SEVEN XMAS EVES
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[Illustration:
(_Frontispiece_).
“God bless us all.” (_Page 246_)
]
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[Illustration:
_BEING THE ROMANCE OF
A SOCIAL EVOLUTION_
]
BY
_CLO. GRAVES_
_B. L. FARJEON_
_FLORENCE MARRYAT_
_G. MANVILLE FENN_
_Mrs. CAMPBELL PRAED_
_JUSTIN HUNTLY McCARTHY_
_CLEMENT SCOTT_
WITH 28 ILLUSTRATIONS BY DUDLEY HARDY
London
_HUTCHINSON & CO_.
34 PATERNOSTER ROW
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PRINTED AT NIMEGUEN (HOLLAND)
BY H. C. A. THIEME OF NIMEGUEN (HOLLAND)
AND
TALBOT HOUSE, ARUNDEL STREET
LONDON, W.C.
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CONTENTS
EVE THE FIRST.
PAGE
THE TESTIMONY OF MRS. MARY CHEEVERS 1
BY CLO GRAVES.
EVE THE SECOND.
THE OPINION OF DAVID DIX, NIGHT WATCHMAN 43
BY B. L. FARJEON.
EVE THE THIRD.
STRAY RECOLLECTIONS OF P.C. CHALLICE, 999 X 71
BY FLORENCE MARRYAT.
EVE THE FOURTH.
STATEMENT OF ARTHUR ROWAN, WARDER 113
BY G. MANVILLE FENN.
EVE THE FIFTH.
SOME EVIDENCE OF ALFRED CURRAN, REPORTER 151
BY MRS. CAMPBELL PRAED.
EVE THE SIXTH.
REMARKS OF CHARLES TURRILL, ESQ., M. P. 205
BY JUSTIN HUNTLY McCARTHY.
EVE THE SEVENTH.
OLD MEMORIES BY A LONELY CLERGYMAN 237
BY CLEMENT SCOTT.
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SEVEN CHRISTMAS EVES.
EVE THE FIRST.
THE TESTIMONY OF MRS. MARY CHEEVERS REGARDING THEM TWO.
_By CLO GRAVES._
NEVER having had much book-learning in my time, having entered into that
state of life into which it pleased them above to call me, more than
fifty years before the piano began to be taught in Board-schools, with
part singing on the cistern of the tonic sofas, as to hear Cheevers’s
sister Eliza’s daughter Grace’s eldest Emmeline sing “Come buy my
Coloured ’Errin’,” and recite “Not a Drum was ’Eard” and the “Fall of
Smackerib,” makes you feel oysters creepin’ up and down the small of
your back.
Being a plain person, accustomed to call a spade a spade, and so hope do
not give offence—I, the undersigned Mary Cheevers, washer-woman, being
called on by some as I have reason, the dear Lord knows, to love and
reverence, write my plain story in my own plain way, and with the best
of intentions, though a difficulty with the spelling—Eliza’s Grace’s
Emmeline not being always handy—and a cramped hand from soaking in the
tub for many, many labouring years.
Me and Cheevers was newly married at the time I am asked to go back to,
and in poor circumstances, but hopeful, Cheevers doing a small trade in
coke an’ cheap vegetables, and me taking in what washing I could get,
which was mostly that of poor folks; but poverty will sometimes ’ide a
empty cravin’ under a clean shirt, and all the more credit I says, as my
motto have been throughout my whole life— and I have seen some ups and
downs in my time—Keep Yourself Respectable.
[Illustration:
Mrs. Mary Cheevers.
]
I think my attention was just drawn to them through seeing ’em so much
together.
Me and Cheevers lived on the ground floor in Lemon’s-passage East, one
room—and glad to keep that over our heads—with the bed kept under the
counter in the daytime, and the sacks of coke and greens with bundles of
kindling and a package of sulphur matches forming what might be called
the stock-in-trade.
You might have expected to see soap, but there was little if any call
for such an article—except in my way of business—neither yellow nor
mottled, as when only used on Saturday nights one bar will last a
wonderful time, and who is to blame you if—your walk in life being a
grimy one—you gets into the habit six days out of the seven of going
grimy yourself?
Talking of grime, I never see two poor little souls more smothered in it
than Them Two.
Being boy and girl and always together, I took it for granted they was
brother and sister, but presently found no relations—and made the story
pitifuller in my eyes, which Cheevers jeered at as my woman’s way of
taking an interest in anything by the nature of sweethearting.
Bless their poor little hearts! Being not more than seven year old, when
first my attention was drew to ’em, what could they know of such a
thing? But their being both alone in the world, and both half-naked—for
such rags I never did see—and both more than half-starved, brought them
together; and, if grown people find it impossible to live without
something to love and be loved by, how much more two innocent children?
Seven year old, I should say, when first I began to notice them paddling
in the gutter or sitting on the warm, greasy step of the fried-fish
shop; and though a Jewess—and something unpleasant in a general
oiliness—with black ’air you might ’a seen your face in, and garnet
rings on yellow, dirty hands—more honour to her for the daily scraps she
give ’em.
It was she who told me their names—for Cheevers relished her fried
potatoes and eels, though they went against me—and Nick and Nan they
were then, and are now, though in such different circumstances, as you
might fancy a fairy tale, if not known to be true, and told by an old
woman as owes O! many, many prayers for ’em and blessin’s on ’em, more
than a grateful heart can ever call down on them two grateful hearts.
