AT THE PUMP
This blow was so sharp and heavy that I lost for the moment all power to
go on. The sense of ill fortune fell upon me, as it falls upon stronger
people, when a sudden gleam of hope, breaking through long troubles,
mysteriously fades away.
Even the pleasure of indulging in the gloom of evil luck was a thing
to be ashamed of now, when I thought of that good man's family thus,
without a moment's warning, robbed of love and hope and happiness. But
Mrs. Strouss, who often brooded on predestination, imbittered all my
thoughts by saying, or rather conveying without words, that my poor
fathers taint of some Divine ill-will had re-appeared, and even killed
his banker.
Betsy held most Low-Church views, by nature being a Dissenter. She
called herself a Baptist, and in some strange way had stopped me thus
from ever having been baptized. I do not understand these things, and
the battles fought about them; but knowing that my father was a member
of the English Church, I resolved to be the same, and told Betsy that
she ought not to set up against her master's doctrine. Then she herself
became ashamed of trying to convert me, not only because of my ignorance
(which made argument like shooting into the sea), but chiefly because
she could mention no one of title with such theology.
This settled the question at once; and remembering (to my shame) what
opinions I had held even of Suan Isco, while being in the very same
predicament myself, reflecting also what Uncle Sam and Firm would have
thought of me, had they known it, I anticipated the Major and his dinner
party by going to a quiet ancient clergyman, who examined me, and being
satisfied with little, took me to an old City church of deep and damp
retirement. And here, with a great din of traffic outside, and a mildewy
depth of repose within, I was presented by certain sponsors (the clerk
and his wife and his wife's sister), and heard good words, and hope to
keep the impression, both outward and inward, gently made upon me.
I need not say that I kept, and now received with authority, my old
name; though the clerk prefixed an aspirate to it, and indulged in two
syllables only. But the ancient parson knew its meaning, and looked at
me with curiosity; yet, being a gentleman of the old school, put never a
question about it.
Now this being done, and full tidings thereof sent off to Mrs. Hockin,
to save trouble to the butcher, or other disappointment, I scarcely knew
how to be moving next, though move I must before very long. For it cost
me a great deal of money to stay in European Square like this, albeit
Herr Strouss was of all men the most generous, by his own avowal, and
his wife (by the same test) noble-hearted among women. Yet each of them
spoke of the other's pecuniary views in such a desponding tone (when the
other was out of the way), and so lamented to have any thing at all
to say about cash--by compulsion of the other--also both, when met
together, were so large and reckless, and not to be insulted by a
thought of payment, that it came to pass that my money did nothing but
run away between them.
This was not their fault at all, but all my own, for being unable to
keep my secret about the great nugget. The Major had told me not to
speak of this, according to wise experience; and I had not the smallest
intention of doing an atom of mischief in that way; but somehow or other
it came out one night when I was being pitied for my desolation. And all
the charges against me began to be doubled from that moment.
If this had been all, I should not have cared so much, being quite
content that my money should go as fast as it came in to me. But there
was another thing here which cost me as much as my board and lodgings
and all the rest of my expenses. And that was the iron pump in European
Square. For this pump stood in the very centre of a huddled district
of famine, filth, and fever. When once I had seen from the leads of
our house the quag of reeking life around, the stubs and snags of
chimney-pots, the gashes among them entitled streets, and the broken
blains called houses, I was quite ashamed of paying any thing to become
a Christian.
Betsy, who stood by me, said that it was better than it used to be,
and that all these people lived in comfort of their own ideas, fiercely
resented all interference, and were good to one another in their own
rough way. It was more than three years since there had been a single
murder among them, and even then the man who was killed confessed that
he deserved it. She told me, also, that in some mining district of
Wales, well known to her, things were a great deal worse than here,
although the people were not half so poor. And finally, looking at a
ruby ring which I had begged her to wear always, for the sake of her
truth to me, she begged me to be wiser than to fret about things that I
could not change. “All these people, whose hovels I saw, had the means
of grace before them, and if they would not stretch forth their hands,
it was only because they were vessels of wrath. Her pity was rather
for our poor black brethren who had never enjoyed no opportunities, and
therefore must be castaways.”
Being a stranger, and so young, and accustomed to receive my doctrine
(since first I went to America), I dropped all intention of attempting
any good in places where I might be murdered. But I could not help
looking at the pump which was in front, and the poor things who came
there for water, and, most of all, the children. With these it was
almost the joy of the day, and perhaps the only joy, to come into this
little open space and stand, and put their backs up stiffly, and stare
about, ready for some good luck to turn up--such as a horse to hold, or
a man coming out of the docks with a half-penny to spare--and then,
in failure of such golden hope, to dash about, in and out, after one
another, splashing, and kicking over their own cans, kettles, jars, or
buckets, and stretching their dirty little naked legs, and showing very
often fine white chests, and bright teeth wet with laughter. And then,
when this chivy was done, and their quick little hearts beat aloud with
glory, it was pretty to see them all rally round the pump, as crafty
as their betters, and watching with sly humor each other's readiness to
begin again.
