“And is it thee, my Jobby lad—
And safe return’d frae war?
Thou’rt dearer to thy mother’s heart
Sin’ thou hast been sae far.
But tell me aw that’s happen’d thee,
The neet is wearing fast;
There’s nought I like sae weel to hear,
As dangers that are past.”
_The Sailor Lad’s Return._
WE must now return to our poor lost muttons, “Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys,
their son and daughter.”
The journey of Master Jobby to Wimbledon and back was sufficiently long
to try the patience of poor Mrs. Cursty. Though the youth was fleet of
foot, the “busses” on the road were unluckily on the most amicable
terms; and being unopposed, the “CELERITIES” drawled along at little
better than hearse-pace, as if they belonged to the “Mors omnibus”
species, and had no great inclination to “look alive.”
Mrs. Sandboys, after having been dragged by the authorities from the
presence of the magistrate, at the commencement of an oration, in which
she was about to tell his Worship a “bit of her mind,” and torn in the
outer office from the coat-tails of her beloved Cursty, passed the
time—when her paroxysm of conjugal sympathy had in a measure subsided—by
inquiring of such of the officers as she could seduce into conversation,
what wretched fate awaited the ill-starred Christopher, in the event of
Jobby not arriving in time with the expected witnesses to character.
When the lady was informed, to her indescribable horror, that the police
van, under such circumstances, would remove Mr. Sandboys that evening to
the nearest prison, she drew a vivid but melancholy picture in ideal
black-lead upon imaginary paper, of the partner of her bosom ushered
across the flagstones, between files of giggling unsympathetic boys, to
become an inside passenger in that dismal-looking, mulberry-coloured
’artsease, which runs daily between the Police Offices and the Houses of
Correction—“nothing all the way.” And when Mrs. Cursty learnt, moreover,
in answer to her numerous queries as to the treatment of the inmates of
the Metropolitan Prisons, that there was a special costume and
_coiffure_ set aside for such persons, and to which every one, on
conviction, was made to conform, she commenced executing a series of
mental cartoons in unsubstantial crayons, portraying her lord and master
with his hair cropped as short as the plush of a footman’s
bree—ahem!—that is to say, gentle reader, trouserlets, picturing him
done up in pepper and salt, and looking like a representation in Scotch
granite of one of the very lowest of the “lower orders.” Then, as the
scenes of her visionary diorama glided dreamily along, she beheld the
phantasm of the wretched man, whom she had taken for better or worse, at
one moment busily engaged in the arduous process of mounting a spectral
treadmill, or “everlasting staircase,” and now reduced to the not
particularly honourable nor lively occupation of picking phantom
oakum—for as the authorities described the manners and customs of prison
life to Mrs. Cursty, there popped up immediately before the eyes of the
excited lady an air-drawn picture of each discreditable scene, with a
phantasmagoric Mr. Sandboys figuring prominently in the foreground.
The long hand of the official clock moved on as slow and unconcerned as
a government clerk; but in the eyes of the anxious Mrs. Sandboys it
seemed to be spinning round like the index to a pieman’s gaming-dial;
Time, to her, appeared to have parted with his scythe for a reaping
machine, and to be mowing down the minutes as if they were incipient
bristles on a chin undergoing “a clean shave for a halfpenny.” It wanted
but a short time to the appointed hour for the arrival of the dreaded
van; and Mrs. Sandboys, with the weeping Elcy at her side, sat trembling
in her Adelaides, and experiencing at each fresh opening of the door the
same breathless and “sinking” sensation as is peculiar to steamboats on
pitching deep down into the trough of the sea. To her ineffable relief,
however, the red-faced Jobby at length darted into the office, carrying
the reply from Parthenon House in his hand. The boy was unable to speak
for the speed he had made (for he believed the letter he bore would be
sufficient to gain his father’s liberty), and stood panting—now wiping
his forehead, and now, to cool himself, tearing open the collar of his
shirt.
