk in his life; so religious, that he never used a
stronger oath than "Marry good faith!" and "By'r Lady!" (old oaths of
popish times that are not yet lost in old Lincolnshire); and so upright,
that he would not deny his conscience, even for the parson! This was no
ordinary auxiliary on the side of the enemy; and there was no wonder
that it put the Perpetual Curate, for a while, to his wit's end, to hear
the reports which were brought to him by one Spurr (who was spurred on
by his own inward aims to reach Sir Amen's office), of the stout and
unflinching and open assertions made in the streets of Stow, by Clerk
William Middleton, that the Methodists had as much right to preach as
the parson! It was heresy he did not expect from such a quarter; but he
was resolved he would be even with this member of the revolt, however;
so he played a master-stroke so suddenly, that it shook the whole parish
like an earthquake: he actually _un_-clerked Clerk William Middleton,
the son of Clerk Gervase, the old, learned, hereditary, gentle, moral,
upright, pious, and religious parish-clerk!!!
This was a most unprecedented and most unexpected event; and it gave
rise, as may be guessed it would, to a mighty concatenation of
stupendous occurrences. The spirit of the Perpetual Curate was roused,
and his genius, too, as was proved by his statesmanlike blow at the
ring-leader of the rustic confederacy; and the spirit of the
parishioners was roused likewise, for they were determined that,
although the parson might appoint a new clerk, they would stick by the
old one. The ensuing Sunday, accordingly, brought forth the strange
anomaly of _one_ parson with _two_ clerks, reading the church service in
the ancient aisle of Stow! Moreover, when the _chosen_ of the Perpetual
Curate was beheld to be the egregious tale-bearer and notorious
sycophant, Spurr, who was no adept at the letters of his prayer-book,
the churchwarden and parishioners were alike wroth, and resolved, still
more resolutely, on abiding by their old respected utterer of amens,
Clerk William Middleton, the son of Clerk Gervase. Thus it fell out that
Clerk Spurr,--we know not, nor care we, what was his pronomen, or
"christened" name, as they call it in Lincolnshire; whether it were
Moses or Mahershalalhashbaz, Nahum or Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah or Judas
Iscariot, we cannot tell, nor doth it concern the dignity of this our
record, to say with positiveness,--for the fellow was but as a buzzard
to a sparrow-hawk, when compared with the rightful clerk; but thus it
fell out, that Clerk Spurr was called "the Parson's Clerk," while Clerk
William Middleton, the son of Clerk Gervase, bore the creditable and
legitimate epithet of "the Parish Clerk."
And, then, it came to pass that, when announcements of christenings,
burials, or marriages, had to be made, the parishioners, in the spirit
of their preference, commissioned their own clerk, "the Parish Clerk,"
to inform his Reverence the Perpetual Curate of the same, and to
request the fulfilment of the accustomed rites. But the cooler the
parishioners grew towards "the Parson's Clerk," the hotter did the
parson grow towards his parishioners. He scorned to compromise his
sacerdotal dignity by attempting a reconciliation with the unruly
spirits by which he was surrounded: he spurned the ignoble example of
the ancient worthies who thought the first and last part of Christianity
was meekness and long-suffering; and he meditated a still more
afflictive stroke of retaliation on his spiritual rebels.
Clerk William Middleton conveyed a request to his spiritual superior
from a sorrowing villager to bury his dead child;--but the grand
Perpetual Curate would not fulfil the request because it was brought him
by the discarded, though old, hereditary Amen,--and adjourned, in
dudgeon, to the hamlet of Coates,--while the poor villager's child was
put into its grave,--as every child of such rebels deserved to be
put,--_like a dog_,--without a prayer being read, or a hope expressed
about its resurrection!
