people. He had it all his own way, for the humility of the gypsies was
edifying. Woodruffe fancied he saw some finger-talk passing, the while,
though the gypsies never looked at each other, or raised their eyes from
the ground. Woodruffe had to remind the Director that the whistle of the
next train would soon be heard; and this brought the lecture to an
abrupt conclusion. On his finishing off with, “I expect, therefore, that
you will remember my advice, and never show your face here again, and
that you will take to a proper course of life in future, and bring up
your son to honest industry;” the woman, with a countenance of grief,
seized one hand and covered it with kisses, and the husband took the
other hand and pressed it to his breast.
“We must make haste,” observed Mr. Nelson, as he led the way quickly
back; “but I think I have made some impression upon them. You see now
the right way to treat these people. I don’t think you will see them
here again.”
“I don’t think we shall.”
As he reached the steps the whistle was heard, and Mr. Nelson could only
wave his hand to Woodruffe, rush up the embankment, and throw himself
panting into a carriage. Only just in time!
By an evening train he re-appeared. When thirty miles off, he had wanted
his purse, and it was gone. It had no doubt paid for the gypsies’ final
gratitude.
Of course, a sufficient force was immediately sent to the alder clump;
but there was nothing there but some charred sticks, and some clean pork
bones, this time, instead of feathers of fowls, and a cabbage leaf or
two. The boy had had his whipping at noon, after a conference with his
little brother at the keyhole, which had caused him to withdraw the
bolt, and offer no resistance. Considering his cries and groans, he had
run off with surprising agility, and was now, no doubt, far away.
VIII.
The gypsies came no more. The fogs came no more. The fever came no more,
at least, in such a form as to threaten the general safety. Where it
still lingered, it was about those only who deserved it,--in any small
farm-house, where the dung-yard was too near the house; and in some
cottage where the slatternly inmates did not mind a green puddle or
choked ditch within reach of their noses. More dwellings arose, as the
fertility of the land increased, and invited a higher kind of tillage;
and among the prettiest of them was one which stood in the corner,--the
most sunny corner,--of Woodruffe’s paddock. Harry Hardiman and his wife
and child lived there, and the cottage was Woodruffe’s property.
Yet Woodruffe’s rent had been raised, and pretty rapidly. He was now
paying eight pounds per acre for his garden-ground, and half that for
what was out of the limits of the garden. He did not complain of it; for
he was making money fast. His skill and industry deserved this; but
skill and industry could not have availed without opportunity. His
ground once allowed to show what it was worth, he treated it well; and
it answered well to the treatment. By the railway he obtained what
manure he wanted from the town; and he sent it back by the railway to
town in the form of crisp celery and salads, wholesome potatoes and
greens, luscious strawberries, and sweet and early peas. He knew that a
Surrey gardener had made his ground yield a profit of two hundred and
twenty pounds per acre. He thought that, with his inferior market, he
should do well to make his yield one hundred and fifty pounds per acre;
and this, by close perseverance, he attained. He could have done it more
easily if he had enjoyed good health; but he never enjoyed good health
again. His rheumatism had fixed itself too firmly to be entirely
removed; and for many days in the year, he was compelled to remain
within doors, or to saunter about in the sun, seeing his boys and Harry
at work, but unable to help them.
From the time that Allan’s work became worth wages in addition to his
subsistence, his father let him rent half a rood of the garden-ground
for three years, saying--
“I limit it to three years, my boy, because that term is long enough for
you to show what you can do. After three years, I shall not be able to
spare the ground at any rent. If you fail, you have no business to rent
ground. If you succeed, you will have money in your pocket wherewith to
hire land elsewhere. Now you have to show us what you can do.”
“Yes, father,” was Allan’s short but sufficient reply.
It was observed by the family that, from this time forward, Allan’s eye
was on every plot of ground in the neighborhood which could, by
possibility, ever be offered for hire; yet did his attention never
wander from that which was already under his hand. And that which was so
great an object to him became a sort of pursuit to the whole family.
