BEING ROMAN AT ROME.
Morgan need not have exercised her old office of calling Henry the next
morning. Her knock was heard at the accustomed hour; but Henry had been
wakened long before by horns, bells, cries, and rumbling, which seemed
to proceed from “above, about, and underneath,” and which made him
wonder how, in his childhood, he could find it as difficult to open his
eyes when told that the day was come, as to be persuaded to go to bed
when he had laid hold of a new book. A certain childish question of
Henry’s was held in mirthful remembrance by his family, and brought up
by his father every time that he showed his face at home,—“Why must one
go to bed? One no sooner goes to bed than one has to get up again.” Such
a happy oblivion of the many intervening hours was no longer found
practicable in the little apartment that shook with every passing
waggon; and how it could ever have been attained was at least as great a
mystery now as the perpetual motion. “Well, Harry,” said his father,
“what a pity you should have troubled yourself to pull off your clothes,
as you had to put them on again directly! Hey? But I thought you were of
the same mind last night, by the time you sat up. What kept you up so
late?”
“We had a great deal to say, father, after such a long absence. Jane had
but little time for writing letters, you know, while I was away.”
“I think you might have your talk by daylight. What are you going to do
with yourself to-day?”
There was no lack of something to do this first day. First, there was
seeing the shop,—being shown the new contrivance for obtaining half a
foot more room behind the counter, and the better plan for securing the
till, and the evidence of Michael’s pretty taste in the shape of a
yellow lamb of spun butter, with two currants for eyes, and a fine curly
fleece, which might keep its beauty a whole fortnight longer, if this
seasonable March weather should last. Opposite to the lamb was a tower
of Babel, of cheese, which had been crumbling for some time. But, though
the tower was infested with mice, it was the general opinion that it
would outlast the lamb. Then, while Jane settled herself, aproned,
shawled, and mittened, at her desk, there was a long story to be told,—a
story really interesting to Henry,—of the perplexities which had been
introduced into the trade by the fluctuations of the duties on various
articles. When tobacco was sometimes to pay a tax of 350 per cent., and
then no more than 200, and then, on a sudden, 1200, how should custom be
regular, and the trader know what to expect? A man must be as wise as a
Scripture prophet to know what stock to lay in when there was no
depending on custom. People would use twice as much tobacco one year as
another; and a third more sugar; and a fourth more tea; or would drop
one article after another in a way that no mortal could foretell.
Why not foretell? Was it not certain that when a tax on an article of
consumption was increased, the consumption fell off in a definite
proportion?
Quite certain; but then came in another sort of disturbance. When duties
rose very high, smuggling was the next thing; and there was no
calculating how smuggling might keep up the demand.
“Nor what new taxes it may lead to,” observed Henry. “If the consumption
of taxed articles falls off, the revenue suffers; and if, at the same
time, smuggling increases, new expenses are incurred for guarding the
coast. The people must pay both for the one and the other; and so, the
next thing is to lay on new taxes.”
“Ah!” groaned the old man. “They begin to talk of an income tax.”
Whatever Henry’s opinion of an income tax might be, he was aware that
few inflictions could be so dreadful to his father. Mr. Farrer,
possessed, it was supposed, of nearly half a million, managed to pay
less in taxes than most of his neighbours who happened to have eight
hundred a year, and spent it. Mr. Farrer eschewed luxuries, except a few
of the most unexpensive; he was sparing of comforts, and got off paying
more to the state than any other man who must have common food,
clothing, and house-room. His contributions must be prodigiously
increased if he was to be made to pay in proportion to his income. It
was a subject on which none of his family dared to speak, even on this
morrow of a piece of good fortune. The most moderate income tax would
sweep away more than the addition gained by the dropping of the two
lives in the joint annuity.
“They had better mend their old ways than try new,” said Michael. “If
they knew how, they might get more by every tax than it has yielded yet.
Peek says so. He says there is not a taxed article eaten or drunk, or
used, that would not yield more if the tax was lowered; and Peek ought
to know.”