This circumstance sank deeply into the minds of the Stow revolters: it
was a something that had never been heard of a clergyman in the memory
of man,--at least at Stow in the parts of Lindsey: it made their skin
creep, and the very "hair of their flesh to stand up,"--for they were
simple, unsophisticated sort of people, and, therefore, all strong
mental emotions had the same effects upon their physical frames, as the
author of "Job" and Homer describe in their days. But the strong feeling
did not evaporate through the pores of their skin, especially with the
more noble, though tenderer, sex: _they_ laid their heads together to do
such a deed upon a parson as had never been done upon one since the name
of parson had been known in Stow. In a short time another message had to
be despatched to the Perpetual Curate: a woman had to be churched, and a
child to be buried, on the same afternoon,--and, judging from the former
example, the villagers conjectured that his Reverence would "make
himself scarce" after the churching, and leave this child, also,
unburied. And now, a valorous army of the female gender, their pockets
plentifully provided with plenipotent ammunition of eggs, formed
themselves, in heroic ambuscade, near the church door, purposing right
courageously to assail the clerical enemy, if he should haughtily refuse
the offices of Christian sepulture to the deceased child. "Enterprises
of great pith and moment," however, as the immortal one saith, often
"their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action." So it was in
this ambuscade so gloriously planned. The clerical enemy wisely
capitulated: his clerk, "the Parson's Clerk," preceded the Perpetual
Curate from the church, as a herald of moderation, assuring the armed
battalion that his reverence would peaceably inter the child; and,
forthwith, some of the gallant troop immediately _grounded_ their arms,
while others preferred _throwing_ them to a distance,--in token that
they put away all hostile thoughts far from them.
And here, perchance, this chivalrous history might have ended, had not
the demon of Litigation, who was doubtless hovering near the field of
intended affray, taken the case into his own foul hands. Some part of
the rejected artillery chanced to alight upon the garments of "the
Parson's Clerk's" wife, and of the Perpetual Curate's servant-maid. It
was in vain that the members of the ambuscade protested this mishap to
be owing in no degree to their intent:--the parson commenced an action
at law against the entire petticoat regiment, or its ringleaders, for
"assault and battery."
Another untoward event thickened the quarrel, and doubled the action at
law; but the event itself cannot be so distinctly related as the last,
seeing it occurred in the dark, while the female ambuscade was planted
by broad daylight. The successor of the bishops, bearing a staff instead
of a crosier, and his chosen Amen, bearing a hayfork, chanced to meet
two youths connected with the revolters, one evening after dusk, in the
churchyard. Who gave the primal assault cannot be positively affirmed,
for it is not over safe to speak closely after the parties in a
squabble, when there are no other witnesses. However, a fight certainly
took place, even among the tombs of the dead; and so high did the wrath
of the belligerent Clerk Spurr rise in the conflict, that a cottager,
neighbouring to the church, heard with alarm, even at his own door, the
said clerkly warrior threaten to stab his opponent with the hayfork! Ere
the cottager could quit his door, up came the parson and demanded help;
but the cottager honestly told the parson "he would look better at
home." His Reverence then sought "help" at the blacksmith's shop, but
there, also, no one thought he needed it,--and so he retreated to his
lodgings.
Such, in a few words, was the cause of the double action at law; and, at
the ensuing Kirton sessions, the two youngsters who had either cudgelled
the parson, or had been cudgelled themselves, together with the
ringleaders of the famous female ambuscade, were together tried for
"assault and battery." But the wrathful parson did not get his will: the
affair was so ludicrous that he was compelled to consent that it should
be "hushed up."
To hush up the heart-burnings of the parties, on their return to the
seat of war, was, however, not so easy a matter. Above all things, did
it now become a difficult task to keep peace between the rival clerks.
Passing by the many minor occasions wherein fiery frowns and black
glances were exchanged, this history, which we must abridge, through
dread of being adjudged tedious, conducts us to another notable event,
which became the subject of _another_ "action-at-law," at a succeeding
Kirton Quarter Sessions.