So I began by nodding as they passed my door, and them—with their dirty
little thumbs in their mouths at first—by and by nodded back; and me,
with no more an idea, that they lived by themselves, like two wild
animals up in that hole in the roof—which I would not insult a decent
attic by giving it the name—until Mr. Rumsey called for his rent on a
Saturday, the twenty-fourth of one bleak December, being Christmas Eve,
and him stopping to pass a remark or two in a friendly way—for me and
Cheevers paid our rent regular—gave me a turn, quite surprising by
telling me how the land lay.
“The boy was brought here at three year old or thereabouts,” says he,
“by a woman, who gave herself out as his mother, and was, I believe,
because of a certain likeness between them.
“She had a superior kind of manner, for all her poverty and
wretchedness. The attic up at the top of this house she rented of me, on
and off, for several years, and I will say kept up to the mark as far as
paying rent went.
“One day, about two years ago, she took her hook, leaving the boy Nick,
as the lodgers call him, and a few bits of things only good for
firewood.
“These I had took away, but, there being no lock on the door, the boy
still hung about the place, it being the only home he has ever known;
and a chimney having broke part of the roof in one windy night, and
me—in regard of these hard times—not caring to go to the expense of
having repairs done, and no lodgers unparticular enough—even in this
unparticular locality—to take the place as it stands—there he has
stopped to this hour. How he lives I could not tell you, ma’am, except
that poor people are more sinfully prodigal as regards charity, than the
rich ones as calls ’emselves philanthropists.”
Mr. Rumsey stopping to take breath, I throwed in a question respecting
the girl.
“She’s the child of Nobody, and she comes from No Man’s Land,” says Mr.
Rumsey, in his joking way. “The boy found her and brought her here, they
tell me, and shares whatever he gets with her. And that ain’t enough to
grow fat on,” he says, giving me a condescending wink.
“‘Nan’ she has come to be called, because ‘Nan’ was her way of saying
‘No’ when asked if she would like to go away from Nick and be took care
of. I have heard, Mrs. Cheevers, that the French are in the habit of
employing the same word as a negative.”
Mr. Rumsey was a very superior gentleman in his knowledge and
conversation.
“Which shows that nation to be a wasteful nation, Mrs. Cheevers, which
takes three letters to spell a word which we can spell with two.”
And he bid good afternoon and a Merry Christmas, and walked off rattling
the money in his pockets, as his way was, leaving me with the tears in
my eyes at the thought of my own baby that was coming, and its ever
being left, poor helpless innocent! as Them Two, and O how many others!
are left, in this cruel world, under the Eye of Heaven.
And that night, after Cheevers had had his supper, and a poor one at
best, though he was as cheerful over it, as if it had been venison with
turtle-sauce, I took the candle and said: “Jem, I am a-going on a voyage
of discovery.”
And Cheevers followed me up the stairs, till we got to the attic ladder,
as was that rotten and crumbly, that he went up first, trying every step
for fear of me a-falling, and presently nods back at me through the
square hole in the lath and plaster, with cobwebs in his hair like a
Bedlamite, and up I comes, him lighting me with the candle, which
dripped and flared in the draught that came through the holes in the
attic roof.
And there we see Them Two a-lying in each other’s arms.
[Illustration:
“And there we see Them Two a-lying in each others arms.”
]
It was a fine, frosty night, and the stars shone, through the big hole
in the roof above the fireplace, bigger and brighter than ever I
remember to have seen them. And now and then a stray flake of snow would
flutter down like a feather.
Where the roof sloped down to the rotten floor-boards was, being more
sheltered, the place where they had laid themselves down to rest in each
other’s arms.
Babes in the Wood couldn’t ’a been more sorrowful nor more innocent than
Them Two, and one could hear their teeth chattering with cold as they
slept.
I believe if the boy had had anything on, except the upper half of a
ragged pair of full-sized trousers, which his thin little bare arms come
through the pocket-slits and the bracebuttons was fastened together with
bits of old bootlace, an’ so kep’ up about his neck—he’d ’a took it off
to cover the gal with.
She lay with her face on his shoulder and her thin little hand in his,
quite peaceful, and when a drop of warm candle-grease waked her, by
falling on her face—Cheevers always held to it, it wasn’t a tear—she
clung to him, for protection like. And he was bold for her though afraid
for himself, it was plain to see.
“Are you a-goin’ to move us on?” he says, rubbing his big eyes with his
poor chilblained knuckles. “We ain’t done nuffin’, not her nor me, and I
can’t go away. I’ve got to wait for mother to come ’ome.”
Well, Cheevers and me did what we could. We took ’em down with us and
give ’em what we could spare, and hunted up an old tarpaulin, to cover
’em that night; we having but our one small room, and them, poor
neglected innocents! not being Christianly clean enough, to keep at
close quarters.
The next day, being Christmas Day, we went with a little less, that they
might have a little more, and that bit of roast meat was the first they
had ever put to their poor dear lips, it was plain to see, for they tore
at the mouthfuls like raging wolves.
Mr. Rumsey would ’a had something to say about the sinful prodigality of
the poor, if he’d ’a seen that sight, but, knowing his feelings, I never
breathed my lips to him then or afterwards, that me and Cheevers was
doing a friend’s turn for Them Two, and him, being dead many years ago,
probably looks upon such things with a different eye, either up or down.
And that night by our fire, while Cheevers was up in the attic, trying
to stop up the hole in the roof, with another old tarpaulin—which
afterwards led to Mr. Rumsey getting a lodger for the dreadful place,
and throwed Them Two altogether on our hands—I did my best to tell ’em,
in my own ignorant way, the story of the first Christmas Eve as ever
was, when the bright star stood over Bethlehem and the heralding angels
sang of peace on earth, an’ good will to all men.