His mother, in her anxiety, had not sufficient patience to wait till the
boy had breath to tell the issue of his journey, but snatching the
letter from his hand, tore it eagerly open. She had, however, no sooner
run her eyes over its contents, than she uttered a faint cry, and fell
back against the wall. Jobby and Elcy were instantly at their mother’s
side, endeavouring to comfort her, and seeking to know what fresh
catastrophe had befallen them; and when Jobby learnt that Mrs. Wewitz
had declined vouching for the respectability of his father, the effect
of the news upon the lad, who had made certain that all was right, was
almost painful to contemplate. For a moment, he turned pale as marble,
and stood as if half incredulous of what he heard; then the blood
crimsoned his face, and the tears filled his eyes, as he fell on his
mother’s neck, and sobbed like a child with her. Elcy, however, seemed
to gain new courage from their combined distress, and as she loosened
the strings of her mother’s bonnet, and entreated Jobby, in a whisper,
to remember where he was, telling him all the people were looking at
him, she suddenly recollected Mrs. Fokesell, who she felt sure would
willingly come and speak for her father. As the thought flashed across
her mind, she turned hastily to the clock, and then, bending over her
mother, told her in a low voice to be of good heart, for she still saw a
way of obtaining her father’s liberation. Mrs. Sandboys no sooner caught
the words, and learnt from Elcy the course she meant to pursue, than she
became as confident as the girl of success, and bidding her take a cab,
she told her that there might be yet time, if she departed with all
possible speed.
Elcy had forestalled her mother’s injunctions, and before Mrs. Sandboys
had finished what she had to say on the subject, had quitted the office,
and was hastening along on her way to Craven-street. Winged by her
anxiety, she was but a few minutes in reaching their former residence;
but there, alas! a new disappointment awaited her.
The partner of the hand and lodging-house of Mrs. Fokesell had suddenly
returned from a long voyage, and after having passed a week in a state
of almost helpless intoxication, and been deprived of his boots on the
previous day by his superior moiety, with a view to prevent the
possibility of his leaving the premises for more drink, and so reducing
him to a state of sufficient sobriety to accompany her to the Great
Exhibition, the sailor and his wife had left the house early that
morning for the World’s Show, intent upon making a good long day of it.
The maid of all work—and something more—had just been called away from
the week’s washing, in which she was busily engaged, to brush the
highlows of the Baron de Boltzoff, who occupied the drawing rooms, and
had been obliged to throw them aside to give the newsboy the
_Times_—which she was in the act of doing when Major Oldschool, in the
parlours, desired her to bring up the tea-things; and no sooner had she
filled the urn, than Mrs. Quinine, in the second floor, “touched her
bell” to know whether she had got the hare down yet for her dinner; and
while the maid was making up her fire for roasting it, down popped the
medical student from the back attic with a request that she would just
run up the street and get him half-an-ounce of “bird’s-eye,” for which
she was about to start when Elcy’s double-knock “came to the door.”
The girl, who had hurried up to answer the summons, and still held the
knob of the street-door in her dirty hand covered with her apron, had no
sooner informed the young lady of the absence of Mrs. Fokesell, than
Elcy, who had borne up bravely against the previous misfortunes,
suddenly lost all hope and courage, so that when she heard that there
was no probability of the landlady returning home till late that
evening, she could control her feelings no longer, and the pent-up tears
burst from her eyes with double anguish.
The maid, who had always been partial to Miss Elcy, and had taken a
liking to her from the first, when she found that the young lady,
“though she were a real lady bred and borned,” was not above thinking of
how she could save a poor girl’s legs, was moved not a little by the
sight of Miss Sandboys’ distress—and declared, as she led the staggering
girl into the passage, and helped her to the hall chair, that she
“couldn’t abear to see her take on so.”
But Elcy’s misery did not admit of consolation. Her last chance of
saving her father from prison had vanished; and now that the hope which
had sustained her had gone, her grief knew no bounds—though she strove
with all a woman’s pride to hide her sorrow from strangers, and would
willingly have left the house for fear of causing a “scene” in such a
place, she had no power to move a limb; and do what she would, there was
no checking the sobs that rose, despite her every effort, louder and
louder, as she thought of the utter friendlessness of them all.