The funeral of a parishioner was about to take place, and the friends of
the deceased "particularly requested" that Clerk William Middleton, the
son of Clerk Gervase,--the true "Parish Clerk,"--the old, hereditary,
and established, and legitimate pronouncer of conclusive amens,--might
give the responses at this funeral. Clerk Spurr, the "Parson's Clerk,"
however, determined on contesting the point;--and--a struggle for the
old folio prayer-book actually took place in the church!
Here, again, was a sight that had never been beheld, or dreamt of,
before, in the parish of Stow: but as strange and indecorous a sight as
it was, it was one that many a rural spectator declared he wouldn't have
missed for a quart of ale!--The very mourners for the dead were
compelled to hide their laughing faces with their white
handkerchiefs,--for the grotesque wrestling of the rival clerks, and
their looks of rage, as they together grasped and tugged at the
prayer-book, put weeping out of the question. The parson had got
through--"I said I will take heed to my ways,"--and wanted to
begin--"Lord, thou hast been our refuge,"--but there stood the
wrestlers, grasping, and pulling, and panting, and sweating,--and it was
a most difficult thing to say which would be likely to beat. Many a
stout farmer that shook his sides,--for the laugh became broad and
general, in spite of the solemnity of the occasion,--longed to shout
out, "A crown to a groat upon Middleton!"--but restrained himself. At
length,--the genuine, hereditary spirit of the true "Parish Clerk"
prevailed!--he possessed the book: the "Parson's Clerk" sought a seat,
to take his breath;--and Clerk William, panting, and wiping the
streaming perspiration from his comely and heroic brow, proceeded to
echo the "Confession" after the Perpetual Curate.
Such was the cause of the "action" brought by Spurr (at the direction,
and by the ghostly advice of the Perpetual Curate) against Middleton at
the succeeding sessions,--an action of "assault committed by the said
Middleton upon him the said Spurr, while in the performance of duty."
The jury, on this occasion,--to make short of the narrative,--sat till
eleven at night,--the Court rang with laughter for hours,--and the
affair was, at last, got rid of,--by some legal resort, and Spurr (or
his advisers) were saddled with costs. _That_ was a conclusion that
"gravelled" Spurr, as he said, on leaving the Court; and the Perpetual
Curate was also "gravelled"--though he did not use the same expression;
and they each showed it, soon after their second return to the old seat
of war. But another slight event must first be chronicled, ere the
several succeeding and exalted doings of the "Parson's Clerk" and the
Perpetual Curate are narrated.
Thomas Skill, was a skilful yeoman of good report, holding two farms in
the ancient parish of Stow; and although he eschewed all heresy and
dissent, and willed to worship after the fashion of his
forefathers,--who had been creditable yeomen in Stow from time
immemorial,--yet liked he not of the wayward doings of his Reverence the
Perpetual Curate. Now it chanced that on a certain Sunday in November
that the said Skill the skilful went, as was his pious and religious
wont, to pay his devotions _according to law_, in the parish church of
Stow, the ancient and venerated sanctuary of his forefathers. As a
holder of two farms, be it observed, this creditable yeoman had a right,
by the customs of this rural district, to _two_ pews; nevertheless,
being by no means a person of an unreasonable disposition, he was
content, on that day, to occupy but _one_, if so be that he might be
allowed to worship quietly. Nevertheless, scarcely was he seated, ere a
certain Jesse Ellis, an aged man of some rural rank as a
master-husband-man who had been selected by the Perpetual Curate as
_his_ churchwarden, came up to the pew-door, said "he was _ordered_ to
pull Skill out," and, forthwith, attempted to put the "order" into
execution. Did Skill the skilful resist?--Did he yield? No, no: he knew
a trick worth two of either. He had not his name for nought! When Ellis
laid his grasp vehemently on the pew-door, skilful Skill held it fast
for a few moments, and then skilfully let it go,--all in a moment,--so
that the vehement Ellis, by the vehemence of his grasp and the rebound
of the pew-door, was overthrown; and there he lay,--he, the parson's
own churchwarden,--on the floor of the aisle of Stow church, in the time
of "divine service," with the congregation from their seats and pews,
and the Perpetual Curate, from his reading-desk, and Clerk Spurr, the
"Parson's Clerk," and Clerk William Middleton, the son of Clerk Gervase,
squeezing one another in the desk below, and yet looking on, and all
looking on, at his signal defeat and overthrow: there he "lay
vanquished--confounded;"--like Milton's Satan, sprawling on the "fiery
gulf," when all the fallen angels were sprawling there likewise, but yet
looking on and shaking their heads at him for a rash captain--no doubt!