Then suddenly a sense of neglected duty would seize some little body
with a hand to its side, nine times out of ten a girl, whose mother,
perhaps, lay sick at home, and a stern idea of responsibility began
to make the buckets clank. Then might you see, if you cared to do so,
orderly management have its turn--a demand for pins and a tucking up
of skirts (which scarcely seemed worthy of the great young fuss), large
children scolding little ones not a bit more muddy than themselves, the
while the very least child of all, too young as yet for chivying, and
only come for company, would smooth her comparatively clean frock down,
and look up at her sisters with condemnatory eyes.
Trivial as they were, these things amused me much, and made a little
checker of reflected light upon the cloud of selfish gloom, especially
when the real work began, and the children, vying with one another,
set to at the iron handle. This was too large for their little hands to
grasp, and by means of some grievance inside, or perhaps through a cruel
trick of the plumber, up went the long handle every time small fingers
were too confiding, and there it stood up like the tail of a rampant
cow, or a branch inaccessible, until an old shawl or the cord of a
peg-top could be cast up on high to reduce it. But some engineering boy,
“highly gifted,” like Uncle Sam's self, “with machinery,” had discovered
an ingenious cure for this. With the help of the girls he used to fasten
a fat little thing, about twelve months old, in the bend at the middle
of the handle, and there (like a ham on the steelyard) hung this baby
and enjoyed seesaw, and laughed at its own utility.
I never saw this, and the splashing and dribbling and play and bright
revelry of water, without forgetting all sad counsel and discretion,
and rushing out as if the dingy pump were my own delicious Blue River.
People used to look at me from the windows with pity and astonishment,
supposing me to be crazed or frantic, especially the Germans. For to run
out like this, without a pocket full of money, would have been insanity;
and to run out with it, to their minds, was even clearer proof of that
condition. For the money went as quickly as the water of the pump; on
this side and on that it flew, each child in succession making deeper
drain upon it, in virtue of still deeper woes. They were dreadful little
story-tellers, I am very much afraid; and the long faces pulled, as
soon as I came out, in contrast with all the recent glee and frolic,
suggested to even the youngest charity suspicions of some inconsistency.
However, they were so ingenious and clever that they worked my pockets
like the pump itself, only with this unhappy difference, that the former
had no inexhaustible spring of silver, or even of copper.
And thus, by a reason (as cogent as any of more exalted nature), was
I driven back to my head-quarters, there to abide till a fresh supply
should come. For Uncle Sam, generous and noble as he was, did not mean
to let me melt all away at once my share of the great Blue River nugget,
any more than to make ducks and drakes of his own. Indeed, that rock of
gold was still untouched, and healthily reposing in a banker's cellar
in the good town of Sacramento. People were allowed to go in and see
it upon payment of a dollar, and they came out so thirsty from feasting
upon it that a bar was set up, and a pile of money made--all the
gentlemen, and ladies even worse than they, taking a reckless turn about
small money after seeing that. But dear Uncle Sam refused every cent of
the profit of all this excitable work. It was wholly against his wish
that any thing so artificial should be done at all, and his sense of
religion condemned it. He said, in his very first letter to me, that
even a heathen must acknowledge this champion nugget as the grandest
work of the Lord yet discovered in America--a country more full of all
works of the Lord than the rest of the world put together. And to keep
it in a cellar, without any air or sun, grated harshly upon his ideas of
right.
However, he did not expect every body to think exactly as he did, and
if they could turn a few dollars upon it, they were welcome, as having
large families. And the balance might go to his credit against the
interest on any cash advanced to him. Not that he meant to be very fast
with this, never having run into debt in all his life.
This, put shortly, was the reason why I could not run to the pump any
longer. I had come into England with money enough to last me (according
to the Sawyer's calculations) for a year and a half of every needful
work; whereas, in less than half that time, I was arriving at my last
penny. This reminded me of my dear father, who was nearly always in
trouble about money (although so strictly upright); and at first I was
proud to be like him about this, till I came to find the disadvantages.
It must not even for a moment be imagined that this made any difference
in the behavior of any one toward me. Mrs. Strouss, Herr Strouss, the
lady on the stairs, and a very clever woman who had got no rooms, but
was kindly accommodated every where, as well as the baron on the first
floor front, and the gentleman from a hotel at Hanover, who looked
out the other way, and even the children at the pump--not one made any
difference toward me (as an enemy might, perhaps, suppose) because my
last half crown was gone. It was admitted upon every side that I ought
to be forgiven for my random cast of money, because I knew no better,
and was sure to have more in a very little time. And the children of
the pump came to see me go away, through streets of a mile and a half, I
should think; and they carried my things, looking after one another, so
that none could run away. And being forbidden at the platform gate, for
want of respectability, they set up a cheer, and I waved my hat, and
promised, amidst great applause, to come back with it full of sixpences.