That it was a pinch, I will not deny, me and Cheevers being but poor
folk, when, as I have said, Mr. Rumsey took the roof, or part of one,
from the heads of Them Two and let the attic—Cheevers’ tarpaulin
included—to a reduced gentlewoman, who sold matches at the corner of
Gracechurch-street.
But we had got ’em clean, meaning Nick and Nan, and a few poor decent
things upon ’em, and mention of the workhouse seemed cruel, as the boy
had that idea in him, that strong about his mother—a pretty mother too!
though I never said as much in his hearing—coming back one day to fetch
him.
And so it came to Cheevers starting a barrow, and taking Nick along to
mind it, while he did business at hall doors and airy railings. And
though in bad weather a dreary business, shouting in the muddy streets,
with the rain soaking you through and through, they did well.
I could not undertake to say for certain, but it may have been because I
lost my own dear baby, after a week of happy mother hood—and he was a
boy—that Nick was always my favorite of Them Two.
He had silky hair with a curl in it, that was brownish red, like the
colour of a new chestnut, and brave blue eyes, and a white skin, when I
had taught him to keep it clean. And he had nice ways, and was grateful
for any little thing done for him. And to hear that boy whistle!
I believe the blackbird, at the bird shop at the corner, died of envy
and not of old age, as they pretended, Nick’s imitation of him being so
much better than himself!
But there! I never know when to stop, when I start talking of my boy—as
I used to call him—and call him now, for that matter!
[Illustration:
“And so it came to Cheevers starting a barrow.”
]
Cheevers was more soft on the girl: a thin little thing, with great,
black eyes and a bush of black, curly hair.
No amount of scrubbing would make Nan’s skin white; it was brown by
nature, and brown it is to this day. Foreign blood was in her
complexion, as in her ways, and her temper, which was loving as lambs
when unprovoked, but fiery when crossed.
She proved a deal of help to me, that child.
If it had been in these days, both of Them Two ’ud ha’ been caught and
sent to Board School, to learn to be no use to themselves or us. But
this was years and years ago, and my boy’s chestnut hair is a handsome
grey, and he an upright, portly gentleman of forty-two.
And she bears her years as well as him, though not a white hair, and her
eyes as bright as ever. And they love each other, as true and dear
to-day, as they did at seven years old; it does my heart good to say it.
* * * * *
As months went on, Nick said less and less, but, it was plain to see, he
still kept that idea of his wretched mother coming back one day; and
come back she did, once, and never no more, for which be thankful, I
said to myself, though remembering what was said, concerning the casting
of stones at another sinful woman.
My boy came into the room, where I was ironing, with Nan to help me with
the heaters—an’ as willin’ an’ cheerful as a little bird, I will ever
say—one early twilight on a Saturday in the June of that year, and his
eyes was brighter than usual, and he held something in his hand, behind
his back.
“Guess what it is,” he told us; and Nan and me guessed all sorts of
things to humour him. But at last the cat came out of the bag.
Cheevers had took to taking him round with the barrow, as I have said,
and servant girls, who found him obliging, would often give him a penny,
for the sake of his pretty face and civil manners—for he’d learned of me
everything I could teach him, long ago. And their mistresses, too, would
notice him, sometimes, and he’d saved the coppers all up and bought—what
do you think?—a bright red ribbon for Nan. And now he brought it out,
all beaming with pleasure.
But I soon sent the happy look out of his face. I’d been ironing all
along through a sultry day, and I was a bit hurt, besides, to think he’d
forgotten me, that had been almost a mother to him all these months.
Sharp I spoke up—and next minute I could have bitten my tongue off.
“Red ribbons for a child as lives on charity!” I says, “and looks to
poor folks who ain’t got too much of their own, for every bit and drop.
And you ought to know better, than to throw away good money in that way,
being in the same situation and owing the same obligations”—only I spoke
coarser than that—“to my husband and me.”
He blushed up, as red as the ribbon, and I could see his little heart
swelling under his little waistcoat, that I’d made myself out of an old
bodice of mine.
“Oh, mother!” he says, “it was on’y tuppence, an’ I’d saved _this_ to
give you—all your own!” An’ he pulls out a shilling an’ puts it in my
hand, and bursts out sobbing, and runs away for dear life, and me after
him, full pelt.
Down the passage he shot like a arrow, with his head held down, and the
tears blinding him, so that he runs into a woman, as happened to be
turning the corner suddenly, and nearly knocked her down.
She was miserably dressed, and handsome in a wild, haggard way, and when
she caught at the wall, staggering beneath the shock of Nick’s jostle
and her own weakness, for she seemed to be in the last stage of decline,
or something—an’ the last ray of the smoky London sunset struck full on
her face—my heart turned cold inside me, for well I knew it must be
Nick’s mother.
Nick knew her too. There was a light in them blue eyes of his, as I’d
never seen there before. With that look of joy on his face, and the
tears still standin’ on his cheeks, I shall see him to my dying day.
“Oh, mother!” he says. “Oh, mother! You’ve come back!”
At that she stood stock-still, and stared at him. Then she thrust out
her hand and caught him by his curls, with a clutch that hurt him—I
could see by the quiver of his lips—and dragged his head to her and
looked him hard in the eyes.
Then she laughed a deep, hoarse, cracked kind of laugh, and says—but not
speaking like a common person at all—
“It _is_ the boy. Why, I thought you were dead long ago, you miserable,
little wretch!”
At which my blood boiled, and I upped and spoke.
“If he ain’t dead,” I says, “it’s no fault of yours, as left him to
starve, two years ago.