Then appeared Skill the skilful, and Ellis the sprawler, before a bench
of "Her Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the parts of Lindsey," in
the Moothall of Gainsborough; where the justices acted with sense and
discernment, and dismissed the sprawler's suit, saddling him with costs.
An end might have come to this episode here; but the sprawler and his
son were people of spirit, and were so much dissatisfied with this
decision of the justices, that they went home muttering all the way
about _law_, and declaring to every one they met, that they "would _yet
have it_." And so skilful Skill thought it wise and prudent to let them
"have it;" and, therefore, from mere neighbourly good humour, commenced
his action, in turn, against the said Jesse Ellis for attempting to
pull him out of his own pew, on the said Sunday in November, and in the
parish church of Stow aforesaid. Our manuscript hath, in this place, an
hiatus; so that we cannot say how the said action terminated: but it
will not excite wonder that amidst the ravelled tissue of broils and
litigations occasioned by the gospel-mindedness of the illustrious
successor to the Sidnacestrian prelates, some of their issues should
escape complete and satisfactory chronicle.
It behoveth, moreover, that we now attend to the more lofty department
of this our history of ecclesiastical revolutions,--for, as the sun
transcendeth the stars, so do the acts of sacerdotal personages outshine
the brightest deeds of the vulgar laity.
And first, of the continued luminous acts and deeds of Clerk Spurr, the
notable and notorious "Parson's Clerk," the hero of the hayfork. Let
none imagine that he always warred with such a vulgar weapon of the
field; forasmuch as his Reverence the Perpetual Curate, being in
possession of a grand double-barrelled gun, was wont to commit and
intrust it to the lawful custody of his worthy coadjutor in heroic
exercises, the heroic Clerk Spurr. Neither did it redound a little to
the credit of the Perpetual Curate's humanity, that he did so commit and
intrust the said formidable piece of ordnance to the custody of the said
Spurr;--forasmuch as the life and safety of that hero of the hayfork
were discerned to be seriously in danger,--inasmuch as it had been
proven how the malicious urchins of the community, participating deeply
in the heart-burnings of their sires and mothers, were wont often to
annoy, with sundry small pebbles and other mischief-working missiles,
the precious person of the said hero. Lest, therefore, these assaults
should issue in some bodily harm to himself, the man of nightly valour
was equipped with the gun, and speedily proceeded to defend himself
therewith, in the manner that shall now be described and related,
together with the fruition of his new act of heroism.
The night was two hours old,--no moon, no stars,--it was deeply dark and
murkily cloudy, and--but never mind all that! Anon, up cometh the troop
of youngsters, whispering laughter, and saying "Hush!" to each other, as
they approach the camp of the enemy. Little thought they, as they
marched along, each laden with his pocket of pebbles, of the sore
discomfiture which had been planned for them by the foe! Clerk Spurr,
that signal warrior of the implement with prongs, had planted himself,
firelock on shoulder, eye full of aim, and heart full of valour, close
by the usual point of attack. The besiegers halt,--and, in a moment, a
shower of gravel gravelleth their enemy; but loud as was the war-cry of
their tiny voices, above it rose the booming thunder of the "Parson's
Clerk's" grand double-barrelled gun,--and woeful was the effect
thereof!!! The shot or the wadding,--the manuscript sayeth not
which--had entered,--_not_ the brains, nor, even, the hats of the
juvenile assailants,--but--but--the church windows! Away scampered the
youngsters,--every mother's son feeling whether his head was off or
on,--and yelling, till every cottage door in the neighbourhood was
thrown open, and lights were brought out in alarm! Down tumbled the old
coloured glass from the ancient mullions, rattling on the tomb-stones
beneath, and sounding like curses on sacrilege in the ears of the
affrighted hero of the gun and the hayfork! His weapon dropped,--for he
was panic-struck! The churchwardens brought a bill against him for the
repair of the church-windows: he refused to pay: was brought before the
Lincoln county magistrates for recovery; and the hero of the hayfork had
to "fork out" seven shillings and sixpence for his freak! The Stow
rustics grinned from ear to ear, nodded approbation of the sentence, and
spread mirth and fun when they reached home with the news; but the
reverend successor of the ancient episcopal potencies was sorely grieved
at heart when he heard of this repetition of defeat for his chosen and
chop-fallen ejaculator of amens.
