UNCLE BRYAN INTRODUCES HIMSELF.
The boy took no notice of the neighbours, but wheeled straight through
them, regardless of their legs. Neither did he take any notice of us,
except by whistling in our faces. But he trundled the wheelbarrow
cheerfully, and with an airy independence most delightful to witness.
It was a long journey to Paradise-row, and it occupied a long time;
but the boy never flagged, never stopped to rest, although in the
course of the journey he performed some eccentric antics. He was not
as old as I, but he was much more strongly built. I envied him his
strong limbs and broad shoulders. It was a cold day, and he was
insufficiently clad; his toes peeped out of his boots, and his hair
straggled through a hole in his cap, and a glimpse of his bare chest
could now and then be seen through a rent in his waistcoat, which was
made to serve the purpose of a jacket by being pinned at the throat;
but the boy was not in the slightest degree affected by these
disadvantages. The wind, which made me shiver, seemed to warm him, and
he took it to his bosom literally with great contentment. His eyes
were dark and bright, his nose was a most ostensible pug, and the
curves of his large well-shaped mouth and lips spoke of saucy
enjoyment. Indeed, he was full of life, noting with eager curiosity
everything about him, and his dirty face sparkled with intelligence.
As he drove the barrow before him, he whistled and sang without the
slightest regard to nerves, and if any street lad accosted him
jocosely or derisively, he returned the salutation with spirited
interest. He appeared to be disposed to pause near the first
organ-grinder we approached; but he resisted the inclination, and
after a short but severe mental struggle, he compromised matters by
trundling the barrow three times round the unfortunate Italian, making
a wider sweep each time. My mother remonstrated with him; but the boy,
with the reins of command in his hand, paid no other attention to her
remonstrance than was expressed in a knowing cock of his eye, implying
that it was all right, and that he knew what he was about. For the
safety of our trunk we were compelled to accompany him in his circular
wanderings, and I felt particularly foolish as we swept round and
round. But the third circle completed, the boy drove straight along
again contentedly, whistling the last air the organ-grinder had played
with such force and expression as to cause some of the passers-by to
put their fingers to their ears. This man[oe]uvre the boy
conscientiously repeated with every organ-grinder we met on the road;
repeated it also, very slowly and lingeringly, at a Punch-and-Judy
show, afterwards conveying to the British public discordant
reminiscences through his nose of the interview between Punch and the
Devil; and with supreme audacity repeated it when we came to a band of
negro minstrels, proving himself quite a match for them when they
threatened him with dreadful consequences if he did not immediately
put a stop to his circular performance. Indeed, when one of the band
advanced towards him with menacing gestures, he ran the wheelbarrow
against the opposing force with such an unmistakable intention, that
to save his legs the nigger had to fly. In this manner we came at
length to the end of our journey.
I found Windmill-street to be a mere slit in a busy and bustling
neighbourhood, and Paradise-row, where uncle Bryan lived, a distinct
libel upon heaven, being, I fervently hope, as little like a
thoroughfare in Paradise as can well be imagined. Uncle Bryan's shop
was at the corner of Windmill-street and Paradise-row, and uncle Bryan
himself stood at his street-door, seemingly awaiting our arrival.
'Been loitering, eh?' was uncle Bryan's first salutation; sharply
spoken, not to us, but to the boy.
'Never stopped wheelin', so 'elp me!' returned the boy, in a tone as
sharp as my uncle's, yet with a doubtful look at my mother. 'Never
stopped to take a breathful of air from the blessed minute we started.
Arks 'er!'
My mother, being appealed to by uncle Bryan, confirmed the boy's
statement, which was strictly correct, and, to his manifest
astonishment, made no reproachful reference to his circular flights.
His astonishment, however, almost immediately assumed the form of a
satisfied leer.
'How much was it to be?' asked uncle Bryan, not at all satisfied with
my mother's assurance.
'Thrums,' replied the boy, readily. By which he meant threepence.
Uncle Bryan regarded him sourly.
'Say that again, and I'll take off a penny.'