Moss guarded Allan’s frames, and made more and more prodigious
scarecrows. Their father gave his very best advice. Becky, who was no
longer allowed, as a regular thing, to work in the garden, found many a
spare half-hour for hoeing and weeding, and trimming and tying up, in
Allan’s beds; and Abby found, as she sat in her little school, that she
could make nets for his fruit trees. It was thus no wonder that, when a
certain July day in the second year arrived, the whole household was in
a state of excitement, because it was a sort of crisis in Allan’s
affairs.
Though breakfast was early that morning, Becky and Allan and Moss were
spruce in their best clothes. A hamper stood at the door, and Allan was
packing in another, which had no lid, two or three flower-pots, which
presented a glorious show of blossom. Abby was putting a new ribbon on
her sister’s straw bonnet; and Harry was in waiting to carry up the
hampers to the station. It was the day of the Horticultural Show at the
town. Woodruffe had been too unwell to think of going till this morning;
but now the sight of the preparations, and the prospect of a warm day,
inspired him, and he thought he would go. At last he went, and they were
gone. Abby never went up to the station; nobody ever asked her to go
there, not even her own child, who perhaps had not thought of the
possibility of it. But when the train was starting, she stood at the
upper window with her child, and held him so that he might lean out, and
see the last carriage disappear as it swept round the curve. After that
the day seemed long, though Harry came up at the dinner-hour to say what
he thought of the great gooseberry in particular, and of everything else
that Allan had carried with him. It was holiday time, and there was no
school to fill up the day. Before the evening, the child became
restless, and Abby fell into low spirits, as she was apt to do when left
long alone; so that Harry stopped suddenly at the door when he was
rushing in to announce that the train was within sight.
“Shall I take the child, Miss?” said Harry. (He always called her
“Miss.”) “I will carry him---- But, sure, here they come! Here comes
Moss,--ready to roll down the steps! My opinion is that there’s a
prize.”
Moss was called back by a voice which everybody obeyed. Allan should
himself tell his sister the fortune of the day, their father said.
There were two prizes, one of which was for the wonderful plate of
gooseberries; and at this news Harry nodded, and declared himself
anything but surprised. If that gooseberry had not carried the day,
there would have been partiality in the judges, that was all; and nobody
could suppose such a thing as that. Yet Harry could have told, if put
upon his honor, that he was rather disappointed that everything that
Allan carried had not gained a prize. When he mentioned one or two, his
master told him he was unreasonable; and he supposed he was.
Allan laid down upon the table, for his sister’s full assurance, his
sovereign, and his half-sovereign, and his tickets. She turned away
rather abruptly, and seemed to be looking whether the kettle was near
boiling for tea. Her father went up to her; and on his first whispered
words, the sob broke forth which made all look round.
“I was thinking of one, too, my dear, that I wish was here at this
moment. I can feel for you, my dear.”
“But you don’t know--you don’t know--you never knew----.” She could not
go on.
“What don’t I know, my dear?”
“That he constantly blamed himself for saying anything to bring you
here. He said you had never prospered from the hour you came, and
now----”
And now Woodruffe could not speak, as the past came fresh upon him. In a
few moments, however, he rallied, saying,
“But we must consider Allan. He must not think that his success makes us
sad.”
Allan declared that it was not about gaining the prizes that he was
chiefly glad. It was because it was now proved what a fair field he had
before him. There was nothing that might not be done with such a soil as
they had to deal with now.
Harry was quite of this opinion. There were more and more people set to
work upon the soil all about them; and the more it was worked the more
it yielded. He never saw a place of so much promise. And if it had a
bad name in regard to healthiness, he was sure that was unfair,--or no
longer fair. He and his were full of health and happiness, as they hoped
to see everybody else in time; and, for his part, if he had all England
before him, or the whole world, to choose a place to live in, he would
choose the very place he was in, and the very cottage, and the very
ground to work on that had produced such a gooseberry and such
strawberries as he had seen that day.
VII.
The Water-Drops.
A FAIRY TALE.
I.
THE SUITORS OF CIRRHA, AND THE YOUNG LADY; WITH A REFERENCE TO HER PAPA.