In a few minutes the sound of Elcy’s continued sobbings attracted the
attention of Major Oldschool, who was waiting in the “parlours” rather
impatiently for his tea, and he popped his head out of the door as he
half opened it, partly to learn what was the matter in the hall, and
partly to see about the cup that cheers, but not, &c. The sight of “the
British female in distress” was of course sufficient to excite a lively
interest in the bosom of the gallant soldier. “The white flag hoisted in
the cheek of beauty,” as the gentleman engaged for “general utility” on
the stage metaphorically expresses it, when done up in full regimentals,
was always the signal for a truce with Major Oldschool; and though but
the moment before he had felt ready to burst out like a bombshell for
the want of his Twankay, he no sooner caught sight of the young lady in
tears, than he became—as Mr. Braham sings—“mild as the moonbeams”—and
almost as sentimental into the bargain.
“Ods! grapeshot and canister!” of course the Major should have cried, to
have kept up the character of the veteran; but like the generality of
soldiers off the stage, he gave vent to no such military exclamation,
and was about to advance towards the young lady, when Mrs. Coddle, his
female Mentor, and tor-mentor too, detained him by the skirt of his
dressing-gown, informing him that his behaviour was “exceeding
onpolite,” and begging to know what was the use of bells in a house if
he was to go dancing after the servants in that there way—and observing,
moreover, that one would imagine he had never been accustomed to genteel
society in all his life.
As the unceremonious and excited Major struggled to get away from the
clutches of his punctilious housekeeper, he d——d her and all her genteel
society, and then with a sudden jerk that made the stitches of his
duffel skirts crack again, freed himself from the grasp of the mistress
of the ceremonies of his front parlour, and hobbled towards the weeping
girl.
Elcy, on being patted consolingly on the shoulder, looked up for a
minute, and the Major no sooner recognised the features of the young
lady who had so recently been an inmate of Mrs. Fokesell’s
establishment, than he took her by the hand, and saying _that_ was no
place for her, bade her step into his room and let him know all about
what had happened. Then, as he raised the hesitating girl from her seat,
and led her along the passage, he said, comfortingly—“There—there: you
need have no foolish ceremony with me; for, do you know, I find, on
talking with Mrs. Fokesell, that your papa is the neighbour of my old
East Indian friend, Colonel Benson. Why, I’ve heard the colonel talk by
the hour of old Cursty Sandboys, and all his family, till I’ve known you
every one without seeing you, as well as if I’d been bred and born in
Buttermere. You’re Elcy Sandboys, I’m certain: you’re the little girl
that used to be so fond of pet squirrels and doves,—oh! yes, I know all
about you: and there’s that hairbrained young brother of yours, Master
Jobby: and Mrs. Sandboys, that cleanly and tidy mother of your own, whom
Colonel Benson gave away to your father at Lan-something-or-other Green
Church,—eh? There, you needn’t fidget with me! You see I know all about
the whole of you: and how ever I could have been so foolish as not to
have guessed when I first heard your name that you were the Colonel’s
old friends, I can’t say. I’ve been puzzling my head about it ever since
Mrs. Fokesell told me where you came from. But, you see, London and
Buttermere are so wide apart, that I never should have dreamt of your
being the same people, if I hadn’t learnt as much the day after you had
gone.”
Then, as the Major saw the girl half rise from her seat, as if she
wished to depart, he exclaimed, in as tender a tone as he could manage,
“Come! come! what _are_ you fidgeting about there? Come, tell me now,
where’s your father and mother? I quite long to shake them both by the
hand. But what’s all this fretting about, my little one, eh? Come, now;
make a friend of me! Have some of those big-whiskered foreign fellows
been insulting you in the street. D——n ’em, I only wish I could have
caught them at it. I’d have let them feel the tip of my wooden leg, I
warrant them. Come, tell me about it, like a good girl; for if it were
only for Colonel Benson’s sake, you’d always find a friend in me.”