'Well, tuppence, then. I got to pay a ha'penny for the barrer. What's
a brown, more or less?'
The question was not addressed to any of us in particular, so none of
us answered it. Uncle Bryan paid him twopence; and the boy, with never
a 'thank you,' spun the coins in the air, and caught them deftly;
then, with a wink at my mother as a trustworthy conspirator, he walked
away with his empty barrow, whistling with all his wind at mankind in
general.
Now, when uncle Bryan first spoke, I started. I thought it was not the
first time I had heard his voice. It sounded to me like the voice of
the man with whom I had had the adventure on the previous Saturday
night. The boy being out of sight, uncle Bryan turned to me.
'Why did you start just now?'
'I thought I knew your voice, sir,' I said.
'Call me uncle Bryan. Knew my voice! It isn't possible, as you've
never set eyes on me, nor I on you, till this moment.'
This was intended to settle the doubt, and I never again referred to
it, although it remained with me for a long while afterwards. The
trunk had been left on the doorstep, and uncle Bryan assisted us to
carry it upstairs to the bedroom allotted to us. A little bed for
me--uncle Bryan made it over to me in three words--was placed behind a
screen.
'I thought,' he said to my mother, 'you would like your boy to sleep
in the same room as yourself. The house is a small one, but we can
find another place for him if you wish.'
'Thank you, Bryan,' replied my mother simply, 'I would like to have
him with me.'
Uncle Bryan was evidently no waster of words, and my mother entered
readily into his humour.
'You must be tired,' he said, as he was about to leave the room; 'rest
yourself a bit. But the sooner you come downstairs, the better I
shall be pleased.'
My mother laid her hand on his arm, and detained him.
'Let me say a word to you, Bryan.'
'You will never repeat it!' he exclaimed, with a quick apprehension of
what she wished to say.
'Never, without a strong necessity, Bryan.'
He laughed; but it was more like a dry husky cough than a laugh.
'When a man locks the street-door,' he said, 'trust a woman to see
that the yard-door's on the latch.'
'I want to thank you, Bryan, for the home you have offered me and my
boy.'
'Perhaps it won't suit you.'
'It will suit us, Bryan, if it will suit you to allow us to remain.'
He seemed to chew the words, 'allow us to remain,' silently, as if
their flavour were unpleasant to him; but he said aloud:
'Wait and see, then.' And although my mother wished to continue the
conversation, he turned his back to us, and abruptly left the room.
My mother sank into a chair; she must have been very tired, for she
had walked not less than twelve miles that day.
'You must be tired too, my dear,' she said, drawing me to her side.
'Not so tired as you, mother.'
'I don't feel very, very tired, my dear!'
I knew why she said so; hope dwelt in her heart.
'I think your uncle Bryan is a good man,' she said.
I did not express dissent; but I must have looked it.
'My dear,' she said, answering my look, 'you will find in your course
through life that many sweet things have their home in the roughest
shells. Uncle Bryan has a strange rough manner, but I think--nay, I am
sure--he is a good man. Do you know, Chris, I believe those things
that came home for us last Saturday night were sent by him. No, my
dear, we will not ask him, or even speak of it. He will be better
pleased if it is not referred to. And yet I wonder how he found us
out!'
The room which was assigned to us was a back-room, small, and commonly
but cleanly furnished. Immediately beneath the window was the
water-butt, and beyond it were numbers of small back-yards--so many,
indeed, that I wondered where the houses could be that belonged to
them. The general prospect from this window, as I very soon learned,
was composed of sheets, shirts, stockings, and the usual articles of
male and female attire in the process of drying: of some other things
also--of washing-tubs, and women and little girls wringing and washing
and up to their arm-pits in soap-suds. Occasionally I saw men also
thus engaged. A variation in the prospect was sometimes afforded by
small children being brought into the yards to be slapped and then set
upon the stones to cool, and by other small children blowing
soap-bubbles out of father's pipes. The peculiarity of the scene was
that the clothes never appeared to be dried. They were eternally
hanging on the lines, which intersected each other like a Chinese
puzzle, or were being skewered to them in a damp condition. I can
safely assert that existence, as seen from our bedroom window, was one
interminable washing-day.
