On a murky morning in November, wind north-east, a poor old woman
with a wooden leg was seen struggling against the fitful gusts of the
bitter breeze, along a stony zigzag road, full of deep and irregular
cart-ruts. Her ragged petticoat was blue, and so was her wretched
nose. A stick was in her left hand, which assisted her to dig and
hobble her way along; and in her other hand, supported also beneath
her withered arm, was a large rusty iron sieve. Dust and fine ashes
filled up all the wrinkles in her face; and of these there were a
prodigious number, for she was eighty-three years old. Her name was
Peg Dotting.
About a quarter of a mile distant, having a long ditch and a
broken-down fence as a foreground, there rose against the muddled-gray
sky, a huge Dust-heap of a dirty black color, being, in fact, one
of those immense mounds of cinders, ashes, and other emptyings
from dust-holes and bins, which have conferred celebrity on certain
suburban neighborhoods of a great city. Toward this dusky mountain old
Peg Dotting was now making her way.
Advancing toward the Dust-heap by an opposite path, very narrow, and
just reclaimed from the mud by a thick layer of freshly-broken flints,
there came at the same time Gaffer Doubleyear, with his bone-bag slung
over his shoulder. The rags of his coat fluttered in the east-wind,
which also whistled keenly round his almost rimless hat, and troubled
his one eye. The other eye, having met with an accident last week, he
had covered neatly with an oyster-shell, which was kept in its place
by a string at each side, fastened through a hole. He used no staff
to help him along, though his body was nearly bent double, so that his
face was constantly turned to the earth, like that of a four-footed
creature. He was ninety-seven years of age. As these two patriarchal
laborers approached the great Dust-heap, a discordant voice hallooed
to them from the top of a broken wall. It was meant as a greeting of
the morning, and proceeded from little Jem Clinker, a poor deformed
lad, whose back had been broken when a child. His nose and chin were
much too large for the rest of his face, and he had lost nearly
all his teeth from premature decay. But he had an eye gleaming with
intelligence and life, and an expression at once patient and hopeful.
He had balanced his misshapen frame on the top of the old wall, over
which one shriveled leg dangled, as if by the weight of a hob-nailed
boot that covered a foot large enough for a plowman.
In addition to his first morning's salutation of his two aged friends,
he now shouted out in a tone of triumph and self-gratulation, in which
he felt assured of their sympathy--
"Two white skins, and a tor'shell-un!"
It may be requisite to state that little Jem Clinker belonged to the
dead-cat department of the Dust-heap, and now announced that a prize
of three skins, in superior condition. had rewarded him for being
first in the field.
He was enjoying a seat on the wall, in order to recover himself from
the excitement of his good fortune.
At the base of the great Dust-heap the two old people now met their
young friend--a sort of great-grandson by mutual adoption--and they
at once joined the party who had by this time assembled as usual, and
were already busy at their several occupations.
But besides all these, another individual, belonging to a very
different class, formed a part of the scene, though appearing only on
its outskirts. A canal ran along at the rear of the Dust-heap, and on
the banks of its opposite side slowly wandered by--with hands clasped
and hanging down in front of him, and eyes bent vacantly upon his
hands--the forlorn figure of a man, in a very shabby great-coat, which
had evidently once belonged to one in the position of a gentleman. And
to a gentleman it still belonged--but in _what_ a position! A scholar,
a man of wit, of high sentiment, of refinement, and a good fortune
withal--now by a sudden turn of law bereft of the last only, and
finding that none of the rest, for which (having his fortune) he
had been so much admired, enabled him to gain a livelihood. His
title-deeds had been lost or stolen, and so he was bereft of
everything he possessed. He had talents, and such as would have been
profitably available had he known how to use them for his new purpose;
but he did not; he was misdirected; he made fruitless efforts in his
want of experience; and he was now starving. As he passed the great
Dust-heap, he gave one vague, melancholy gaze that way, and then
looked wistfully into the canal. And he continued to look into the
canal as he slowly moved along, till he was out of sight.
