'Can you direct me to Mr William Egg's?' said I one morning to a
smart shopman, who was loitering at the door of a showy haberdasher
in the principal street of a town in Ireland, in which, for a few
months, I once resided. I had been told by two or three persons that
Billy Egg's was the best shop in the place; for that, he being a
general dealer on a very large scale, I should be sure to get
'everything in the world' there. Moreover, I had been instructed that
he sold good articles at a cheap rate; and being a stranger, I felt
truly glad that I had been recommended to a tradesman on whom I
could confidently rely. 'Can you direct me to Mr Egg's?' I repeated,
seeing that the smart shopman was so much occupied either in admiring
his window or his own person, that he had not at first attended to my
question.
'I know no such person, ma'am,' he replied rather sharply; and as I
now perceived that the house bore the evidence of fresh paint and
recent alterations, it occurred to me that the smart shopkeeper might
be a new-comer, and ignorant of the old residents. Nothing daunted, I
next entered the shop of a neighbouring bookseller, and repeated my
inquiries, but with no better success. I then made my way to that of
a milliner; and though a young girl, who was busily engaged at her
needle, looked up for a moment with an arch smile, and then turned
away, as I plainly perceived, to repress a hearty laugh, her mistress
dismissed me with the expression of her opinion 'that no such person
lived in that town, nor, she believed, in any other.' I felt a little
puzzled to know what the girl had found so ludicrous in my simple
question, and wondered if my repeated disappointments had given me a
forlorn air. 'At any rate,' thought I, 'this Mr Egg is not so
generally known as I expected to find him. I had better walk up the
street and try if I can discover any outward indications of his
abode.'
I spent a weary half-hour in this endeavour, and as it now seemed
evident to me that no considerable shop could belong to the object of
my search, I lowered my tone in addressing an old apple-woman, who
sat behind a table covered with her stores at the corner of the
street. 'Pray, can you direct me to Billy Egg's?' I asked, dropping
the Mr altogether, and adopting the familiar term which had been used
to me.
'Och, then, to be shure I will, an' welcome, if it was a mile off;
but there it's just furnint ye--that big grand shop there, wid the
big letthers gilt wid goold over the big windees.'
'My good woman,' I replied, 'I am afraid you must be mistaken; the
name there is William Carter.'
'Och, don't I know that? but they call him Billy Egg, because all he
has--and half the town that's his--came out of an egg.'
An exclamation of surprise escaped me, and the old woman
continued--'Och, but well he desarves it, for he is a dacent man, and
good to the poor; God bless him every day he rises, and make the
heavens his bed at last!'
As I took part of her speech as a hint to myself, I gave her
sixpence, and believing there was some story worth the hearing, I
begged my new acquaintance to call on me in the evening and relate
it, instead of hindering her business and mine by listening to it at
that moment; although I suspect she would have been nothing loath to
have given me the full and particular account there and then, for she
told me she knew every circumstance 'consarning him and his.'
I proceeded without further delay to the 'big grand shop,' where I
saw in the master the veritable Billy Egg. He was a fine portly
personage, with a good open countenance, and it was evident he could
not have acquired his nickname from bearing even the most remote
resemblance to an egg. He served me himself with zeal and civility,
and my purchases were soon completed.
In the evening, my old apple-woman was true to her appointment, and
from her I gathered the following particulars: William Carter was a
poor boy, the eldest of a large family, who, with their mother, were
left destitute by the death of their father. Their poor neighbours
were charitable, as the poor, to their credit be it spoken, so often
are; and one took one child, and one another, until something could
be thought of and done for their subsistence. William had made the
most of the scanty schooling his father had afforded him, and could
read a little. He was, moreover, a steady, hard-working boy; yet the
only occupation he was able to obtain was that of tending a cow on
the border of a large bog. In return for this service, he was
comfortably lodged and fed, and for a time the clothes he had were
sufficient. He was in the habit of saving any scraps of printed paper
which fell in his way, and by means of these he somewhat improved in
his reading; for while the cow was munching away, little Billy had
ample time for his studies, without neglecting her either, for he
made a point of looking out for the sweetest grass, and leading her
to it.