Far in the west there is a land mountainous, and bright of hue, wherein
the rivers run with liquid light; the soil is all of yellow gold; the
grass and foliage are of resplendent crimson; where the atmosphere is
partly of a soft green tint, and partly azure. Sometimes on summer
evenings we see this land, and then, because our ignorance must refer
all things that we see, to something that we know, we say it is a mass
of clouds made beautiful by sunset colors. We account for it by
principles of Meteorology. The fact has been omitted from the works of
Kaemtz or Daniell; but, notwithstanding this neglect, it is well known
in many nurseries, that the bright land we speak of, is a world
inhabited by fairies. Few among fairies take more interest in man’s
affairs than the good Cloud Country People; this truth is established by
the story I am now about to tell.
Not long ago there were great revels held one evening in the palace of
King Cumulus, the monarch of the western country. Cirrha, the daughter
of the king, was to elect her future husband from a multitude of
suitors. Cirrha was a maiden delicate and pure, with a skin white as
unfallen snow; but colder than the snow her heart had seemed to all who
sought for her affections. When Cirrha floated gracefully and slowly
through her father’s hall, many a little cloud would start up presently
to tread where she had trodden. The winds also pursued her; and even men
looked up admiringly whenever she stepped forth into their sky. To be
sure they called her Mackerel and Cat’s Tail, just as they call her
father Ball of Cotton; for the race of man is a coarse race, and calling
bad names appears to be a great part of its business here below.
Before the revels were concluded, the King ordered a quiet little wind
to run among the guests, and bid them all come close to him and to his
daughter. Then he spoke to them as follows:--
“Worthy friends! there are among you many suitors to my daughter Cirrha,
who is pledged this evening to choose a husband. She bids me tell you
that she loves you all; but since it is desirable that this our royal
house be strengthened by a fit alliance with some foreign power, she has
resolved to take as husband one of those guests who have come hither
from the principality of Nimbus.” Now, Nimbus is that country, not
seldom visible from some parts of our earth, which we have called the
Rain-Cloud. “The subjects of the Prince of Nimbus,” Cumulus continued,
“are a dark race, it is true, but they are famed for their beneficence.”
Two winds, at this point, raised between themselves a great disturbance,
so that there arose a universal cry that somebody should turn them out.
With much trouble they were driven out from the assembly; thereupon,
quite mad with jealousy and disappointment, they went howling off to
sea, where they played pool-billiards with a fleet of ships, and so
forgot their sorrow.
King Cumulus resumed his speech, and said that he was addressing
himself, now, especially to those of his good friends who came from
Nimbus. “To-night, let them retire to rest, and early the next morning
let each of them go down to Earth; whichever of them should be found on
their return to have been engaged below in the most useful service to
the race of man, that son of Nimbus should be Cirrha’s husband.”
Cumulus, having said this, put a white nightcap on his head, which was
the signal for a general retirement. The golden ground of his dominions
was covered for the night, as well as the crimson trees, with cotton. So
the whole kingdom was put properly to bed. Late in the night the moon
got up, and threw over King Cumulus a silver counterpane.
II.
THE ADVENTURES OF NEBULUS AND NUBIS.
The suitors of the Princess Cirrha, who returned to Nimbus, were a-foot
quite early the next morning, and petitioned their good-natured Prince
to waft them over London. They had agreed among themselves, that by
descending there, where men were densely congregated, they should have a
greater chance of doing service to the human race. Therefore the
Rain-Cloud floated over the great City of the World, and, as it passed
at sundry points, the suitors came down upon rain-drops to perform their
destined labor. Where each might happen to alight depended almost wholly
upon accident; so that their adventures were but little better than a
lottery for Cirrha’s hand. One, who had been the most magniloquent among
them all, fell with his pride upon the patched umbrella of an early
breakfast woman, and from thence was shaken off into a puddle. He was
splashed up presently, mingled with soil, upon the corduroys of a
laborer, who stopped for breakfast on his way to work. From thence,
evaporating, he returned crest-fallen to the Land of Clouds.
Among the suitors there were two kind-hearted fairies, Nebulus and
Nubis, closely bound by friendship to each other. While they were in
conversation, Nebulus, who suddenly observed that they were passing over
some unhappy region, dropped, with a hope that he might bless it. Nubis
passed on, and presently alighted on the surface of the Thames.