A Dust-heap of this kind is often worth thousands of pounds. The
present one was very large and very valuable. It was in fact a large
hill, and being in the vicinity of small suburb cottages, it rose
above them like a great black mountain. Thistles, groundsel, and rank
grass grew in knots on small parts which had remained for a long time
undisturbed; crows often alighted on its top, and seemed to put on
their spectacles and become very busy and serious; flocks of sparrows
often made predatory descents upon it; an old goose and gander might
sometimes he seen following each other up its side, nearly midway;
pigs rooted around its base,--and now and then, one bolder than the
rest would venture some way up, attracted by the mixed odors of some
hidden marrow-bone enveloped in a decayed cabbage-leaf--a rare event,
both of these articles being unusual oversights of the Searchers
below.
The principal ingredient of all these Dust-heaps is fine cinders
and ashes; but as they are accumulated from the contents of all the
dust-holes and bins of the vicinity, and as many more as possible,
the fresh arrivals in their original state present very heterogeneous
materials. We cannot better describe them than by presenting a brief
sketch of the different departments of the Searchers and Sorters,
who are assembled below to busy themselves upon the mass of original
matters which are shot out from the carts of the dustmen.
The bits of coal, the pretty numerous results of accident and
servants' carelessness, are picked out, to be sold forthwith; the
largest and best of the cinders are also selected, by another party,
who sell them to laundresses, or to braziers (for whose purposes coke
would do as well;) and the next sort of cinders, called the _breeze_,
because it is left after the wind has blown the finer cinders through
an upright sieve, is sold to the brick-makers.
Two other departments, called the "soft-ware" and the "hard-ware,"
are very important. The former includes all vegetable and animal
matters--everything that will decompose. These are selected and bagged
at once, and carried off as soon as possible, to be sold as manure
for plowed land, wheat, barley, &c. Under this head, also, the dead
cats are comprised. They are generally the perquisites of the women
searchers. Dealers come to the wharf, or dust-field, every evening;
they give sixpence for a white cat, fourpence for a colored cat, and
for a black one according to her quality. The "hard-ware" includes all
broken pottery pans, crockery, earthenware, oyster-shells, &c., which
are sold to make new roads.
The bones are selected with care, and sold to the soap-boiler. He
boils out the fat and marrow first, for special use, and the bones are
then crushed and sold for manure.
Of rags, the woollen rags are bagged and sent off for hop-manure; the
white linen rags are washed, and sold to make paper, &c.
The "tin things" are collected and put into an oven with a grating at
the bottom, so that the solder which unites the parts melts, and runs
through into a receiver. This is sold separately; the detached pieces
of tin are then sold to be melted up with old iron, &c.
Bits of old brass, lead, &c., are sold to be molted up separately, or
in the mixture of ores.
All broken glass vessels, as cruets, mustard-pots, tumblers,
wine-glasses, bottles, &c., are sold to the old-glass shops.
As for any articles of jewelry, silver spoons, forks, thimbles, or
other plate and valuables, they are pocketed off-hand by the first
finder. Coins of gold and silver are often found, and many "coppers."
Meantime, everybody is hard at work near the base of the great
Dust-heap. A certain number of cart-loads having been raked and
searched for all the different things just described, the whole of it
now undergoes the process of sifting. The men throw up the stuff, and
the women sift it.
"When I was a young girl," said Peg Dotting--
"That's a long while ago, Peggy," interrupted one of the sifters: but
Peg did not hear her.
"When I was quite a young thing," continued she, addressing old John
Doubleyear, who threw up the dust into her sieve, "it was the fashion
to wear pink roses in the shoes, as bright as that morsel of ribbon
Sally has just picked out of the dust; yes, and sometimes in the
hair, too, on one side of the head, to set off the white powder and
salve-stuff. I never wore one of these head-dresses myself--don't
throw up the dust so high, John--but I lived only a few doors lower
down from those as did. Don't throw up the dust so high, I tell
'ee--the wind takes it into my face."
