writing; no excitement; no annoyance; no anxiety; no thinking. Tonic.
No elation of spirits. Nice dinners. No depression of spirits. Dear
William to take little walks (with me). To go to bed early. To get up
early. _N.B._--Keep him quiet. _Mem._ Mind he does Nothing."
Mind I do nothing? No need to mind that. I have not had a holiday since
I was a boy. Oh, blessed Idleness, after the years of merciless
industry that have separated us, are you and I to be brought together
again at last? Oh, my weary right hand, are you really to ache no longer
with driving the ceaseless pen? May I, indeed, put you in my pocket and
let you rest there, indolently, for hours together? Yes! for I am now,
at last, to begin--doing Nothing. Delightful task that performs itself!
Welcome responsibility that carries its weight away smoothly on its own
shoulders!
These thoughts shine in pleasantly on my mind after the doctor has taken
his departure, and diffuse an easy gaiety over my spirits when my wife
and I set forth, the next day, for the journey. We are not going the
round of the noisy watering-places, nor is it our intention to accept
any invitations to join the circles assembled by festive country
friends. My wife, guided solely by the abstract of the doctor's
directions in her pocket-book, has decided that the only way to keep me
absolutely quiet, and to make sure of my doing nothing, is to take me to
some pretty, retired village, and to put me up at a little primitive,
unsophisticated country inn. I offer no objection to this project--not
because I have no will of my own, and am not master of all my
movements--but only because I happen to agree with my wife. Considering
what a very independent man I am naturally, it has sometimes struck me,
as a rather remarkable circumstance, that I always do agree with her.
We find the pretty, retired village. A charming place, full of thatched
cottages, with creepers at the doors, like the first easy lessons in
drawing-masters' copy-books. We find the unsophisticated inn--just the
sort of house that the novelists are so fond of writing about, with the
snowy curtains, and the sheets perfumed by lavender, and the matronly
landlady, and the amusing signpost.
This Elysium is called the Nag's Head.
Can the Nag's Head accommodate us? Yes, with a delightful bedroom, and a
sweet parlour. My wife takes off her bonnet, and makes herself at home
directly. She nods her head at me with a look of triumph. "Yes, dear, on
this occasion also I quite agree with you. Here we have found perfect
quiet; here we may make sure of obeying the doctor's orders; here we
have at last discovered--Nothing."
Nothing! Did I say Nothing? We arrive at the Nag's Head late in the
evening, have our tea, go to bed tired with our journey, sleep
delightfully till about three o'clock in the morning, and, at that hour,
begin to discover that there are actually noises, even in this remote
country seclusion. They keep fowls at the Nag's Head; and at three
o'clock, the cock begins to crow, and the hen to cluck, under our
window. Pastoral, my dear, and suggestive of eggs for breakfast whose
reputation is above suspicion; but I wish these cheerful fowls did not
wake quite so early. Are there, likewise, dogs, love, at the Nag's
Head, and are they trying to bark down the crowing and clucking of the
cheerful fowls? I should wish to guard myself against the possibility of
making a mistake, but I think I hear three dogs. A shrill dog, who barks
rapidly; a melancholy dog, who howls monotonously; and a hoarse dog, who
emits barks at intervals, like minute guns. Is this going on long?
Apparently it is. My dear, if you will refer to your pocket-book, I
think you will find that the doctor recommended early hours. We will not
be fretful and complain of having our morning sleep disturbed; we will
be contented, and will only say that it is time to get up.
Breakfast. Delicious meal, let us linger over it as long as we can,--let
us linger, if possible, till the drowsy mid-day tranquillity begins to
sink over this secluded village.
Strange! but now I think of it again, do I, or do I not, hear an
incessant hammering over the way? No manufacture is being carried on in
this peaceful place, no new houses are being built; and yet, there is
such a hammering, that, if I shut my eyes, I can almost fancy myself in
the neighbourhood of a dock-yard. Waggons, too. Why does a waggon which
makes so little noise in London, make so much noise here? Is the dust on
the road detonating powder, that goes off with a report at every turn of
the heavy wheels? Does the waggoner crack his whip or fire a pistol to
encourage his horses? Children, next. Only five of them, and they have
not been able to settle for the last half-hour what game they shall play
at. On two points alone do they appear to be unanimous--they are all
agreed on making a noise, and on stopping to make it under our window. I
think I am in some danger of forgetting one of the doctor's directions;
I rather fancy I am actually allowing myself to be annoyed.