When we went downstairs uncle Bryan was in the shop, weighing up his
wares and attending to occasional customers. Attached to the shop were
a parlour, in which the meals were taken and which served as a general
sitting-room, and a smaller apartment in the rear. My mother called me
into the smaller room. Do you see, Chris?' she said, pointing to some
flowers on the window-sill. There were two or three pots also, in
which seeds had evidently been newly planted. In my mother's eyes,
these were a strong proof of my uncle's goodness. A rickety flight of
steps led to the basement of the house, in which there was a gloomy
kitchen (very blackbeetle-y), which could not have been used for a
considerable time. The cobwebs were thick in the corners, and a
prosperous spider, a very alderman in its proportions, peeped out of
its stronghold, with an air of 'What is all this about?' The
appearance of a woman in that deserted retreat did not please my
gentleman; it was a sign of progress. In the basement were also two or
three other gloomy recesses.
Our brief inspection ended, we ascended to the parlour. The fire was
burning brightly, and the kettle was on the hob. My mother went to the
door which led to the shop.
'At what time do you generally have tea, Bryan?' she inquired.
'At half-past five,' he replied.
It was a quarter-past five by an American clock which stood in the
centre of the mantelshelf. The clock was a common wooden one, with a
glass door in front, on which was engraved a figure of Father Time
with a crack down his back. One of his eyes was damaged, and his
scythe also was mutilated; taking him altogether, as he was there
represented, damaged and with cracks in him, old Father Time seemed by
his disconsolate appearance to be of the opinion that it was high time
an end was made of _him_. Without more ado, my mother opened the
cupboard, and finding everything there she wanted, laid the table, and
prepared the meal. Exactly at half-past five uncle Bryan came in, and
we had tea. He did not express the slightest approval of my mother's
quickness, nor did she ask for it; and when tea was over, he went into
the shop again, and my mother cleared up the things. She asked him
about to-morrow's dinner, and took me with her to market with the money
he gave her. While we were looking about us we came across the boy who
had fetched our trunk in the wheelbarrow. He was standing with others
listening to a hymn which was being sung by two men and a woman. One
of the men was blind, and he played on a harmonium, while his
companions sang. He joined in also, having a powerful voice, and I
thought the performance a very fine one.
The boy saw us; approached my mother, and said in a tone of strong
approval:
'You're a brick. I say, we sold old Bryan, didn't us?'
My mother could not help smiling, which heightened the favourable
opinion he had of her.
'What are you going to do?' he asked.
My mother explained that she was going to market.
'I'll show you the shops,' he said; and his offer was accepted.
He proved useful, and took us to the best and cheapest shops, and gave
his candid opinion (generally unfavourable) of the articles my mother
purchased. When the marketing was finished, he volunteered to carry
the basket, and did not leave us until we were within a yard or two of
uncle Bryan's shop. He enlivened the walk with many quaint and
original observations, and when he had nothing to say he whistled. He
took his departure with good-humoured winks and nods. Upon my mother
counting out her purchases to uncle Bryan, and returning him the few
coppers that were left, he said,
'We'll settle things on Monday, Emma. You'll have to take the entire
charge of the house, and to keep the expenses down, and we'll arrange
a certain sum, which must not be exceeded. If anything is saved out of
it, you can put it by in this box,' pointing to a stone money-box
shaped like an urn, which was on a shelf. You can do anything you like
to the place, but don't disturb my flower-pots.'
'What have you planted in the new pots, Bryan?'
'Some of the new Japan lilies; they'll not flower till summer. Don't
touch them; you don't understand them.'
My mother was very busy that night, dusting and cleaning, and I think
I never saw her in a happier mood. Now and then she went into the
shop, and stood quietly behind the counter, noting how uncle Bryan
attended to his business. He took not the slightest notice of her; did
not address a single word to her. Once she came bustling back, with an
air of importance. 'I've served a customer, Chris,' she said
gleefully.