"Ah! There! What's that?" suddenly exclaimed little Jem, running as
fast as his poor withered legs would allow him toward a fresh heap,
which had just been shot down on the wharf from a dustman's cart. He
made a dive and a search--then another--then one deeper still. "I'm
sure I saw it!" cried he, and again made a dash with both hands into a
fresh place, and began to distribute the ashes and dust and rubbish on
every side, to the great merriment of all the rest.
"What did you see, Jemmy?" asked old Doubleyear, in a compassionate
tone.
"Oh, I don't know," said the boy, "only it was like a bit of something
made of real gold!"
A fresh burst of laughter from the company assembled followed this
somewhat vague declaration, to which the dustmen added one or two
elegant epithets, expressive of their contempt of the notion that they
could have overlooked a bit of anything valuable in the process of
emptying sundry dust-holes, and carting them away.
"Ah," said one of the sifters, "poor Jem's always a-fancying something
or other good but it never comes."
"Didn't I find three cats this morning?" cried Jem, "two on 'em white
'uns! How you go on!"
"I meant something quite different from the like o' that," said the
other; "I was a-thinking of the rare sights all you three there have
had, one time and another."
The wind having changed, and the day become bright, the party at work
all seemed disposed to be more merry than usual. The foregoing remark
excited the curiosity of several of the sifters, who had recently
joined the "company": the parties alluded to were requested to favor
them with the recital; and though the request was made with only a
half-concealed irony, still it was all in good-natured pleasantry, and
was immediately complied with. Old Doubleyear spoke first:
"I had a bad night of it with the rats some years ago--they runn'd
all over the floor, and over the bed, and one on 'em come'd and guv a
squeak close into my ear--so I couldn't sleep comfortable. I wouldn't
ha' minded a trifle of it, but this was too much of a good thing.
So I got up before sunrise, and went out for a walk; and thinking I
might as well be near our work-place, I slowly come'd down this way!
I worked in a brick-field at that time, near the canal yonder. The sun
was just a rising up behind the Dust-heap as I got in sight of it,
and soon it rose above, and was very bright; and though I had two eyes
then, I was obligated to shut them both. When I opened them again, the
sun was higher up; but in his haste to get over the Dust-heap, he had
dropped something. You may laugh--I say he dropped something. Well
I can't say what it was, in course--a bit of his-self, I suppose.
It was just like him--a bit on him, I mean--quite as bright--just
the same--only not so big. And not up in the sky, but a-lying and
sparkling all on fire upon the Dust-heap. Thinks I--I was a younger
man then by some years than I am now--I'll go and have a nearer look.
Though you be a bit o' the sun, maybe you won't hurt a poor man. So
I walked toward the Dust-heap, and up I went, keeping the piece of
sparkling fire in sight all the while. But before I got up to it, the
sun went behind a cloud--and as he went out--like, so the young 'un
he had dropped, went out arter him. And I had to climb up the heap for
nothing, though I had marked the place vere it lay very percizely. But
there was no signs at all on him, and no morsel left of the light as
had been there. I searched all about; but found nothing 'cept a bit 'o
broken glass as had got stuck in the heel of an old shoe. And that's
my story. But if ever a man saw anything at all, I saw a bit o' the
sun; and I thank God for it. It was a blessed sight for a poor ragged
old man of threescore and ten, which was my age at that time."
"Now, Peggy!" cried several voices, "tell us what you saw. Peg saw a
bit o' the moon."
"No," said Mrs. Dotting, rather indignantly; "I'm no moon-raker. Not
a sign of the moon was there, nor a spark of a star the time I speak
on."
"Well--go on, Peggy--go on."
"I don't know as I will," said Peggy.