Let us take a turn in the garden, at the back of the house. Dogs again.
The yard is on one side of the garden. Every time our walk takes us near
it, the shrill dog barks, and the hoarse dog growls. The doctor tells me
to have no anxieties. I am suffering devouring anxieties. These dogs may
break loose and fly at us, for anything I know to the contrary, at a
moment's notice. What shall I do? Give myself a drop of tonic? or escape
for a few hours from the perpetual noises of this retired spot, by
taking a drive? My wife says, take a drive. I think I have already
mentioned that I invariably agree with my wife.
The drive is successful in procuring us a little quiet. My directions to
the coachman are to take us where he pleases, so long as he keeps away
from secluded villages. We suffer much jolting in by-lanes, and
encounter a great variety of bad smells. But a bad smell is a noiseless
nuisance, and I am ready to put up with it patiently. Towards dinner
time we return to our inn. Meat, vegetables, pudding, all excellent,
clean and perfectly cooked. As good a dinner as ever I wish to
eat;--shall I get a little nap after it? The fowls, the dogs, the
hammer, the children, the waggons, are quiet at last. Is there anything
else left to make a noise? Yes: there is the working population of the
place.
It is getting on towards evening, and the sons of labour are assembling
on the benches placed outside the inn, to drink. What a delightful scene
they would make of this homely everyday event on the stage! How the
simple creatures would clink their tin mugs, and drink each other's
healths, and laugh joyously in chorus! How the peasant maidens would
come tripping on the scene and lure the men tenderly to the dance! Where
are the pipe and tabour that I have seen in so many pictures; where the
simple songs that I have read about in so many poems? What do I hear as
I listen, prone on the sofa, to the evening gathering of the rustic
throng? Oaths,--nothing, on my word of honour, but oaths! I look out,
and see gangs of cadaverous savages drinking gloomily from brown mugs,
and swearing at each other every time they open their lips. Never in any
large town, at home or abroad, have I been exposed to such an incessant
fire of unprintable words, as now assail my ears in this primitive
village. No man can drink to another without swearing at him first. No
man can ask a question without adding a mark of interrogation at the end
in the shape of an oath. Whether they quarrel (which they do for the
most part), or whether they agree; whether they talk of their troubles
in this place, or their good luck in that; whether they are telling a
story, or proposing a toast, or giving an order, or finding fault with
the beer, these men seem to be positively incapable of speaking without
an allowance of at least five foul words for every one fair word that
issues from their lips. English is reduced in their mouths to a brief
vocabulary of all the vilest expressions in the language. This is an age
of civilisation; this is a Christian country; opposite me I see a
building with a spire, which is called, I believe, a church; past my
window, not an hour since, there rattled a neat pony chaise with a
gentleman inside clad in glossy black broad cloth, and popularly known
by the style and title of clergyman. And yet, under all these good
influences, here sit twenty or thirty men whose ordinary table-talk is
so outrageously beastly and blasphemous, that not a single sentence of
it, though it lasted the whole evening, could be printed as a specimen
for public inspection, in these pages. When the intelligent foreigner
comes to England, and when I tell him (as I am sure to do) that we are
the most moral people in the universe, I will take good care that he
does not set his foot in a secluded British village when the rural
population is reposing over its mug of small beer after the labours of
the day.
I am not a squeamish person, neither is my wife, but the social
intercourse of the villagers drives us out of our room, and sends us to
take refuge at the back of the house. Do we gain anything by the change?
None whatever.