As for the grand Perpetual Curate himself, his personal troubles and
griefs, and the uninterrupted continuation thereof, would require
volumes for full narration. Suffice it to say, ere we bring this exalted
record to an end, that, in the profundity of his wisdom, he resorted to
multitudinous devices of apostolical character, after the defeats at
law that have been heretofore noted. During ten successive Sundays he
resorted to a most novel course of Christianity, closing the service
after merely reading a few of the "Sentences,"--or, in addition, a few
words of the "Absolution,"--and then, leaving his flock to find their
way to heaven as they might. The legitimate "Parish Clerk" would come
into his desk pretty early; then would come in the "Parson's Clerk;"
and, lastly, the parson would walk into his desk, and commence reading
after the following unique method:--
"When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath
committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his
soul alive.----William Middleton! I charge you to come out of that seat,
and let the clerk come in peaceably and quietly!"
The poor "Parish Clerk," meanwhile, would make no answer; but full
meekly, and in the spirit of his vocation, would hold his peace. Again
the parson would proceed:--
"Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth us in sundry places
to----William Middleton! if you do not come out of that seat, and cease
interrupting me in my duty, I shall conclude the service!"
And then would he close the book,--the poor "Parish Clerk" answering not
a word,--and, walking to the communion-table, give a couple of parish
alms-loaves to such as he chose to call--usually _his own_ clerk, for
one,--and then,--and then,--in the spirit of Jewel and Latimer, and the
rest of the tireless and devoted exemplars of his religion, would he
quit the consecrated edifice, and leave the congregation to finish by
themselves,--or disperse, which of course they preferred to do, after
witnessing these apostolical exhibitions. One more relation of the
subtle and profound devices of the immortal and Perpetual Curate, ere we
come to an end.
Vexed, teased, troubled, and circumvented, as he was, it came to pass
that, in the plenitude of his mortified and yet haughty reflections, the
successor of purple prelates bethought him that it was not seemly for
the rebellious herdsmen, ploughmen, and other rustics of low degree,
wherewith he was surrounded, to walk daily over the "consecrated ground"
of the churchyard, in the ancient footpath. The more he thought of it
the more he shuddered at it; that a number of rude rebels, with their
heretical and sacrilegious feet, should tread daily on ground which had
been "consecrated" in the hallowed mists of dateless antiquity, by
mitred magnates, before whose uplifted crosier kings had lowered their
sceptres, and mailed barons trembled and turned pale. It was not to be
permitted: the magnanimous Perpetual Curate resolved to root out such
impious sacrilege from the face of the earth; and immediately fastened
up the gates of the said ancient footpath with strong locks and chains;
yea, planted goodly young trees in the line of road hitherto trodden by
unworthy and rebellious rustics. Nay, more, conceiving that even the
remembrance of every grandmother and great-grandfather of such a
stiff-necked generation should be obliterated, his high-minded Reverence
gave order that all the hillocks over the graves should be laid low, and
the whole churchyard be levelled!