“And you ought to know, Mike, that you are the last man that should wish
for such a change,” said his father, with a sly wink. Michael’s laugh
made his brother uneasy; he scarcely knew why.
“It is a great wrong, I think,” said Henry, “to keep the poorer classes
from the use of comforts and luxuries that they might have, if the state
managed its plan of taxation better.”
“Well, and so it is, Henry; and I often say so when I see a poor man
come for his tobacco, and grumble at the price, and threaten it shall be
the last time; and a poor woman cheapen her ounce of tea, and taste the
butter and smell at the cheese, and go away without buying any of them.
As long as good management would serve to satisfy such poor creatures as
these, without bringing an income tax upon their betters, it is a shame
there is no such management.”
“How much more would be consumed in your family, sir, if taxes on
commodities were lowered as you would have them?”
“O, as for us, we have every thing we want, as far as I know. There
might be little or no difference in our own family; but I know there
would be among our customers. Shopkeepers would wonder where all the
crowd of buyers came from.”
“And the smugglers might turn tax-gatherers, hey, father?”
“And there need be no more talk of an income tax,” said the old man;
“let the French brazen their matters out as they will.”
Henry was not very sure of this, in his own mind. It seemed to him that
the more support the state derived from taxes on commodities, the more
clearly the people would see the injustice of levying the taxes upon
those who were compelled to spend their whole income in the purchase of
commodities, while the rich, who chose to live very frugally and hoard,
might escape the payment of their due share. A customer now came in; and
then the cheese-cellar had to be visited; and then Mr. Farrer wanted
Henry to go with him to two or three neighbours’ houses, where there was
a due admiration of the blessings of a learned education on the one
side, and on the other a prodigious self-complacency about the
liberality, and the generosity, and the wisdom, and the glory of making
one member of the family a great man, who should do honour to his kith
and kin.
The evening was spent at Mrs. Peek’s. Mrs. Peek was able to receive her
family at home, though she had not yet left the house since her
confinement. She was proud of having a brother who had been at college,
though no one grumbled more at the expense than she did by her own
fireside. She was unwilling to lose this opportunity of showing him off
to some neighbours; and when the party from Budge Row entered Peek’s
house, at five o’clock, they perceived several shawls and calashes on
the window-seat in the passage which was called the hall. One of Mr.
Farrer’s candles was flaring in this passage, and two in the
waiting-room, as the children’s play-place was called, and six in the
parlour, it being Mrs. Peek’s wish to have every thing smart for the
reception of her genteel brother. The ample sofa and two arm-chairs were
ranged on one side, and four chairs on the other. When the door was
thrown open, the party in the ante-room saw two young ladies take flight
from the sofa across the room; and by the time that all had entered the
parlour, five maidens were wedged in a close rank, in front of the three
chairs which were next Mrs. Peek’s.
They stood looking shy during the introduction, and were made more
awkward still by the old gentleman insisting, as he settled himself by
the fire, that one of those young ladies should come and sit on the sofa
beside him. None of them stirred.
“Miss Mills, suppose you take a seat on the sofa,” observed Mrs. Peek.
“No, thank you, ma’am,” said Miss Mills.
“Miss Anne Mills, won’t you take a seat on the sofa?”
“No, ma’am, thank you.”
“Then, Miss Baker, or Miss Grace——. My fourth girl, Grace, is called
after that young lady, Henry;—(Grace Baker is a great favourite of
ours). Grace, my dear, you will sit on the sofa, I am sure. What! none
of you!” (seeing the five edge themselves down on the three chairs.)
“Dear me! and there’s so much room on the other side! I believe I must
go to the sofa, and then Henry will take my seat.”
Miss Mills looked disposed to fly back again to the sofa when Henry took
his seat beside her, as directed. She twisted the tips of her gloves,
looked down, said “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir,” to all he observed, and
soon found she must go and ask Mrs. Peek after the dear little baby. At
this unexpected movement, two out of the remaining four halfstarted from
their chair, but settled themselves again with a muttered, “Now, how——!”
and then the next began to twist her gloves and look down, leaving,
however, full a third of a chair between herself and the scholar.