The back parlour to which we have now retreated, looks out on a
bowling-green; and there are more benches, more mugs of beer, more
foul-mouthed villagers on the bowling-green. Immediately under our
window is a bench and table for two, and on it are seated a drunken old
man and a drunken old woman. The aged sot in trousers is offering
marriage to the aged sot in petticoats with frightful oaths of
endearment. Never before did I imagine that swearing could be twisted to
the purposes of courtship. Never before did I suppose that a man could
make an offer of his hand by bellowing imprecations on his eyes, or that
all the powers of the infernal regions could be appropriately summoned
to bear witness to the beating of a lover's heart under the influence of
the tender passion. I know it now, and I derive little satisfaction from
gaining the knowledge of it. The ostler is lounging about the
bowling-green, scratching his bare brawny arms and yawning grimly in the
mellow evening sunlight. I beckon to him, and ask him at what time the
tap closes? He tells me at eleven o'clock. It is hardly necessary to say
that we put off going to bed until that time, when we retire for the
night, drenched from head to foot, if I may so speak, in floods of bad
language.
I cautiously put my head out of window, and see that the lights of the
tap-room are really extinguished at the appointed time. I hear the
drinkers oozing out grossly into the pure freshness of the summer night.
They all growl together; they all go together. All?
Sinner and sufferer that I am, I have been premature in arriving at that
happy conclusion! Six choice spirits, with a social horror in their
souls of going home to bed, prop themselves against the wall of the inn,
and continue the evening's conversazione in the darkness. I hear them
cursing at each other by name. We have Tom, Dick, and Sam, Jem, Bill,
and Bob, to enliven us under our window after we are in bed. They begin
improving each other's minds, as a matter of course, by quarrelling.
Music follows, and soothes the strife, in the shape of a local duet,
sung by voices of vast compass, which soar in one note from howling bass
to cracked treble. Yawning follows the duet; long, loud, weary yawning
of all the company in chorus. This amusement over, Tom asks Dick for
"backer," and Dick denies that he has got any, and Tom tells him he
lies, and Sam strikes in and says, "No, he doan't," and Jem tells Sam he
lies, and Bill tells him that if he was Sam he would punch Jem's head,
and Bob, apparently snuffing the battle afar off, and not liking the
scent of it, shouts suddenly a pacific "good night" in the distance. The
farewell salutation seems to quiet the gathering storm. They all roar
responsive to the good night of Bob. Next, a song in chorus from Bob's
five friends. Outraged by this time beyond all endurance, I spring out
of bed and seize the water-jug. I pause before I empty the water on the
heads of the assembly beneath; I pause, and hear--O! most melodious,
most welcome of sounds!--the sudden fall of rain. The merciful sky has
anticipated me; the "clerk of the weather" has been struck by my idea of
dispersing the Nag's Head Night Club by water. By the time I have put
down the jug and got back to bed, silence--primeval silence, the first,
the foremost of all earthly influences--falls sweetly over our tavern at
last.
That night, before sinking wearily to rest, I have once more the
satisfaction of agreeing with my wife. Dear and admirable woman! she
proposes to leave this secluded village the first thing to-morrow
morning. Never did I share her opinion more cordially than I share it
now. Instead of keeping myself composed, I have been living in a region
of perpetual disturbance; and, as for doing nothing, my mind has been so
agitated and perturbed that I have not even had time to think about it.
We will go, love--as you so sensibly suggest--we will go the first thing
in the morning to any place you like, so long as it is large enough to
swallow up small sounds. Where, over all the surface of this noisy
earth, the blessing of tranquility may be found, I know not; but this I
do know: a secluded English village is the very last place towards which
any man should think of turning his steps, if the main object of his
walk through life is to discover quiet.
(_By permission of the Author._)
GEMINI AND VIRGO.
C. S. CALVERLEY.
Some vast amount of years ago,
Ere all my youth had vanish'd from me,
A boy it was my lot to know,
Whom his familiar friends called Tommy.
I love to gaze upon a child;
A young bud bursting into blossom;
Artless, as Eve yet unbeguiled,
And agile as a young opossum:
And such was he. A calm-brow'd lad,
Yet mad, at moments, as a hatter:
Why hatters as a race are mad
I never knew, nor does it matter.
He was what nurses call a "limb;"
One of those small misguided creatures
Who, tho' their intellects are dim,
Are one too many for their teachers:
And, if you asked of him to say
What twice 10 was, or 3 times 7,
He'd glance (in quite a placid way)
From heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And smile, and look politely round,
To catch a casual suggestion;
But make no effort to propound
Any solution of the question.