But now the grand priest had reached a climax, in the judgment of his
parishioners; and now arose the mighty wrath of the people,--that
barrier which hath so often stood before proud priests,--yea, and will
so stand again,--seeming to bear on its front, "Thus far shall ye go,
and no further, and here shall your proud wills be stayed!" A
parishioner, whose purse was lined with a store of guineas to back his
resolution, avowed that the Perpetual Curate, if he caused to be touched
a single clod that covered the ashes of his, the parishioner's,
forefathers, should have his clerical cup sweetened with all the sugar
that could be purchased for him in a court of law; and, lo! the
successor of the prelates of Sidnacester rescinded his "order" for
levelling the quiet graves of the dead!
Nor long did the other late devices of his canonical wisdom stand. The
urchins of the parish contrived to slip slily over the churchyard wall,
and to break down the newly-planted trees; and, at length, one
parishioner, having conversed with Sir John Barleycorn at Gainsborough
market, and being strongly advised by that notable counsellor of courage
to set the proud parson at nought, and "break his bonds asunder," rushed
to the churchyard gates, as soon as he arrived at his native village,
and smiting at locks and chains, as if he had been Samson before Gaza,
burst his way valiantly through,--and, thereafter, did the sacrilegious
feet of every rebel rustic again press the path of their forefathers,
without let or impediment! Such are the sovereign achievements of the
magisterial "people," when engaged in the assertion of their
time-hallowed "rights!" What are the acts of emperors compared
therewith?
And now come we to the final "action" in this concaten_ation_ of
litig_ation_, one that gave constern_ation_ to the poor "parish clerk,"
be it understood. We have spoken of the "actions" at the first Kirton
Sessions; namely, the Perpetual Curate _versus_ the Female Ambuscaders,
and the Perpetual Curate _versus_ the Cudgellers in the dark: then spoke
we of the "action" at the next sessions, Clerk Spurr, the Parson's
Clerk, _v._ Clerk William Middleton, the son of Clerk Gervase, the
Parish Clerk: then of the _petit_ "action" before the Gainsborough
Justices--Ellis _v._ Skill: then of the greater "action" at
assize--Skill _v._ Ellis: then of the "action" before the Lincoln
magistrates for recovery of value for broken church-windows--the
Churchwardens of Stow _v._ the Parson's Clerk: lastly, of the
_threatened_ action by the parishioner of the long purse, which the
Perpetual Curate avoided by rescinding his presumptuous "order" for
levelling the graves:--but now come we to the final "action"--the action
of actions: that to which all the rest formed but a petty preface: that
wherein the Perpetual Curate departing from all by-ways of attack,
undisguisedly assumed a position of legal and spiritual antagonism
against the foe whom he esteemed as the chief author of his ills, the
disturber of his projected schemes, that would, so many months before,
have issued in subjugating the rebels, and consuming heresy in his
parish,--against the old, hereditary, gentle, moral, upright parish
clerk, Clerk William Middleton, the son of Clerk Gervase.
And _where_ was the action commenced?--Before the county
magistrates,--or at sessions,--or at assize? Pooh! nonsense!--that was
not the way to finish Middleton's business as the parson intended to
finish it. Where then? In the Queen's Bench, or the Common Pleas, or the
Exchequer? No. What then, in the Vice Chancellor's Court, or the Court
of Chancery itself? Not one of 'em, sir; but in a more awful court than
any of 'em, or all of 'em put together: in the SPIRITUAL COURT, sir!
What aged dame in Lindsey had not heard of the Spiritual Court? Why the
mere sound of the word served to fill her with mysterious awe, and to
call up in her memory all the fireside stories of her grandmothers: how
such awful "penances" were inflicted by this court, on erring females,
in _their_ days,--when the dread power of the priesthood was displayed
in punishing the subjects of that natural frailty called "scandal," by
compelling them to walk up the church aisle covered with a white sheet,
and bearing a wax taper in their hand! With such associations derived
from his grandmother, only conceive how awfully queer poor, moral,
gentle, religious, upright Clerk William felt when he received the
mysterious "writ," issued against him by this mysterious court.