“Which a natural feeling towards her own flesh and blood, is what I
should have looked for, in a woman and a mother, whatever her walk in
life might be. And a better and a dearer lad than him, you have treated
so cruel, never lived,” I says, “as I can testify, as have took a
mother’s place to him, for many a day past and gone.”
She frowned at that and turned upon me fiercely, but her speaking was
prevented, by a terrible fit of coughing, that seized her and shook and
rent her, like one of the evil spirits in Scripture.
When quite exhausted, she leant against the wall and wiped her face with
her torn shawl and tried to set her tattered bonnet straight, with a
shaking hand; and all her hair—beautiful, chestnut hair like Nick’s—came
tumbling about her face. And then—
“Whoever you are,” she says, with a lofty kind of air, “in doing, what
you have done by this unfortunate child, you meant well, I daresay.” At
which Nick, who had slipped his hand into mine, gave me a grateful
squeeze.
“What I did, was done, first for Heaven’s sake, and then for his own,”
says I; “so say no more about it. Me and Cheevers asks no thanks.”
“I don’t suppose, you expect me to go down on my knees to you,” says the
poor lost soul defiantly, “and if you did, you’d be disappointed.
“I don’t thank you. Nor will the child thank you, when he grows to be a
man. Better far, have let him die, and be put away, where shame can
never come to him. Better far, if he had died, when he was born. Best of
all, if I, his mother, had never drawn the breath of life.”
And the wretched creature dropped in a heap on a doorstep nigh by and
rocked herself and moaned a bit. And then she pulled herself together,
and struggled up.
“I must go,” she says dazedly. “I don’t know what led me back here, if
it wasn’t Fate.
“I have walked days and nights to reach this place, driven by the same
whip that, now I am here, goads me away. I must be moving—there’s no
rest for me!” And she turned away blindly and went down the passage.
“Oh, mother, don’t go!” says Nick, following and pulling at her sleeve.
“Wait till you’ve had something to strengthen you,” I says, as could not
help but pity her; “come home with me an’ I’ll make you a cup o’ tea.”
But I don’t believe she heard a word. She brushed past me and Nick, as
if she’d forgotten all about us, and turned out of Lemon’s-passage, and
went down the street, walking at a good pace. Nick darted after her in a
minute, and I was bound to follow Nick. It’s a mercy, I happened to have
my old bonnet on, or I should ha’ been took up for a lunatic.
On we went, Nick following her, and me following him—and turned up by
Saint Paul’s, and so went westwards. The streets got bigger and more
crowded, the shops grander. I never troubled to wonder where she was
leading us, I was so afraid of losing sight of Nick. And, by and by, the
woman began to go slower.
Once she stopped—it was in front of a grand place like a theatre—and
began to posture on the pavement, and throw her arms about, and roll out
grand-sounding words, for all the world like a play-actress.
A policeman told her to move on, and she turned on him like a tigress.
“Move on, fellow!” says she. “What do you mean? My foot is on my native
heath,” or some such gibberish.
“Do you see these iron gates? Night after night crowds of people, rich
and great, fine and fashionable, have thronged in at them, to see _me_.
These walls have echoed to the voices of thousands, applauding _me_. I
was their idol then! and to-day I’ve got to move on at _your_ bidding!
Ha, ha, ha! It’s a funny world, isn’t it, my man?”
And she laughed—a dreadful mad-sounding laugh, and went on, with me and
the boy still at her heels, as she might have seen, if ever she’d looked
round. But she never did.
It was dark when she next stopped, before a great house in a fashionable
square.
The windows were all lighted up, and awnings were out, and carpets laid
down the steps and across the sidewalk, for the grand ladies and
gentlemen, that kept rolling up, in their shining carriages, to walk on.
And a crowd of curious people was gathered by the area railings, staring
at the diamonds and stars and ribbons, and wondering what was going to
be for dinner.
And Nick’s mother—I knew no other name, then, to call her by—looked up
at the brilliant windows and the open hall-door, and laughed again.
“Times are changed,” I heard her say, quite loud. “Who would think now,
that this used to be _my_ house? Yet those women, going up the steps,
would hold aside their skirts from the touch of mine, to-day. Oh, I have
done well by myself and others, and this is my reward.”
“Take yourself off, you,” says a constable, hustling her roughly, “or I
shall have to lock you up.”
She laughed again for all her answer and walked away, heading down
towards the Strand this time.
“We’d best go home, my dear,” I says to Nick, “it’s getting late!”
But he tugged at my hand and his eyes looked at me, so wild and wistful
in the light of the street lamps, we was a-standing under, that I gave
in, and we followed on.
When the great buildings of Somerset House rose up before us, I knew
where we were. The traffic had fallen off, the streets were nearly
empty; we only met one or two passengers, as we turned out on to
Waterloo Bridge.
The night was very fine and still, and the great, wide river ran under
the arches, as silently as Time itself rolls on to meet the eternal sea.
Black barges and hulks lay quiet at their moorings—the yellow lights of
the great city seemed to twinkle, jeering-like, at the pure shining
stars overhead. And Nick’s mother went on before us with light, unsteady
steps to the End, that was in store.
About the middle of the bridge she stopped, and began to wave her arms
and talk to herself, as wildly as before.
Some of the words she said were plainly to be heard; the rest were lost
in muttering; and, with the dread, that had been growing in me for some
time, cold and heavy at my heart, I bid the boy wait where he was, and
went forward by myself and spoke to her.
“Poor soul!” I says, “haven’t you no home to go to?”
She looked at me with eyes that didn’t know me, and nodded her head.
“Then go to it,” I says, “for the love of Heaven.”