But being pacified by a few good-tempered, though somewhat humorous,
compliments, she thus favored them with her little adventure:
"There was no moon, or stars, or comet, in the 'versal heavens, nor
lamp nor lantern along the road, when I walked home one winter's night
from the cottage of Widow Pin, where I had been to tea with her and
Mrs. Dry, as lived in the almshouses. They wanted Davy, the son of
Bill Davy the milkman, to see me home with the lantern, but I wouldn't
let him, 'cause of his sore throat. Throat!--no it wasn't his throat
as was rare sore--it was--no, it wasn't--yes, it was--it was his toe
as was sore. His big toe. A nail out of his boot had got into it. I
_told_ him he'd be sure to have a bad toe, if he didn't go to church
more regular, but he wouldn't listen; and so my words come'd true.
But, as I was a-saying, I wouldn't let him by reason of his sore
throat--toe, I mean--and as I went along, the night seemed to grow
darker and darker. A straight road, though, and I was so used to it by
day-time, it didn't matter for the darkness. Hows'ever, when I come'd
near the bottom of the Dust-heap as I had to pass, the great dark
heap was so 'zackly the same as the night, you couldn't tell one
from t'other. So, thinks I to myself--_what_ was I thinking of at
this moment?--for the life o' me I can't call it to mind; but that's
neither here nor there, only for this--it was a something that led me
to remember the story of how the devil goes about like a roaring lion.
And while I was a-hoping he might not he out a-roaring that night,
what should I see rise out of one side of the Dust-heap, but a
beautiful shining star, of a violet color. I stood as still, as
stock-still as any I don't-know-what! There it lay, as beautiful as
a new-born babe, all a-shining in the dust! By degrees I got courage
to go a little nearer--and then a little nearer still--for, says I
to myself, I'm a sinful woman, I know, but I have repented, and do
repent constantly of all the sins of my youth and the backslidings
of my age--which have been numerous; and once I had a very heavy
backsliding--but that's neither here nor there. So, as I was a-saying,
having collected all my sinfulness of life, and humbleness before
Heaven, into a goodish bit of courage, forward I steps--a little
furder--and a leetle furder more--_un_-til I come'd just up to the
beautiful shining star lying upon the dust. Well, it was a long time I
stood a-looking down at it, before I ventured to do what I arterwards
did. But at last I did stoop down with both hands slowly--in case
it might burn, or bite--and gathering up a good scoop of ashes as
my hands went along. I took it up, and began a-carrying it home, all
shining before me, and with a soft blue mist rising up round about it.
Heaven forgive me! I was punished for meddling with what Providence
had sent for some better purpose than to be carried borne by an old
woman like me, whom it had pleased Heaven to afflict with the loss
of one leg, and the pain, ixpinse, and inconvenience of a wooden one.
Well, I _was_ punished; covetousness had its reward; for, presently,
the violet light got very pale, and then went out; and when I reached
home, still holding in both hands all I had gathered up, and when I
took it to the candle, it had burned into the red shell of a lobsky's
head, and its two black eyes poked up at me with a long stare--and I
may say, a strong smell, too--enough to knock a poor body known."
Great applause, and no little laughter, followed the conclusion of old
Peggy's story, but she did not join in the merriment. She said it was
all very well for young folks to laugh, but at her age she had enough
to do to pray; and she had never said so many prayers, nor with so
much fervency, as she had done since she received the blessed sight
of the blue star on the Dust-heap, and the chastising rod of the
lobster's head at home.
Little Jem's turn now came: the poor lad was, however, so excited by
the recollection of what his companions called "Jem's Ghost," that he
was unable to describe it in any coherent language. To his imagination
it had been a lovely vision,--the one "bright consummate flower" of
his life, which he treasured up as the most sacred image in his heart.
