It was before old Hunkington's house that the mutes were standing, as I
passed and saw this group at the door. The charity-boy with the hoop is
the son of the jolly-looking mute; he admires his father, who admires
himself too, in those bran-new sables. The other infants are the spawn
of the alleys about Our Street. Only the parson and the typhus fever
visit those mysterious haunts, which lie crouched about our splendid
houses like Lazarus at the threshold of Dives.
Those little ones come crawling abroad in the sunshine, to the annoyance
of the beadles, and the horror of a number of good people in the street.
They will bring up the rear of the procession anon, when the grand
omnibus with the feathers, and the line coaches with the long-tailed
black horses, and the gentleman's private carriages with the shutters
up, pass along to Saint Waltheof's.
You can hear the slow bell tolling clear in the sunshine already,
mingling with the crowing of "Punch," who is passing down the street
with his show; and the two musics make a queer medley.
Not near so many people, I remark, engage "Punch" now as in the good old
times. I suppose our quarter is growing too genteel for him.
Miss Bridget Jones, a poor curate's daughter in Wales, comes into all
Hunkington's property, and will take his name, as I am told. Nobody
ever heard of her before. I am sure Captain Hunkington, and his brother
Barnwell Hunkington, must wish that the lucky young lady had never been
heard of to the present day.
But they will have the consolation of thinking that they did their duty
by their uncle, and consoled his declining years. It was but last month
that Millwood Hunkington (the Captain) sent the old gentleman a service
of plate; and Mrs. Barnwell got a reclining carriage at a great expense
from Hobbs and Dobbs's, in which the old gentleman went out only once.
"It is a punishment on those Hunkingtons," Miss Clapperclaw remarks:
"upon those people who have been always living beyond their little
incomes, and always speculating upon what the old man would leave them,
and always coaxing him with presents which they could not afford, and
he did not want. It is a punishment upon those Hunkingtons to be so
disappointed."
"Think of giving him plate," Miss C. justly says, "who had chests-full;
and sending him a carriage, who could afford to buy all Long Acre. And
everything goes to Miss Jones Hunkington. I wonder will she give the
things back?" Miss Clapperclaw asks. "I wouldn't."
And indeed I don't think Miss Clapperclaw would.