She nods and whispers, “I am going.”
“Then here’s a trifle to help you,” I says, “and I would spare more if I
could, be sure.”
But she put my hand away with the money in it.
“This is the Last Act,” she says, not speaking to me, but loud and
clear, as if she had been giving orders to someone at a distance. “Ring
down the curtain!”
She clapped her hands above her head, and laughed that awful laugh, and,
before I could breathe, jumped on the parapet, as lightly as a
rope-dancer.
I screamed for help and caught at her poor clothing, but the rotten
stuff seemed to melt in my hands, and Nick’s mother was gone—down in the
black water!
I see it all, like a picture, as I write, and my dear boy a-trying to
jump in after her, and me a-holding him in my arms, and the policemen
that came running up.
* * * * *
She was never seen again. The river that has kept so many cruel secrets
since London Town was London Town, and will go on a-keeping of ’em till
want and poverty, misery and despair, are names that stand for nothing,
took her and hid her out of sight.
Her story we heard long after. Let those that have never known
temptation be gentle in their thoughts of her. Let them as has knowed it
and overcome it, thank the Merciful Power as made ’em stronger to suffer
and endure than Nick’s dead mother.
It seems all this while, as if I was neglecting Nan. The best of
children always, and the most willing, and helpin’ me at the wash-tub,
with all her little strength, as, even with my pattens on, she were
hardly tall enough to reach it.
[Illustration:
“I screamed for help and caught at her poor clothing.” (_Page 31_)
]
I have said my boy was handsome in his open-faced, bright-eyed, manly
way, and so he were, but Nan was worth turning round to look at any day
in the week. With her clear, brown skin and her big, grey eyes, that
would change in colour according to her moods—an’ she had plenty of
’em!—with her bush of dancin’ black curls—as I could never damp out
straight—an’ her red laughing mouth, and lively, high spirited ways, she
was just Nick’s companion picture.
She was over-ruling and high in her ways with other children, taking the
lead in their games in her hours of play-time, dividing whatever came to
’em in the way of sweets and such truck, and making no fuss about boxing
the ears of any big boy as tried to rob ’em.
But she’d break off in the middle of hopscotch or honey-pots, if she saw
Nick a-coming. (She was wonderfully fond of him and he of her, as I’ve
said before.)
She had a high, shrill voice in singing, you could hear her above all
the other children; and to see her dance, to the organs’ playing, was
quite wonderful. It seems strange to me, looking back, that Nick should
have none of that kind of talent in him.
But, bless you, then and now he was as solid as a rock.
Looking back again, it seems to me, as if Them Two brought me and
Cheevers luck, from the very beginning, for before they was twelve years
old, as near as I can guess, in spite of the call on us, that an extra
two in family must ever make, me and Cheevers had extended the premises
by taking the opposite room on the ground floor, and was paying a
neighbour, as owned a shed in a backyard for stabling of a donkey.
That was a rise in the world for us, our getting that donkey! It dropped
upon us, as one might say, from the skies, ’Ampstead ’Eath being so much
above the level of Lemon’s-passage.
For Nick and Nan were wonderful fond of ’Ampstead ’Eath, and would make
nothing of trudging all the way there of a holiday, with a calico net to
catch tittlebashes in, an’ a medicine bottle to put ’em in, when caught
they were.
I’d give ’em a good slice of bread-an’-dripping each, an’ could trust
’em to be away the whole day without drowning themselves, though nothing
more or less, when they did come back, but a mask of mud.
I have heard of strange things being discovered on ’Ampstead ’Eath in
unexpected places, but that in a lonely part, where there are sandpits
and blackberry bushes, and the grass grows short and thin, being sat
upon so much by picnickers on Bank Holidays, a first-class perambulator
should be found, with a stout, well-dressed baby sittin’ up inside it,
sucking its thumb, come upon me as a startler.
“We looked all round,” said Nick, “but not a speck of a livin’ soul was
there to be seen. If any lady had come along, Nan would ha’ run up to
her and asked her: ‘O please ’m, did you happen to lose a ‘baby?’”
“But we saw nobody, for a fog had come on, and all the people, out
walkin’ on the ’Eath, had gone home. An’ somehow, we never thought of
handin’ the perambulator over to a policeman; the most nat’ral thing
seemed to be, to wheel it straight to you.
“Nobody noticed us, till we got into the Passage, and then Old Cutties,
as keeps the whelk-stall, sings out: ‘’Ullo, Nick! I never knowed you
was a family man!’ and some more on ’em come round and wanted to have a
look at the baby. But we wouldn’t allow no larks. And now, here it is,
an’ what are we goin’ to do with it?”
“Feed it fust,” says Cheevers, as the baby, after staring at each of us
in turn, opened its blessed mouth in a hungry roar. “Give it some bread
and milk, and then lay information at the police station.
“The superintendent will telegraph to Hampstead, and if that child has
got such a thing as a distracted parent a-looking for it everywheres,
that parent will be down herein a jiffy!”
Not in a jiffy, but in a neat dogcart did the owner of that poor
innocent turn up, as if the gift of prophecy had descended on Cheevers,
and before two hours was past.
A genteeler-lookin’ young couple I never did see; him junior partner in
a City firm of shippers, and her his young wife, married to him but
eighteen months. And the story of how she lost that baby, deliberate and
by her own act, as told to me, by her own lips with streaming eyes, was
as here set down.
Says she, huggin’ the baby, till you’d ha’ thought she’d ’a squeezed it
to death, but that mothers have a way of doin’ these things—“Mrs.
Cheevers, I do assure you it’s nobody’s fault but my own, and to my
shame, be it said.