The district which had wounded the kind heart of Nebulus was in a part
of Bermondsey, called Jacob’s Island. The fairy fell into a ditch; out
of this, however, he was taken by a woman, who carried him to her own
home, among other ditch-water, within a pail. Nebulus abandoned himself
to complete despair, for what claim could he now establish on the hand
of Cirrha? The miserable plight of the poor fairy we may gather from a
description given by a son of man of the sad place to which he had
descended. “In this Island may be seen, at any time of the day, women
dipping water, with pails attached by ropes to the backs of the houses,
from a foul fetid ditch, its banks coated with a compound of mud and
filth, and strewed with offal and carrion; the water to be used for
every purpose, culinary ones not excepted; although close to the place
whence it is drawn, filth and refuse of various kinds are plentifully
showered into it from the outhouses of the wooden houses overhanging its
current, or rather slow and sluggish stream; their posts or supporters
rotten, decayed, and in many instances broken, and the filth dropping
into the water, to be seen by any passer by. During the summer, crowds
of boys bathe in the putrid ditches, where they must come in contact
with abominations highly injurious.”[1]
So Nebulus was carried in a pail out of the ditch to a poor woman’s
home, and put into a battered saucepan with some other water. Thence,
after boiling, he was poured into an earthen tea-pot over some stuff of
wretched flavor, said to be tea. Now, thought the fairy, after all, I
may give pleasure at the breakfast of these wretched people. He pictured
to himself a scene of love as preface to a day of squalid toil, but he
experienced a second disappointment. The woman took him to another room
of which the atmosphere was noisome; there he saw that he was destined
for the comfort of a man and his two children, prostrate upon the floor
beneath a heap of rags. These three were sick; the woman swore at them,
and Nebulus shrunk down into the bottom of the tea-pot. Even the thirst
of fever could not tolerate too much of its contents, so Nebulus, after
a little time, was carried out and thrown into a heap of filth upon the
gutter.
Nubis, in the meantime, had commenced his day with hope of a more
fortunate career. On falling first into the Thames he had been much
annoyed by various pollutions, and been surprised to find, on kissing a
few neighbor drops, that their lips tasted inky. This was caused, they
said, by chalk pervading the whole river in the proportion of sixteen
grains to the gallon. That was what made their water inky to the taste
of those who were accustomed to much purer draughts. “It makes,” they
explained, “our river-water hard, according to man’s phrase; so hard as
to entail on multitudes who use it, some disease, with much expense and
trouble.”
“But all the mud and filth,” said Nubis, “surely no man drinks that?”
“No,” laughed the River-Drops, “not all of it. Much of the water used in
London passes through filters, and a filter suffers no mud or any
impurity to pass, except what is dissolved. The chalk is dissolved, and
there is filth and putrid gas dissolved.”
“That is a bad business,” said Nubis, who already felt his own drops
exercising that absorbent power for which water is so famous, and
incorporating in their substance matters that the Rain-Cloud never
knew.
Presently Nubis found himself entangled in a current, by which he was
sucked through a long pipe into a meeting of Water-Drops, all summoned
from the Thames. He himself passed through a filter, was received into a
reservoir, and, having asked the way of friendly neighbors, worked for
himself with small delay a passage through the mainpipe into London.
Bewildered by his long, dark journey underground, Nubia at length saw
light, and presently dashed forth out of a tap into a pitcher. He saw
that there was fixed under the tap a water-butt, but into this he did
not fall. A crowd of women holding pitchers, saucepans, pails, were
chattering and screaming over him, and the anxiety of all appeared to be
to catch the water as it ran out of the tap, before it came into the tub
or cistern. Nubis rejoiced that his good fortune brought him to a
district in which it might become his privilege to bless the poor, and
his eye sparkled as his mistress, with many rests upon the way, carried
her pitcher and a heavy pail upstairs. She placed both vessels, full of
water, underneath her bed, and then went out again for more, carrying a
basin and a fish-kettle. Nubis pitied the poor creature, heartily
wishing that he could have poured out of a tap into the room itself to
save the time and labor of his mistress.