Nothing could be done till Mr. Peek came in, further than to tell Henry
which of the young ladies could play and which could draw. Henry could
only hope to hear them play, and to see their drawings; upon which Mrs.
Peek was sorry that her piano was put away in a room up stairs till her
girls should be qualified to use it; but she rang for a servant, who was
desired to tell master Harry to step across for Miss Mills’ sketch-book,
and Master Michael to run to Mr. Baker’s for Miss Grace Baker’s
portfolio.
“The blue portfolio, ma’am,” Miss Baker leaned forward to say on her
sister’s behalf.
“O! the blue portfolio, tell Master Michael.”
Mr. Peek came in, at length, rubbing his hands, and apologizing for
having kept the ladies waiting for their tea; but it was the privilege
of such a business as his to take, in some measure, his own times and
seasons for doing things; and this afternoon he had been paying one of
his official visits where he was least expected.
When Jane had stationed herself at the tea-table, with a Miss Mills to
aid her, and Peek had ordered one little table to be brought for himself
and another for his father-in-law, he addressed his conversation chiefly
to the latter, observing that the young scholar’s part was to entertain
the young ladies.
“You know the Browns,—the way they behaved to my wife and me about our
nursemaid that they tempted away?” said Peek to Mr. Farrer.
“O yes; I hope you have served them out.”
“That I have, pretty well! They should have taken care what they were
about in offending me. I can always make out what are their busy days,
and then I pop in, and there is no end of the stock-taking I make them
go through. What with measuring the canisters, and weighing, and
peeping, and prying, I keep them at it a pretty time; and that is what I
have been about this afternoon.”
“Can’t you catch them with a pound of smuggled stuff?”
“Not an ounce. They know I would if I could; and that makes them take
care and look sharp. What did you think of the last rummer of toddy you
got here?”
“Capital! Had Brown anything to do with that?”
“Not he; but you shall have another to-night, since you liked the last
so much; and Mr. Henry too, if he likes. But I suppose he will be too
busy playing commerce with the ladies? That fine spirit was one of the
good things that one gets by being gentle in one’s vocation, as I tell
Patience when she is cross; and then I hold back some nice present that
I was thinking of giving her.”
“Aye, aye. A little convenient blindness, I suppose, you find your
account in sometimes; and who finds it out, among all the multitude of
articles that pay taxes? Yes, yes, that is one of the understood things
in the business; as our men of your tribe give us to understand.”
“I hope you find them accommodating, sir?”
“Yes; now we know how to manage them. And they are wonderfully kind to
Mike, considering all things.”
Mike assented, with one of his loud laughs.
Henry was listening to all this not the less for his civility in handing
tea, and amusing his next neighbour. By taking in all that passed now
and when he was seated at cards, after Mrs. Peek had made her excuses
and withdrawn, he learned more than he had known before of the
facilities afforded to the collector of taxes on commodities, of
oppressing the humble, and teasing the proud, and sheltering the shabby,
and aiding the fraudulent. He felt that he would rather be a
street-sweep than such an exciseman as Peek. At best, the office was a
most hateful one.
He grew less and less able to give good counsel at cards, and to admire
figures and landscapes, the louder grew Michael’s mirth, and the more
humorous Peek’s stories of how he treated his victims, the small
tradesmen. He would not touch the spirit and water so strongly
recommended, but bore rallying on preferring the more lady-like
refreshment of negus and sweet cake. He roused himself to do what was
proper in shawling Miss Grace Baker; but it was feared by his family
that the young ladies would not be able to give so enthusiastic an
account of him at home as might have been, if he had done himself
justice. It was a great pity!
“What a clever fellow Peek is; he is made for his business! Eh, Harry?”
observed Mr. Farrer, as they turned homewards, after having deposited
the Misses Mills.