“My dear Alfred,” as was her husband, “knows, that before I married him
I had literary ambitions, and had nearly written a whole novel,” says
she, “when our marriage made me break off at the end of the second
volume.
“At first, with one thing and another, I had no time to take it up
agin,” she says, “yet still the cravin’ to win glory by my pen, was in
me, so to speak. An’ when baby was six months old, which happened a week
ago, a longin’ came over me,” she says, “to go on with that story.
“So I laid in a store of pens and ink and paper, unbeknown to Alfred,
and began. But my ideas refused to flow. I could not remember the endin’
of them people in the story, try how I would. And this very afternoon as
ever was, I made up my mind to give up the ideas of a literary career
and sink into contented obscurity.
“So, quite calm and resigned, I wheeled out the baby in her perambulator
for an airin’, an’ just about the high part of the Heath I stopped for a
rest. If you’ll believe me, Mrs. Cheevers—I’d no sooner sat down, than
the whole thing came back upon me like a flash of thunder. I felt, as if
I should die if I didn’t go home and write it all down.”
“And you did go?” I says, quite petrifacted with surprise, “and left
your baby!”
“I forgot all about her,” says the young lady, beginning to cry again.
“How such a thing could happen, I don’t know. But happen it did. I never
thought of her till I walked in at our own garden-gate—and then I flew
back like the wind. But she was gone. And now that I’ve got her back—as
I don’t deserve to, being such an unnatural parent as to abandon my own
child—I’ll burn that novel, as soon as I get home.”
So off she went, with many thanks an’ blessings, and her young husband
and her baby, and we heard no more of ’em for three days. Until a young
man in cords come down our court leadin’ a handsome donkey drawing a
neat, plain truck behind it.
[Illustration:
“For Mr. and Mrs. Cheevers.”
]
To our door he brought it, an’ there hands to me an envelope with
“FOR MR. AND MRS. CHEEVERS”
wrote upon it, and inside, more writing—
“FROM NICK AND NAN,”
and a five-pound note. And as Mr. and Mrs. Hurley, the pa and ma of the
lost baby, had chose this way, so delicate an’ so kind, of rewardin’ us
for the little we had done, and as Them Two showed such pleasure in the
pleasure of Cheevers and me, what could we do, but thankfully accept?
An’ after that no more shoving the barrow, with rheumatic pains in
Cheevers’ joints, but a shaggy willing beast to draw it, not too nice to
eat damaged greens or anything else, when they ran short.
While Nick saw to that donkey his own self, and many a time I have sat
behind him, as proud and glad, as if he was four bays with rosettes
behind their ears, when Cheevers thought a jaunt as far as Kew ’ud do me
good, and over them tram-ruts is certainly a stimulant to the liver.
Them days were good days, though there was showers between the sunshine,
but of what came after, others better fitted may better tell, and so
with ever love to both my dears, always boy and girl to me!—
MARY CHEEVERS.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
EVE THE SECOND.
THE OPINION OF DAVID DIX, NIGHT WATCHMAN, ABOUT THAT BOY AND THAT GIRL.
_By B. L. FARJEON._
[Illustration]
It is many years ago, since I used to walk my beat of a night in the
East-end of London, where I was born and worked my way steadily up the
ladder of life, which, if you please, is no ladder at all, strictly
speaking, but a double flight of steps. When you get to the top of one
side of this flight, you begin to go down on the other side, till you
reach the bottom, where a bed is made for you, and your life’s toils and
struggles are over.
I am supposing that you reach man’s allotted span, and are not called
upon to say farewell to the world, till your hair is white and all your
vital forces spent.
This good fortune is mine, and I am waiting for the summons, with a firm
belief in the Divine message of a better world beyond.
Not that I have anything to complain of; I have done my duty to the best
of my ability, and if I fell short now and then, it was not from lack of
willingness to do what was set down for me, but because I had gone to
the extent of my powers and was unable to go further; up to this point
only can you, with any sense of justice, make a man responsible. And
this, mind you, opens a wide question, into which I am not going to
enter—the question of responsibility for committed acts.
Under what circumstances you are born, how you are brought up, by what
influences your earlier years have been surrounded—these form a
succession of lessons, which you are bound to accept, because you know
no better, and are taught no better.
Judges and legislators should take this into account, and pass judgment
according; though I have observed that a gentleman or lady, who has
broken the law of the land, is, as a rule, let off more lightly than the
poor wretch, who has not had the advantage of good teaching and a proper
education. In my opinion, it should be the other way.
My grandfather was a night watchman, and my father stepped into his
shoes; and when he was too tired to walk in them any longer I put them
on with a proud and cheerful heart, thinking it a fine thing to do, as
my betters had done before me.
So that you see there were three generations of us, and as we were all
steady men, confidence was placed in us. I often heard it said, “You may
trust David Dix; he is like his father.”
In my father’s time, I have no doubt, they said the same of him. He was
a good stamp of a man, and he gave me a home education, and taught me
how to speak and write fair English, for which I say “God bless him.” By
so doing, he took the locks off the caves of enchantment, we find in
books. “Open, Sesame!” I cried, flourishing my spelling book—and I saw
wonders.
I had both public and private duties to perform.
My public duties mainly were to see that the houses and shops were
properly secured, to keep an eye on suspicious characters, and to take
care that no place was broken into and robbed.
Poor as were the streets, I perambulated night after night, for seven
nights in the week and three hundred and sixty-five nights in the year,
very few burglaries took place in them. Thieves and cracksmen, when they
got to know me, had a wholesome fear of my watchfulness, and fought shy
of the premises I protected.