He endeavored, in wild and hasty words, to set forth, how that he had
been bred a chimney-sweep; that one Sunday afternoon he had left a set
of companions, most on 'em sweeps, who were all playing at marbles in
the church-yard, and he had wandered to the Dust-heap, where he had
fallen asleep; that he was awoke by a sweet voice in the air, which
said something about some one having lost her way!--that he, being now
wide awake, looked up, and saw with his own eyes a young Angel, with
fair hair and rosy cheeks, and large white wings at her shoulders,
floating about like bright clouds, rise out of the dust! She had on
a garment of shining crimson, which changed as he looked upon her
to shining gold. She then exclaimed, with a joyful smile, "I see the
right way!" and the next moment the Angel was gone!
As the sun was just now very bright and warm for the time of year,
and shining full upon the Dust-heap in its setting, one of the men
endeavored to raise a laugh at the deformed lad, by asking him if he
didn't expect to see just such another angel at this minute, who had
lost her way in the field on the other side of the heap; but his jest
failed. The earnestness and devout emotion of the boy to the vision of
reality which his imagination, aided by the hues of sunset, had thus
exalted, were too much for the gross spirit of banter, and the speaker
shrunk back into his dust-shovel, and affected to be very assiduous in
his work.
Before the day's work was ended, however, little Jem again had a
glimpse of the prize which had escaped him on the previous occasion.
He instantly darted, hands and head foremost, into the mass of cinders
and rubbish, and brought up a black mass of half-burnt parchment,
entwined with vegetable refuse, from which he speedily disengaged an
oval frame of gold, containing a miniature, still protected by its
glass, but half covered with mildew from the damp. He was in ecstacies
at the prize. Even the white catskins paled before it. In all
probability some of the men would have taken it from him, "to try
and find the owner," but for the presence and interference of his
friends Peg Dotting and old Doubleyear, whose great age, even among
the present company, gave them a certain position of respect and
consideration. So all the rest now went their way, leaving the three
to examine and speculate on the prize.
These Dust-heaps are a wonderful compound of things. A banker's cheque
for a considerable sum was found in one of them. It was on Merries &
Farquhar, in 1847. But bankers' cheques, or gold and silver articles,
are the least valuable of their ingredients. Among other things, a
variety of useful chemicals are extracted. Their chief value, however,
is for the making of bricks. The fine cinder-dust and ashes are used
in the clay of the bricks, both for the red and gray stacks. Ashes
are also used as fuel between the layers of the clump of bricks, which
could not be burned in that position without them. The ashes burn
away, and keep the bricks open. Enormous quantities are used. In
the brickfields at Uxbridge, near the Drayton Station, one of the
brickmakers alone will frequently contract for fifteen or sixteen
thousand chaldrons of this cinder-dust, in one order. Fine coke, or
coke-dust, affects the market at times as a rival; but fine coal, or
coal-dust, never, because it would spoil the bricks.
As one of the heroes of our tale had been originally--before his
promotion--a chimney-sweeper, it may be only appropriate to offer a
passing word on the genial subject of soot. Without speculating on
its origin and parentage, whether derived from the cooking of a
Christmas-dinner, or the production of the beautiful colors and odors
of exotic plants in a conservatory, it can briefly be shown to possess
many qualities both useful and ornamental.
When soot is first collected, it is called "rough soot", which,
being sifted, is then called "fine soot", and is sold to farmers for
manuring and preserving wheat and turnips. This is more especially
used in Herefordshire, Bedfordshire, Essex, &c. It is rather a costly
article, being fivepence per bushel. One contractor sells annually as
much as three thousand bushels; and he gives it as his opinion, that
there must be at least one hundred and fifty times this quantity (four
hundred and fifty thousand bushels per annum) sold in London. Farmer
Smutwise, of Bradford, distinctly asserts that the price of the soot
he uses on his land is returned to him in the straw, with improvement
also to the grain. And we believe him. Lime is used to dilute soot
when employed as a manure. Using it pure will keep off snails, slugs,
and caterpillars from peas and various other vegetables, as also from
dahlias just shooting up, and other flowers; but we regret to add that
we have sometimes known it kill or burn up the things it was intended
to preserve from unlawful eating. In short, it is by no means so
safe to use for any purpose of garden manure, as fine cinders and
wood-ashes, which are good for almost any kind of produce, whether
turnips or roses. Indeed, we should like to have one fourth or fifth
part of our garden-beds composed of excellent stuff of this kind.