"Schollard," as he was, it was so strange a thing to look upon, that he
instantly sent for the parish schoolmaster, who, with spectacles on
nose, and frequent spelling and some mispelling, read aloud--to a house
full of consternated neighbours,--Clerk William turning pale as he heard
the beginning,--
"IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN!
"We, John Haggard, Doctor in Civil and Canon Law, Vicar-General in
spirituals of the Right Reverend Father in God, John, by Divine
Permission, Lord Bishop of Lincoln, and official Principal of the
Episcopal and Consistorial Court of Lincoln, lawfully
constituted,--to you William Middleton, of the parish of Stow, &c.
&c., touching and concerning your soul's health, and the lawful
correction and reformation of your manners and excesses, and more
especially for profaning the parish church of Stow aforesaid, by
brawling, quarrelling, or chiding in the said parish church during
the celebration of divine service therein by the Rev. ----,
perpetual curate, &c. &c., and also for contumacious behaviour, and
refusing to obey the lawful commands of the said----," &c. &c.
And then followed a pompous quotation from a statute of Edward the
Sixth, showing that a clergyman had power to prohibit a contumacious
member of his flock _ab ingressu ecclesiae_,--that is to say, from
entering the church: in other words, to excommunicate him! Furthermore,
an act of the 53d George III. was quoted, declaring that "Persons who
may be pronounced or declared to be excommunicate by any ecclesiastical
court _in definitive sentences_, or _in interlocutory decrees_, having
the force and effect of definitive sentences, as spiritual censures for
offences of ecclesiastical cognisance, shall incur imprisonment not
exceeding six months, as the court pronouncing or decreeing such person
excommunicate shall direct."
That was a sore shake for poor Clerk William! Excommunicated! Why, the
thought of such a fate to one who had been brought up in a veneration of
the church, whose father was a clerk, and thought himself as fully
consecrated as a bishop!--it was no joke to such a one to hear there
was a chance of his being excommunicated. Yet he would not "give it up!"
No, that he wouldn't: his father had said, "Nobody could turn the parish
clerk out of his office so long as he had morality on his side: his
office was his freehold:" so his father, Clerk Gervase, of pious memory,
had said; and he, Clerk William, would abide by it. So he took the desk
on the following Sunday, and kept up the war as usual. Yet he often
pondered on "definitive sentences" and "interlocutory decrees,"--when he
had learnt the words by heart,--wondering what kind of awful things they
were.
The effect of issuing this writ, however, so completely astounded the
parishioners that they thenceforth only whispered where they had
shouted, and were silent where they had whispered, in all matters
relating to the parson: true, whenever a paper for convening any
particular parochial meeting was attached to the church door, bearing
the usual signature of ---- ----, Incumbent Minister, some wag would be
sure to scratch out one of the words, so as to make it read
"Incumbrance" Minister, instead: but beyond that there was, now, no
further daring.
And, at last, the summons came, and no less than a score of witnesses
were taken to the Consistory in Lincoln Cathedral, to be sworn that they
would give evidence on the case. And week by week--week by week--the
prosing "examinations" were proceeded with, on a certain day of the
week, until _a thousand folios_ of "examination" were counted; and when
a parishioner asked how much he must pay for a copy of the depositions
for Clerk William, the reckoning was made by the "registrar" of the
court, at the usual sum per folio--and he was told it would merely be
such a trifle as _five-and-twenty pounds_! And then the calculations,
and the wonders, and wishes that were expressed, night by night, and day
by day, in every cottage at Stow,--nay, in all the villages round, and
the wagers that were laid in every village ale-house on a Saturday
night, what would be the cost of the whole trial, and how long Clerk
William would be imprisoned, and _where_ they would imprison him,--for
nobody was so slow of heart or understanding, as not to know beforehand
that the "Vicar-General in Spirituals" would give judgment _against_ the
poor "parish clerk," as a matter of course, whenever the trial should
come to an end.