By his care and attention, he gave such satisfaction to his employer,
that by the time his clothes were worn out, he was allowed wages
sufficient to replenish them; and his good-behaviour gave such
confidence and respectability to his family, that a neighbouring
farmer engaged one of his younger brothers in a capacity similar to
his own. One day this farmer gave Billy a newly-laid goose's egg,
thinking it might make him a good meal, and be something of a dainty,
and as a sort of return for an act of good-nature and watchfulness on
Billy's part, he having noticed that a certain gate leading to the
kitchen-garden had been left open, took the precaution to close it,
thereby preventing the incursion of a greedy sow and her interesting
family, which would undoubtedly have played the part of the Goths in
that flourishing spot. It is very likely that Billy's first impulse
was to boil his egg and eat it; but a moment's reflection convinced
him that this would be conduct very like that of the boy in the
fable, who slaughtered the goose that laid golden eggs. But how to
hatch his egg--for this was what he thought of--became now the
question. The good woman of the house noticed that Billy was
unusually silent at supper-time, and thought at first that some
disaster must have happened. She learned, however, that the cow had
her customary bed of soft heather, which it was Billy's pride to pick
for her, and had been as carefully attended to as usual in every
particular. We ought to mention that Billy was a great favourite with
his mistress; and perhaps he had won her heart by the care and
attention he had bestowed at every spare moment on one of her little
ones, who was a very sickly, fretful child, but who, somehow or
other, was always most quickly pacified by Billy. She soon learned
the cause of his thoughtful silence, and kindly offered to remove two
or three eggs from under a duck which was then sitting, and give
their place to her cow-boy's single treasure. This was the foundation
of William Carter's fortune; and it is worthy of remark, that both
the gift of the egg, and the opportunity of hatching it, he owed to
acts of thoughtful good-nature on his own part.
In due time the goslin appeared, and Billy fed it from his own scanty
fare, taking it with him when he was herding. By Christmas it had
become a large fat goose, and its owner was offered half-a-crown for
it. But he had a higher ambition for it than this, and he was not to
be tempted from his purpose by the prospect of present gain. The
following spring he set her on twelve eggs, which she had herself
produced, and by and by twelve goslins appeared. Our hero was now
obliged to exercise some ingenuity in finding food for so large a
family of dependents; but he accomplished his end by bartering away
three of them, in exchange for permission that the remainder should
feed in his master's yard, until they should be old enough to pick up
their subsistence in company with their mother and the cow upon the
common, and indulge in swimming there in the abundant pools. At the
proper time, he sold the young geese for the largest sum he had ever
seen in his life; for, though to have kept some of them might have
proved an additional source of profit, he knew that he had only
accommodation for one to hatch. A portion of his money he gave to his
mother, but he placed a one-pound note in the safe-keeping of his
kind mistress, and when spring again came round, he bought with it a
year-old heifer, which he sent to graze on the mountains, paying with
it a small sum, the remnant of his money, which he had reserved for
this purpose. Old goosy again presented him with young ones, the sale
of which enabled him to purchase fodder for his cow, when she was
sent home at the end of the season. And now he built a little shed
for her with fir sticks from the bog and heather sods, so that
perhaps she was better cared for than many a rich man's cow. We may
be pretty sure, however, that Billy never neglected his master's
business to attend to his own private affairs, or he and his wife
would not have encouraged him in his plans, as they evidently did. It
is not worth while to follow the fortunes of the prudent industrious
little fellow step by step, or to declare precisely how he dealt in
cows and geese. It may be enough to say, that at the end of six
years he quitted servitude a richer man than ever his father had
been; on which occasion he presented the venerable goose to his
mother, to whose necessities and comforts he had for some time
constantly contributed. So soon as he was thoroughly established in
the world, he married; but not till he had provided a neat cottage
for his parent, who had the happiness to enjoy for many years the
prosperity of her son, and who lived to see the poor cow-boy a man
among the most respected and esteemed in his native county.
'And so, you see,' said the old apple-woman in conclusion, 'it is a
foolish thing to despise small beginnings. Thrue as I am telling it
ye, this is how Mr Carter got the name of Billy Egg, though, d'ye
see, he never was called Billy _Goose_--no, never.'