The pitcher wherein the good fairy lurked, remained under the bed
through the remainder of that day, and during the next night, the room
being, for the whole time, closely tenanted. Long before morning, Nubis
felt that his own drops and all the water near him had lost their
delightful coolness, and had been busily absorbing smells and vapors
from the close apartment. In the morning, when the husband dipped a
teacup in the pitcher, Nubis readily ran into it, glad to escape from
his unwholesome prison. The man putting the water to his lips, found it
so warm and repulsive, that, in a pet, he flung it from the window, and
it fell into the water-butt beneath.
The water-butt was of the common sort, described thus by a member of the
human race:--“Generally speaking, the wood becomes decomposed and
covered with fungi; and indeed, I can best describe their condition by
terming them filthy.” This water-butt was placed under the same shed
with a neglected cesspool, from which the water--ever absorbing--had
absorbed pollution. It contained a kitten among other trifles. “How many
people have to drink out of this butt?” asked Nubis. “Really I cannot
tell you,” said a neighbor Drop. “Once I was in a butt in Bethnal Green,
twenty-one inches across, and a foot deep, which was to supply
forty-eight families.[2] People store for themselves, and when they know
how dirty these tubs are, they should not use them.” “But the labor of
dragging water home, the impossibility of taking home abundance, the
pollution of keeping it in dwelling-rooms and under beds.” “Oh, yes,”
said the other Drop; “all very true. Besides, our water is not of a sort
to keep. In this tub there is quite a microscopic vegetable garden, so I
heard a doctor say who yesterday came hither with a party to inspect
the district. One of them said he had a still used only for distilling
water, and that one day, by chance, the bottoms of a series of
distillations boiled to dryness. Thereupon, the dry mass became heated
to the decomposing point, and sent abroad a stench plain to the dullest
nose as the peculiar stench of decomposed organic matter. It infected,
he said, the produce of many distillations afterwards.”[3] “I tell you
what,” said Nubis, “water may come down into this town innocent enough,
but it’s no easy matter for it to remain good among so many causes of
corruption. Heigho!” Then he began to dream of Princess Cirrha and the
worthy Prince of Nimbus, until he was aroused by a great tumult. It was
an uproar caused by drunken men. “Why are those men so?” said Nubis to
his friend. “I don’t know,” said the Water-Drop, “but I saw many people
in that way last night, and I have seen them so at Bethnal Green.” A
woman pulled her husband by, with loud reproaches for his visits to the
beer-shop. “Why,” cried the man, with a great oath, “where would you
have me go for drink?” Then, with another oath, he kicked the water-butt
in passing--“You would not have me to go there!” All the bystanders
laughed approvingly, and Nubis bade adieu to his ambition for the hand
of Cirrha.
III.
NEPHELO GOES INTO POLITE SOCIETY, AND THEN INTO A DUNGEON--HIS
ESCAPE, RECAPTURE, AND HIS PERILOUS ASCENT INTO THE SKY, SURROUNDED
BY A BLAZE OF FIRE.
Nephelo was a light-hearted subject of the Prince of Nimbus. It is he
who often floats, when the whole cloud is dark, as a white vapor on the
surface. For love of Cirrha, he came down behind a team of rain-drops
and leaped into the cistern of a handsome house at the west end of
London.
Nephelo found the water in the cistern greatly vexed at riotous
behavior on the part of a large number of animalcules. He was told that
Water-Drops had been compelled to come into that place, after undergoing
many hardships, and had unavoidably brought with them germs of these
annoying creatures. Time and place favoring, nothing could hinder them
from coming into life; the cistern was their cradle, although many of
them were already anything but babes. Hereupon, Nephelo himself was
dashed at by an ugly little fellow like a dragon; but an uglier little
fellow, who might be a small Saint George, pounced at the dragon, and
the heart of the poor fairy was the scene of contest.
After awhile there was an arrival of fresh water from a pipe, the flow
of which stirred up the anger of some decomposing growth which lined the
sides and bottom of the cistern. So there was a good deal of confusion
caused, and it was some time before all parties settled down into their
proper places.