Uncle Bryan's shop was stocked with small supplies of everything in
the grocery line, and in addition to these, he sold a few simple
medicines for clearing the blood--some of them, I afterwards learned,
of his own concoction and mixing. Friday was the day fixed for the
preparation and making-up of these medicines, for Saturday was the
great night for the sale of the mixtures to working people, who
purchased them in halfpenny and penny doses. I discovered that uncle
Bryan's pills were famous in the neighbourhood. I calculated that on
this Saturday night he must have served at least fifty customers with
his medicines. The little parlour presented quite a different
appearance when my mother had finished cleaning and dusting. I looked
for some expression of approval in uncle Bryan's face when he came in
to partake of a bread-and-cheese supper; but I saw none. During the
night my thoughts wandered to the little girl who had given the first
halfpenny to my mother. I spoke about her.
'Do you think she will be sorry or glad, mother, because she will not
see you to-night?'
'Sorry, I think, Chris; she will fancy I am ill.'
'But this is a great deal better, mother.'
'Infinitely better, dear child: and remember, we owe it all to uncle
Bryan.'
Neither my mother nor I felt at all strange in our new home, and I
slept as soundly as if I had lived in the house for years. Before we
went to bed, my mother and I had a delicious ten minutes' chat; the
storm in our lives which had lasted so long, and which had threatened
to wreck us, had cleared away, and a delightful sense of rest stole
into our hearts.
On the Sunday no business was done. After breakfast, uncle Bryan
brought his account-book into the parlour, and busied himself with his
accounts, adding up the week's takings, and calculating what profit
was made. My mother asked him if he was going to church.
'I never go to church,' was his reply.
My mother looked grieved, but she entered into no argument with him.
'You have no objection to our going?' she said timidly.
'What have I to do with it? I dictate to no one. If you think it right
to go to church, go.'
'Is there one near, Bryan?'
'Zion Chapel isn't two minutes' walk.'
Uncle Bryan asked no questions when we returned, and the day passed
quietly. He devoted the evening to smoking and reading. My mother did
not like the smoke at first, but it was not long before she schooled
herself to fill uncle Bryan's pipe for him. So, with a pair of horn
spectacles on his nose, and his pipe in his mouth, uncle Bryan read
and enjoyed his leisure. Occasionally he took his pipe from his mouth,
and read a few words aloud. At one time he became deeply engrossed in
a book which he took from a shelf in the shop, and he read the
following passage aloud:
'That the consciousness of existence is not dependent on the same form
or the same matter is demonstrated to our senses in the works of the
Creator, as far as our senses are capable of receiving that
demonstration. A very numerous part of the animal creation preaches to
us, far better than Paul, the belief in a life hereafter. Their little
life resembles an earth and a heaven, a present and a future state;
and comprises, if it may be so expressed, immortality in miniature.'
'Immortality in miniature!' repeated my mother, in a puzzled tone.
'What is that from, Bryan?'
'The _Age of Reason_,' he answered.
There was a long pause, broken again by uncle Bryan's voice:
'If we consider the nature of our condition here, we must see there is
no occasion for such thing as revealed religion. What is it we want to
know? Does not the creation, the universe we behold, preach to us the
existence of an Almighty Power, that governs and regulates the whole?
And is not the evidence that this creation, holds out to our senses
infinitely stronger than anything we can read in a book that any
impostor might make and call the word of God? As for morality, the
knowledge of it exists in every man's conscience.'
Presently he laid the book aside, and my mother took it up. Uncle
Bryan stretched forth his hand with the intention of keeping it from
her; but he was too late. He gazed at her furtively from beneath his
horn spectacles, as she turned over the pages. After a few minutes'
inspection of the book she returned his gaze sadly, and, with a
protecting motion, drew me to her side. I had not liked uncle Bryan's
laugh, and I liked it less now.
'Chris, my dear child,' said my mother, in a tone of infinite
tenderness, 'go upstairs and bring down my Bible.'
I did as she desired, and my mother caressed me close, with her arm
round my waist. Uncle Bryan sat on one side of the fireplace, reading
the _Age of Reason_; my mother sat on the other side, reading the
Bible.