And _did_ the trial ever come to an end? and _was_ Clerk William
Middleton, the son of Clerk Gervase, really excommunicated? "By no
manner of means, sir," as the pompous fellow says in the play: the grand
suit, after causing so tremendous a quassation, and all that, of a
considerable quarter of Lindsey, was--given up! Yes, it was: and more
than that, the true "parish clerk," Clerk William, was reinstated, fully
and entirely, in his rightful office. Ay to this day,--unless our
information misleads us,--he exercises the same without losing an inch
of his height, or a fragment of his independent spirit; for it is but a
few months bygone since he showed it. The grand Perpetual Curate,
according to his wont, took upon him to reprehend, at the very
grave-side, a Wesleyan, whose child, then being interred, had been
baptized by a Wesleyan preacher: Clerk William, right bluntly, told the
priest that the Wesleyan had a right to please himself! "Why, as for
you, you will say or do any thing," retorted the priest, "if they'll pay
you for it!"--"And would you be standing there in that gown, with that
book in your hand, unless _you_ were paid for it?" asked and answered
Clerk William. The grand Perpetual Curate bit his lip, and walked away!
Reader, we have been relating _facts_: perhaps, in adopting the style of
half-rhodomontade, we have not displayed very good taste; but the
narrative itself contains uncontradictable _facts_. And these did not
occur in a district disturbed by chartism, nor revolutionised by
radicalism, or anti-corn-law agitation; but in the old-fashioned, rural
centre of Lindsey: it is even there where the "spiritual court" shrinks
from employing the foolery of its own worn-out terrors; and where the
peasant adventures to beard the priest! Are not these "Signs of the
Times?"
DAME DEBORAH THRUMPKINSON,
AND
HER ORPHAN APPRENTICE, JOE.
Joe's story opens in that unclassical region, the Isle of Axholme,--a
section of Lincolnshire divided from the main body of the county by the
broad and far extending stream of the Trent. Insular situations are
invariably held to give some peculiarity of manners to their
inhabitants; and the Axholmians, or "Men of the Isle," have always been
reckoned to be an odd sort of, plain kind of people, by the other
inhabitants of Lindsey, the great northern division of the shire, of
which the Isle is accounted a part. This was more emphatically true of
them seventy years ago; and the face of the country was, at that time,
much in keeping with the unpolished character of the Axholmian people. A
journey through the Isle, in the autumnal and winter months especially,
would then have been studiously avoided by a traveller acquainted with
its excessively bad roads, rendered insufferably disagreeable by the
stench of the sodden "line" or flax, with which the broad ditches on
each side of the rural ways were filled. Low, thatched abodes, built of
"stud and mud,"--or wood and clay, were the prevailing description of
human dwellings scattered over the land; and swine were the animals most
commonly kept and fattened by the farmers and peasantry.
The two considerable villages of Owston and Crowle (pronounced _Crool_
by the euphonious Axholmians), together with the town of Epworth, the
modern capital of the Isle, were the only localities in Axholme to which
improvements, common in the rest of the shire, had then penetrated.
Haxey, the ancient capital of the district, meanwhile, remained
unvisited by the spirit of modern change, and drew its only distinction
from the historic associations connected with its decay. In remote
times, and under its Saxon appellation of "Axel," the town had been
fortified with a castle of the Mowbrays, to a chief of which chivalrous
race the greater part of "the Isle of Axelholm" was given as a manor, by
the Norman conqueror. And, amid the straggling and irregular assemblage
of buildings which now form the village, an intelligent visitor would
discover indubitable evidence of the former importance of the place. Its
large church, displaying the rich architecture prevalent during the wars
of the Roses, and supporting a lofty tower resonant at stated hours with
chimes of loud and pleasing music, looks from an eminence, almost in
cathedral state, over the greater extent of the Isle; and a few ample
and curiously built houses of some centuries old,--affording a striking
contrast to the paltry erections of the day,--denote the ancient
denizens of Haxey to have been the principal possessors of comparative
wealth, and, it may be added, of the soil in the neighbourhood.
On a fine summer's evening, at the door of one of these
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/39105