“He is made for his business as you say, father. What a cold night it
is!”
“Well; I hoped you caught a bit of what Peek was saying; I thought it
would entertain you. We’ll have him some evening soon; and then I’ll
make him tell some stories as good as any you heard to-night, only not
so new. Do you hear, Jenny; mind you fix Peek and Patience for the first
afternoon they can name next week, and we will have them all to
ourselves. Come, Mike, ring again. It is gone ten. I warrant Morgan and
Sam are nodding at one another on each side the fire. Give it them
well.”
Day after day was filled up in somewhat a similar manner, nothing being
said of the purpose for which Henry was brought home, or of his future
destination. He soon became more reconciled than at first to his strange
position, not only from becoming familiarized with it, but because
London was astir with rumours of strange events abroad, and with
speculations on what curious chapters in the history of nations were
about to be presented for men’s reading. Mr. Farrer made no objection to
his son’s disappearance during the greater part of the day, as he was
sure of bringing home all the news at the end of it. Sometimes he fell
in with a procession going to plant the tree of liberty on Kennington
Common; sometimes he had interesting tales to tell of the misfortunes of
the emigrants, whom his father ceased for the time to compare to locusts
devouring the fruits of the land, or to the wasps that swarmed among his
sugars in summer. Henry could bring the latest tidings of the progress
of the riots in the country on account of the high price of food, and of
certain trials for sedition in which his heart seemed to be deeply
engaged, though he let his father rail on at the traitors who encouraged
the people to think that governments could do wrong. Henry saw all the
reviews, and heard of all the embarkations of soldiers, and could tell
how many new clerks were taken on at the Bank, and what a demand there
was for servants at the government offices, and what spirits every body
was in at Portsmouth and Birmingham, while no one knew what was to be
done with the poor wretches who tried an ineffectual riot in the
manufacturing districts from time to time. All this passed with Mr.
Farrer for a very natural love of news, and was approved in as far as it
enabled him to say to his superior customers, “My son who was at the
University hears this,” or says that, or knows the other. But Jane saw
that Henry the student was not interested in these vast movements of
humanity as a mere amusement to pass the time. Not in pursuit of mere
amusement was he often without food from breakfast-time till he returned
by lamp-light. Not in pursuit of mere amusement was he sometimes content
to be wet through twice in a day; sometimes feverish with excitement,
and sometimes so silent that she left him unquestioned to the deep
emotions that were stirring within. She occasionally wondered whether he
had any thoughts of entering the army. If he was really anxious to be
doing something, this seemed a ready means; yet she had some suspicion
that his patriotism was not of a kind to show itself in that way; and
that if he fought at all, it would not be to avenge the late French
King. However it might be, Jane felt her affection for this brother grow
with her awe of his mysterious powers and tastes. She listened for his
step when he was absent; intimated her dissent from any passing censure
upon him uttered by his father; saw that dry shoes were always ready for
him when he came in; received gratefully all that he had to tell her,
and asked no questions. She struggled with all the might that was to
prove at last too feeble a barrier to a devastating passion, against the
daily thoughts of food eaten and clothes worn by one who was earning
nothing; satisfied herself that though Henry was no longer enjoying the
advantages of college, he was living more cheaply than he could do
there; and trusted, on the whole, that this way of life might continue
some time.
One morning, Michael’s cup of tea having stood till it was cold, the
discovery was made that Michael was not at home. Mr. Farrer dropped,
with apparent carelessness, the news that he would not return for two or
three days; and when Jane had helped herself to the cold tea, in order
that it might not be wasted, nobody seemed to think more of the matter.
Half an hour after breakfast, before Henry had closed a certain pocket
volume in Greek which he had been observed to read in at all odd times,
Mr. Farrer put his head in at the parlour-door, with
“I say, Harry, we are very busy in the shop to-day, and Mike away.”
“Indeed, sir! Shall I go out and find somebody to help you?”