And not so much esteemed was he
Of the authorities: and therefore
He fraternized by chance with me,
Needing a somebody to care for:
And three fair summers did we twain
Live (as they say) and love together;
And bore by turns the wholesome cane
Till our young skins became as leather:
And carved our names on every desk,
And tore our clothes, and inked our collars;
And looked unique and picturesque,
But not, it may be, model scholars.
We did much as we chose to do;
We'd never heard of Mrs. Grundy;
All the theology we knew
Was that we mighn't play on Sunday;
And all the general truths, that cakes
Were to be bought at half a penny,
And that excruciating aches
Resulted if we ate too many:
And seeing ignorance is bliss,
And wisdom consequently folly,
The obvious result is this--
That our two lives were very jolly.
At last the separation came,
Real love, at that time, was the fashion;
And by a horrid chance, the same
Young thing was, to us both, a passion.
Old Poser snorted like a horse:
His feet were large, his hands were pimply,
His manner, when excited, coarse:--
But Miss P. was an angel simply.
She was a blushing, gushing thing;
All--more than all--my fancy painted;
Once--when she helped me to a wing
Of goose--I thought I should have fainted.
The people said that she was blue:
But I was green, and loved her dearly.
She was approaching thirty-two;
And I was then eleven, nearly.
I did not love as others do;
(None ever did that I've heard tell of);
My passion was a byword through
The town she was, of course, the belle of:
Oh sweet--as to the toilworn man
The far-off sound of rippling river;
As to cadets in Hindostan
The fleeting remnant of their liver--
To me was ANNA; dear as gold
That fills the miser's sunless coffers;
As to the spinster, growing old,
The thought--the dream--that she had offers.
I'd sent her little gifts of fruit;
I'd written lines to her as Venus;
I'd sworn unflinchingly to shoot
The man who dared to come between us:
And it was you, my Thomas you,
The friend in whom my soul confided,
Who dared to gaze on--to do,
I may say, much the same as I did.
One night I saw him squeeze her hand;
There was no doubt about the matter;
I said he must resign, or stand
My vengeance--and he chose the latter.
We met, we "planted" blows on blows:
We fought as long as we were able:
My rival had a bottle-nose,
And both my speaking eyes were sable.
When the school-bell cut short our strife,
Miss P. gave both of us a plaister;
And in a week became the wife
Of Horace Nibbs, the writing-master.
* * * * *
I loved her then--I'd love her still,
Only one must not love Another's:
But thou and I, my Tommy, will,
When we again meet, meet as brothers.
It may be that in age one seeks
Peace only: that the blood is brisker
In boys' veins, than in theirs whose cheeks
Are partially obscured by whisker;
Or that the growing ages steal
The memories of past wrongs from us.
But this is certain--that I feel
Most friendly unto thee, oh Thomas!
And whereso'er we meet again,
On this or that side the equator,
If I've not turned teetotaller then,
And have wherewith to pay the waiter,
To thee I'll drain the modest cup,
Ignite with thee the mild Havannah;
And we will waft, while liquoring up,
Forgiveness to the heartless ANNA.
(_By permission of_ MRS. CALVERLEY.)
KING BIBBS.
JAMES ALBERY.
"It's all through that Liberal Government."
These were the words uttered by King Bibbs as he stood in the rain
without an umbrella; and it was not the first time he had uttered them.
Think of it! There stood King Bibbs in the rain without an umbrella.
Once upon a time King Bibbs had a beautiful palace; but there came a
Liberal Government, and they promised the nation economy.
Their policy was to save and censure, to cut down everything they did
pay for, and to cut up everything they did not.
They contracted that every soldier in the army should have one nail less
in his boots, and they blamed the last Government for not having
soldiers who required no boots at all. They arranged that the royal
charwomen should clean the floors of the Government offices with soap
without sand or with sand without soap; and they censured the late
Government for having floors that wanted any cleaning. They cut down the
amount and the quality of the cheese required for the royal mousetraps,
and they pointed out to a plundered people that the last Government were
entirely to blame for there being any mice. They voted that the royal
weather-cock on the national stable should be re-gilt only once in six
years, instead of once in five, and they made it clear, at least to
their own party, that it was entirely owing to the tactics of the late
Government that weather-cocks were required at all; and it must be
admitted that upon this point the late Government were a little bit with
them.