The kindness and the friendship of the Major came so unexpectedly upon
the heartbroken girl, that she could scarcely speak for very joy. The
change from utter hopelessness to assurance of assistance had been so
sudden, too, and the transition from one intense emotion to another of a
precisely opposite character so unprepared, that the conflict of feeling
was too much for Elcy. The tears now flooded her eyes with exceeding
happiness, while her sobs were changed to an hysteric laugh, till at
length it became impossible for her to repress her feelings any longer,
and the “scene,” whose occurrence she had so much dreaded before
strangers, ultimately came to pass.
The Major, unused to such events, no sooner saw the unconscious girl
fall heavily back in the chair, and heard her shriek one minute, as if
with intense agony, and laugh the next, as if convulsed with the wildest
mirth, than believing she had become suddenly crazed, he rang every bell
he could lay hands upon, and swore at his old housekeeper in a manner,
as she said, that she had never been accustomed to in all her life
afore, having lived only in the first of families—and which, in the
vivid language of Mrs. Coddle, made her blood run quite cold down her
back, as if some one was emptying buckets and buckets of spring water
over her head.
At length, by the aid of cold water, and sal-volatile, and vinegar, and
burnt feathers, and hartshorn, and all the other approved methods of
female revivification, the young lady was restored to consciousness, and
in a few minutes afterwards was able to communicate to the open-hearted
Major the many troubles of herself and family.
The old soldier was all excitement when he heard that the intimate
acquaintance and early companion of one of his oldest friends was
detained in custody, and about to be removed to the House of Correction,
for the want of some one to vouch that he was not the common pickpocket
he had been mistaken for; and the Major fumed and swore at his old
housekeeper worse than ever when she whispered in his ear, while helping
him on with his coat, that he had much better stop at home and take his
tea, than trouble his head about other people’s affairs—exciting hisself
in the way he was a-doing about parties he had never even so much as
spoken to. She could see plain enough what it would all end in;—he’d go
and overheat hisself, and catch cold on top of it: and then, if it only
struck inn’ards, who would have to nuss and take care on him, she would
like to know!
Though the Major called the dame “a suspicious old fool,” and kept
abusing her all the while she was fastening the hooks and eyes of his
military surtout, she continued to give vent to her feelings, and begged
to remind him that it would be no fault of hern if he went and got his
blood chilled, and had the cold lay in his bones to the end of his days.
Nor would she let him quit the house until she had placed the cork sock
in his shoe, and stowed away his comforter in the crown of his hat,
saying, that there was no telling how late he might be kept on such a
herrand. And as she accompanied him to the street-door, she drew her
little bag of camphor from her bosom, and slipping it into his hand,
bade him keep it about him; for with that in his pocket, there was no
chance of his ketching any of the nasty fevers that was always flying
about in such low places.
The Major, impatient as he was, could hardly refrain from laughing at
Mistress Coddle’s extreme care; and as they hurried up the street, he
dilated on the medicinal and domestic virtues of his housekeeper—half by
way of apology for the familiarity of her manner, and half as the means
of diverting or alleviating the distress of his young companion.
But poor Elcy paid little attention to what was said; she was too much
alarmed, lest they should reach the office when it was too late to save
her father from being consigned to prison, and responding Yes and No,
smiled mechanically at the Major’s remarks, without understanding one
word of what he was telling her. As the old East Indian warmed in his
description of the valuable services of his housekeeper, he occasionally
paused on the way, standing still, much to Elcy’s horror, to give her a
more vivid idea of the doings of his female factotum. Then the anxious
girl would strive, by every gentle art, to lead him on, and when she
found she could stir him by no indirect means, she would timidly remind
the Major that they had little time to spare; then away they would hurry
again—the Major’s wooden leg sounding on the pavement, as they went,
like a cooper’s hammer at an empty cask.
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