My private duties were chiefly to rouse people, who wanted to get up
very early in the morning. A penny a week was my charge for this, and I
sometimes had as many as thirty or forty people on my books.
I bring to mind two memorable nights in connection with Nick and Nan.
The girl came first, the lad second.
I had for company at this time a white mastiff, I called Dummy, who
trotted at my heels, from the moment I commenced my work of a night,
till I got home in the morning and threw myself, regularly tired out, on
my bed.
Dummy was not a nice-tempered dog, but he never interfered with anyone,
who did not interfere with him, or unless he had, in his own opinion, a
good reason for interfering.
He was a faithful creature, and would not make friends with strangers,
and although I have always been sociably inclined myself, I did not find
fault with him, for this disinclination for any society but mine. Every
man likes something, that he can call really his own, and Dummy’s
conservative ways made me all the more attached to him.
One night, about ten o’clock, there was a scrimmage in Chapel-street,
and before I knew where I was, I found myself in the middle of it.
It was an ugly row between Lascar sailors and sugar-bakers, and I don’t
know which looked most like devils, the Lascars with their dark faces
and flashing eyes, or the sugar-bakers, who had trooped out of the
factory, naked to their waists, and with their matted hair hanging in
disorder about their perspiring foreheads. They had snatched some of
their red-hot tools from the furnace, and the Lascars out with their
knives. Dummy was in the middle of the fight, and I was a good deal
knocked about.
When it was all over, I was some distance from the spot, upon which the
row had commenced, and Dummy was not by my side. I went about the
streets calling and looking for him, and after half an hour’s search, I
saw him on the ground, with his leg badly gashed, and a girl kneeling by
him and attending to the wound.
“Mind, my girl,” I cried, “or the dog will bite you. He’s savage to
strangers.”
I knelt down, and Dummy licked my hand.
“He won’t hurt me,” said Nan. “Poor doggie! His leg’s cut to the bone.”
And so it was, but Nan had done what she could for it, and the look of
gratitude in Dummy’s eyes showed that he properly appreciated her
kindness. From that night Dummy and Nan were friends, and there were
occasions when he would even leave me to go to her.
For some time before this adventure I had noticed Nan and Nick walking
together of an evening, when I was sitting at my window smoking my pipe,
but I had not paid much attention to them.
Now, however, they had become objects of interest to me, and I wondered
how it was, that I had been blind to little ways of theirs which were
different from the ways of other boys and girls.
They would walk along the streets talking and smiling—Nick doing most of
the talking and Nan most of the smiling—as earnestly as if they were the
only people in the world. Sometimes he would have an open book or a
paper in his hand, from which he would be reading to her, and she would
be listening with all her might, and her eyes would shine as mine used
to shine, when I was deep in a fascinating story.
I discovered afterwards that he was farther advanced than I was at his
age, and that though they were both fond of Dickens and Bulwer and
Ainsworth, they often read books of adventure (which were scarcer then,
than they are now) and even dipped into poetry and imaginative stories
of a superior kind. When we were better acquainted Nick introduced me to
favorite books of his—“Undine,” “The Lady of the Lake,” and other of Sir
Walter Scott’s poems, and “Marco Polo.”
It was a curious mixture, and how it was, he came to pick the best books
out of the baskets on the second-hand bookstalls, is more than I can
say; it was a kind of instinct that was born in him, I suppose, and it
went towards the making, in the end, of a man out of the common run.
What brought me into closer connection with him, was his coming to me
one night, and saying,
“You call people up early in the morning; I wish you would call me up.”
“I will, my lad,” I said. “What time?”
“Five o’clock,” he replied. “I can wake myself, as a rule, by fixing it
well in my mind, the night before, and saying, ‘Five o’clock, five
o’clock, five o’clock, I must get up, I must get up, I must get up at
five o’clock,’ and keeping on saying it, till I fall asleep; but I might
miss it now and then, and I don’t want to miss it once.”
“Because,” said I, “you have to get to work at a certain time?”
“Yes,” he answered, “because of that.”
“And it’s not in you to be a minute late,” I observed, “as much as one
morning in a month.”
“I don’t want,” said he to this, “to be a minute late one morning in a
year.”
I looked at him in admiration; there was purpose, there was earnestness
in his face, and there was a glow in his eyes, that made me take to him
more and more, and to feel almost like a father to him. “This is a boy,”
said I to myself, “that is going to get on in the world.”
“I’ll call you,” I said. “Is it a new place you’ve got?”
“Yes,” he answered, “and I’m to get five shillings a week, and a
shilling rise at the end of twelve months, if I give satisfaction. Then
there’s a chance of overtime.”
I nodded. “What time are you due in the morning?”
“Half-past seven.”
“It must be a long way off from here?”
“Oh, no; I can get there in twenty minutes.”
“Then what on earth do you want to be called at five o’clock for?”
“I want an hour to myself, Mr. Dix; there is so much I’d like to know.”
“Very well, Nick; I’ll call you.”
“And if I don’t wake,” said he, “please pull me out of bed, will you?”
“I’ll get you up all right.”
“How much a week do you charge, Mr. Dix?” he asked.
“My charge to you,” I said, “will be nothing a week.”
“No,” said he in a tone of decision, “that will not be fair. If I work I
want to be paid for it. Please tell me how much?”
“Won’t you let me do it out of a friendly feeling, Nick?”
“Not this, please, Mr. Dix. It will make me feel ever so much better, if
you will let me pay what other people pay.”
I said to myself, “This boy is arguing out of a spirit of right and
justice, and it will not be kind on my part to baulk him;” so I told him
I would charge him a penny a week, and upon these terms we settled it.