It was a _fine time_, and the nation that King Bibbs reigned over might
well feel proud.
They did.
But you know that if you keep the stove going by what you can spare from
your household furniture, the time will come when you will be a little
at a loss for firewood.
What would you do? You cannot part with the comfortable chair you sit
in, and your friends must have their little places; so very likely, if
you had no respect for time-honoured things, you would break up some
grand old cabinet that your forefathers loved, but that to you appeared
useless, and so you'd keep the stove going. And as long as the fire
lasted, you and your friends would be warm and snug in your places.
That's just what our Government did--not ours, of course--but the one I
am talking of.
They turned their eyes on the king's palace, and they said the nation
cannot be saddled with this expense.
They had already saved the nation about a farthing per head per annum,
and this new sacrifice would save about an eighth as much more. But you
must understand that every man looked at the amount saved in the lump;
he never thought of the farthing that was put in his pocket in return
for the time he wasted in attending public meetings, but had a vague
idea that the golden thousands talked of were in some remote way his
rescued property.
What a splendid show of justice, wasn't it now, when bills were
plastered all over King Bibbs's palace, to say those desirable premises
would be sold by public auction on such a date?
It touched the people to the core; they gave up half a day to flock
round the palace, and read the bills; they lost another half-day's work
to see the palace sold; they spent a day's wages to get drunk to
celebrate this crowning stroke of economy, and in their wild delight at
the justice done them, they quite forgot to bank the one-eighth of a
farthing which the generous Government had put into their pockets.
How common it is to say, we go from bad to worse, and on that principle
I suppose it was that this Liberal Government went from good to better.
If it was good that the poor king should give up his palace and live
like a private gentleman, would it not be better that he should go a
grade lower, and live like a retired tradesman?
The odd fact was, that the more they stripped poor King Bibbs of the
sacred paraphernalia that once adorned his life, the more useless he
appeared in the eyes of his subjects; and he was cut down from a palace
to a mansion, and from a mansion to a villa; from having one hundred
horses to ten; and from ten to none. And so it was that King Bibbs came
to be walking in the rain without an umbrella; and so it was, as he
reflected on the past he exclaimed,--
"It's all through that Liberal Government."
His most gracious Majesty had been to the reading-rooms to look at the
morning papers, and see what his Government were doing. It may seem
wrong that he should thus waste a penny; but remember, it was his duty
to see how his people were getting on. As he left the rooms there was a
quiet, sad smile on the king's face.
"Ah," he muttered, "my prime minister is very clever, but he is all
ambition and vanity; he tries to sail the ship with nothing but flags. I
do wish he would take in the bunting and put out some canvas, so that we
might have a little real progress instead of so much show."
At this time he was just turning the corner of Daisy Road on his way
home, when suddenly it began to rain.
"Bless me," said his Majesty, "it's going to pour, and I've forgotten my
umbrella, I shall have my crown quite spoilt. Dear! dear! dear!"
The rain fell faster, and the poor king had yet two miles to go. His
ermine was getting quite damp.
"What am I to do?" he exclaimed. "I shall be wet through. Dear! dear! I
shall be obliged to take a cab."
The king looked along the road, and saw one coming. "Hi! hi!" shouted
his most gracious Majesty, and he waved his sceptre till it almost flew
out of his hand.
"Going home to change," said the cabman, with a careless air.
"Don't you know I'm the king?" said poor Bibbs.
"Oh, yes, you're know'd well enough," sneered the cabman; "give my love
to the old woman."
"There, there!" said the poor monarch, appealing plaintively to the
empty street; "there, that comes of having a Liberal Government; as soon
as I get a change I'll be a despot."
You see the true royal spirit in him was not quite crushed.
The rain fell faster, and King Bibbs took off his crown and was looking
at the great wet spots on the red cotton velvet when a loud voice
exclaimed:--"Does your most gracious Majesty want a cab?"
The king was about to enter the cab without a word, when a ragged boy
officiously stood by the wheel.
"What do you want?" said the boy's sovereign.
"To keep your most gracious Majesty's royal robe from touching the
wheel," said the boy.
"I can do it myself," said the king, in quite an angry tone.