“Very pretty! And you sitting here with nothing to do! Come yourself; I
will help you to find Mike’s apron.”
Henry first laughed, and then, after an instant’s hesitation, pocketed
his book, and followed his father. While he was somewhat awkwardly tying
on his apron, his sister saw him through the tiny window which gave her,
in her retirement a view of the shop; and she called out to know what he
was doing.
“I am going to try to cut bacon and weigh butter as well as Michael.”
“Is it your own fancy?”
“My father put it into my head; but it is my own will to do it till
Michael comes back.”
There was no more to be said; but Jane reddened all over; and when she
saw the first customer come in, and Mr. Farrer stand over Henry to see
him guess at the weight of soap required, Jane lost all power of casting
up the column of figures over which her pen was suspended.
It was told in many a neighbour’s house that day that there was a new
shopman at Farrer’s, who was dead-slow at tying up parcels, and hacked
sadly at the cheese, as if he did not know an ounce from a pound at
sight. Henry was not aware how far he was from being worthy to rival
Michael. It requires some practice to achieve the peculiar twirl and
jerk with which an adroit shopman ties up and delivers a parcel to a
fair dealer; and Henry knew nothing yet of the art of joking with the
maidens and coaxing the matrons among his customers.
When weary, sick, and inwardly troubled to a degree for which he could
scarcely account, he came in from seeing that the shutters were properly
closed, and from purifying himself from the defilements of the counter,
his father hailed him with,
“Well done, Harry! You will do very well soon, and make up for the
cheese you have crumbled to-day. You will manage not to spill so much
sugar to-morrow, perhaps. And by the end of the year, we shall see what
sort of a younger partner’s share we can afford you.”
“You do not mean that I am to spend a whole year as I have spent to-day,
father?”
“Indeed but I do, though; and as many more years as you have to live. My
father made his fortune in this same business, and I mean my sons to do
the same.”
Henry answered by handing his father the candle to light his pipe.
“I say, Harry,” the old man resumed, after a long silence, “you go into
the shop to-morrow morning.”
“Certainly; till Michael comes back; if, as you said this morning, he
returns before the end of the week.”
“And after he comes back. He will put you in the way better than I can,
you’ll find.”
“After he comes back, I hope to find means of using the education you
have given me, father. It would be all lost if I were to be a grocer.”
Mr. Farrer could see nothing but loss in following any other occupation,
and ingratitude in hesitating to accept a provision which would enable
Henry to become, like his brother and sisters, a public creditor on very
advantageous terms. He let his son more into the secret of his wealth
than he had ever done before; and when he found this confidence of no
avail to his purpose, was vexed at his communicativeness, grew very
angry, threw down his pipe, and ordered the family to bed.
The next day, and the next, all went on so smoothly in the shop that
each party hoped the other had relented. On the Friday evening, Michael
returned, in high spirits, his talk savouring of the sea as his clothes
did of tobacco. On Saturday morning, Henry was missing in his turn.
Morgan appeared with red eyes to say that he had gone out with his blue
bag very early, and had left the letter she now delivered to her master.
This letter was read, crumpled up and thrown under the grate in silence.
Jane afterwards took possession of it; and found that Henry valued his
education too highly not to make the best use he could of it; that he
was quite of his father’s opinion that it was a sin to remain at home in
idleness; that he would therefore endeavour to obtain immediate
employment and independence; that he would come and see his father as
soon as he had anything to communicate, and should be always on the
watch to repay by any duty and attention in his power the obligation he
was under for the advantages he had enjoyed.
Morgan had no intelligence to give of where Henry was gone. He had left
his love for his sister, and an assurance that he would see her soon and
often. Morgan trusted she might take his word for his not feeling
himself “put upon” or ill-regarded in the family. He had assured her
that his feelings for them were as kind as ever, as he hoped to show, if
occasion should arise. Might she believe this?
Jane trusted that she might;—would not let his chamber be disarranged
just at present; and went to her place of business to start at every
black coat that passed the window.