He was never once late. Hail, rain, snow, or shine, there he was,
trudging out every morning at seven o’clock, with a bright face and a
willing heart singing softly to himself a favorite song of Nan’s as he
went along. Often he was up and dressed before I went to wake him, and
nineteen times out of the other twenty he would call,
“Thank you, Mr. Dix, I’m dressing myself. How glad you must be that the
night’s over.”
And there he was at his books, every morning for an hour and a half at
least, with a little bit of candle, if it was dark, as happy and hopeful
as a prince—perhaps more so, because princes, having everything they
want, must, in my opinion, have a precious dull time of it.
Why, a prince going to his private box at the opera can’t get a
thousandth part of the pleasure, that Nick enjoyed as, with Nan with her
sprightly step and pretty face at his side, he marched about once every
three months to the sixpenny gallery at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, where
Mr. Samuel Phelps was doing his best to amuse, in an intellectual way,
the poor people in the north and east of London.
Mr. Phelps did a power of good in his day, and there are many well-to-do
people living now, who have the best of all reasons to be grateful to
him.
[Illustration:
“She would go and meet him when his work was over.”
]
Often of a morning Nan would walk with Nick to the place he worked in
and would leave him there, and more often she would go and meet him when
his work was over. Being a bright, capable lad, Nick, you may depend,
had many temptations from boys and girls of his age to join in pleasures
which lead to no good; but he resisted them all with firmness and good
temper, and as he never preached to them that it was wrong to do this or
that—being, indeed, too busy to meddle with anyone’s business but his
own or Nan’s—he did himself no harm by refusing.
At the end of the year he got his shilling rise, and at the end of six
months another shilling, and with seven shillings a week he considered
himself quite rich. And all this time he went on reading and studying,
and storing up for the future. It is surprising what a boy can do for
himself in this way. All the schooling in the world is of small value in
comparison with what an earnest youngster can teach himself out of
school hours.
As time went on Nan’s walks with Nick to and from his workshop became
less frequent. She was growing in years and beauty, and she felt that
she ought to do something towards earning a living.
There was a little confectioner’s and cake shop in Whitechapel, opposite
the butchers’ stalls, and she obtained a situation there. I don’t know
how much a week she got; it must have been very little, because the shop
did a poor business, but Nan was happy in the knowledge that she was
making herself useful. What struck me as being a very beautiful thing
was the pride she and Nick took in each other, the thoughtful, loving
way in which they would look at each other, the dependence and trust she
placed in him, the tender and protecting air he showed towards her.
It did not occur to me that they were too much in each other’s company,
and that Nan’s beauty was a dangerous possession; if it had, I don’t
think it would have troubled me, so strong was my belief in Nick’s
honesty and straightforwardness, and in Nan’s sense of what was right.
Once a week Nick had to work till nearly midnight, and Nan took it into
her head to go and meet him on his way home.
I spoke to Nick about it, and said it was hardly safe, for a young and
pretty girl like Nan, to be out by herself at such an hour. There were
rough characters living round about, and when they had had too much to
drink, it was as well to give them a wide berth. Nick, in his turn,
spoke to Nan, and bade her not to venture out alone so late at night. He
told her in my presence, but she pleaded so hard to be allowed to go and
meet him that I saw he was wavering, and would give way, so I said,
“Well, you shall go, Nan; but not alone. Dummy shall go with you.”
They both thanked me gratefully, and Nick and I felt easier in our
minds. As for Nan, she never had any fear.
The sense of that dog! On the nights he was told off to do duty and take
care of Nan, there he was ready, and he trotted by her side, every nerve
in his body alert with watchfulness, and with a wicked look in his eyes
which boded ill to the evilly inclined. When Nan and Nick met, he would
leave them and come back to do duty and take care of me. Faithful old
Dummy! Little did we think that we had pronounced his doom.
He was with Nan—on a Thursday night it was—and it was nearer twelve than
eleven, when I heard screams for help ringing through the air and,
immediately upon the screams, the howling of a man in pain.
I ran quick to the spot, and there was Nan, white and nearly fainting,
and a man—a beast rather—and Dummy struggling together. At the same
moment Nick came running round the corner, and flew to Nan and caught
her in his arms.
The ruffian, it seemed, had suddenly darted forward and seized Nan, and
Dummy, without so much as a growl, had leaped up and fixed his teeth in
the brute’s throat. There they lay rolling on the ground, and as I did
not wish the dog to kill the villain, I called him off. Dummy relaxed
his hold, and as he did so, the brute pulled out a knife and plunged it
into the dog’s body. Poor old Dummy! He gave a convulsed gasp, and
rolled over.
“Oh, Dummy, poor Dummy!” cried Nan, throwing herself by his side, and
raising his head to her lap. “Are you hurt much?”
The faithful creature lifted his eyes to her face, then turned them to
me, and fell back dead!
How we all grieved, Nan most of all. She sobbed, as though her heart was
breaking, and I kept my own feelings in check so as not to make her
worse. I could not leave my duties, and they carried the devoted
creature to my lodgings, and remained up with him all the night, till I
came home.
“It is a brave death,” I said to Nan, and did my best to comfort her.
[Illustration:
“She sobbed as though her heart was breaking.”
]
We buried Dummy the next night, and you may guess how I missed him. You
may guess, too, how much closer this sad event drew us to each other. On
every Sunday afternoon now, Nick and Nan would come to tea with me, and
the hours we spent together were to me the happiest in the week. Nick
read to us the books he loved best, and would talk of them in a way it
would have surprised you to hear.