From all that has been said, it will have become very intelligible
why these Dust-heaps are so valuable. Their worth, however, varies
not only with their magnitude, (the quality of all of them is much
the same,) but with the demand. About the year 1820, the Marylebone
Dust-heap produced between four thousand and five thousand pounds. In
1832, St. George's paid Mr. Stapleton five hundred pounds a year, not
to leave the Heap standing, but to carry it away. Of course he was
only too glad to be paid highly for selling his Dust.
But to return. The three friends having settled to their satisfaction
the amount of money they should probably obtain by the sale of the
golden miniature-frame, and finished the castles which they had built
with it in the air, the frame was again infolded in the sound part of
the parchment, the rags and rottenness of the law were cast away, and
up they rose to bend their steps homeward to the little hovel where
Peggy lived, she having invited the others to tea, that they might
talk yet more fully over the wonderful good luck that had befallen
them.
"Why, if there isn't a man's head in the canal!" suddenly cried little
Jem. "Looky there!--isn't that a man's head?--Yes; it's a drownded
man!"
"A drownded man, as I live!" ejaculated old Doubleyear.
"Let's get him out, and see!" cried Peggy. "Perhaps the poor soul's
not quite gone."
Little Jem scuttled off to the edge of the canal, followed by the two
old people. As soon as the body had floated nearer, Jem got down into
the water, and stood breast-high, vainly measuring his distance, with
one arm out, to see if he could reach some part of the body as it was
passing. As the attempt was evidently without a chance, old Doubleyear
Managed to get down into the water behind aim, and holding him by one
hand, the boy was thus enabled to make a plunge forward as the body
was floating by. He succeeded in reaching it, but the jerk was too
much for his aged companion, who was pulled forward into the canal. A
loud cry burst from both of them, which was yet more loudly echoed by
Peggy on the bank. Doubleyear and the boy were now struggling almost
in the middle of the canal, with the body of the man twirling about
between them. They would inevitably have been drowned, had not old
Peggy caught up a long dust-rake that was close at hand--scrambled
down up to her knees in the canal--clawed hold of the struggling group
with the teeth of the rake, and fairly brought the whole to land. Jem
was first up the bank, and helped up his two heroic companions; after
which, with no small difficulty, they contrived to haul the body
of the stranger out of the water. Jem at once recognized in him the
forlorn figure of the man who had passed by in the morning, looking so
sadly into the canal as he walked along.
It is a fact well known to those who work in the vicinity of these
great Dust-heaps, that when the ashes have been warmed by the sun,
cats and kittens that have been taken out of the canal and buried a
few inches beneath the surface, have usually revived; and the same has
often occurred in the case of men. Accordingly, the three, without a
moment's hesitation, dragged the body along to the Dust-heap, where
they made a deep trench, in which they placed it, covering it all over
up to the neck.
"There now," ejaculated Peggy, sitting down with a long puff to
recover her breath, "he'll lie very comfortable, whether or no."
"Couldn't lie better," said old Doubleyear, "even if he knew it."
The three now seated themselves close by, to await the result.
"I thought I'd a lost him," said Jem, "and myself too; and when I
pulled Daddy in arter me, I guv us all three up for this world."
"Yes," said Doubleyear, "it must have gone queer with us if Peggy had
not come in with the rake. How d'yee feel, old girl? for you've had
a narrow escape too. I wonder we were not too heavy for you, and so
pulled you in to go with us."
"The Lord be praised!" fervently ejaculated Peggy, pointing toward
the pallid face that lay surrounded with ashes. A convulsive twitching
passed over the features, the lips trembled, the ashes over the breast
heaved, and a low moaning sound, which might have come from the bottom
of the canal, was heard. Again the moaning sound, and then the eyes
opened, but closed almost immediately.
"Poor dear soul," whispered Peggy, "how he suffers in surviving. Lift
him up a little. Softly. Don't be afeard. We're only your good angels,
like--only poor cinder-sifters--don'tee be afeard."
By various kindly attentions and maneuvers such as these poor people
had been accustomed to practice on those who were taken out of the
canal, the unfortunate gentleman was gradually brought to his senses.
He gazed about him, as well he might--now looking in the anxious,
though begrimed, faces of the three strange objects, all in their
"weeds" and dust--and then up at the huge Dust-heap, over which the
moon was now slowly rising.
"Land of quiet Death!" murmured he, faintly, "or land of Life, as dark
and still--I have passed from one into the other; but which of ye I am
now in, seems doubtful to my senses."
"Here we are, poor gentleman," cried Peggy, "here we are, all friends
about you. How did'ee tumble into the canal?"
"The Earth, then, once more!" said the stranger, with a deep sigh. "I
know where I am, now. I remember this great dark hill of ashes--like
Death's kingdom, full of all sorts of strange things, and put to many
uses."
"Where do you live?" asked old Doubleyear. "Shall we try and take you
home, sir?"
The stranger shook his head mournfully. All this time, little Jem had
been assiduously employed in rubbing his feet and then big hands; in
doing which, the piece of dirty parchment, with the miniature-frame,
dropped out of his breast-pocket. A good thought instantly struck
Peggy.
"Run, Jemmy dear--run with that golden thing to Mr. Spikechin, the
pawnbroker's--get something upon it directly, and buy some nice
brandy--and some Godfrey's cordial--and a blanket, Jemmy--and call a
coach, and get up outside on it, and make the coachee drive back here
as fast as you can."
But before Jemmy could attend to this, Mr. Waterhouse, the stranger
whose life they had preserved, raised himself on one elbow, and
extended his hand to the miniature-frame. Directly he looked at it he
raised himself higher up--turned it about once or twice--then caught
up the piece of parchment, and uttering an ejaculation which no
one could have distinguished either as of joy or of pain, sank back
fainting.
In brief, this parchment was a portion of the title-deeds he had lost;
and though it did not prove sufficient to enable him to recover his
fortune, it brought his opponent to a composition, which gave him an
annuity for life. Small as this was, he determined that these poor
people, who had so generously saved his life at the risk of their
own, should be sharers in it. Finding that what they most desired was
to have a cottage in the neighborhood of the Dust-heap, built large
enough for all three to live together, and keep a cow, Mr. Waterhouse
paid a visit to Manchester Square, where the owner of the property
resided. He told his story, as far as was needful, and proposed to
purchase the field in question.
The great Dust-Contractor was much amused, and his daughter--a very
accomplished young lady--was extremely interested. So the matter was
speedily arranged to the satisfaction and pleasure of all parties. The
acquaintance, however, did not end here. Mr. Waterhouse renewed his
visits very frequently, and finally made proposals for the young
lady's hand, she having already expressed her hopes of a propitious
answer from her father.
"Well, Sir," said the latter, "you wish to marry my daughter, and she
wishes to marry you. You are a gentleman and a scholar, but you have
no money. My daughter is what you see, and she has no money. But I
have; and therefore, as she likes you and I like you, I'll make you
both an offer. I will give my daughter twenty thousand pounds,--or you
shall have the Dust-heap. Choose!"
Mr. Waterhouse was puzzled and amused, and referred the matter
entirely to the young lady. But she was for having the money, and no
trouble. She said the Dust-heap might be worth much, but they did not
understand the business.
"Very well," said her father, laughing, "then, there's the money."
This was the identical Dust-heap, as we know from authentic
information, which was subsequently sold for forty thousand pounds,
and was exported to Russia to rebuild Moscow.
* * * * *
[FROM HOUSEHOLD WORDS.]