“True friendship leyfe’s deleyte still pruives,
Nor ever flings mankeyn’ to woe,
The gud whea still their brethren luives
What leads to virtue ay will shew.
“True friendship that can neer cause streyfe,
But e’en keep frae distress and pain,
An’ shew what bliss it gie’s thro’ leyfe
In every bwosom still s’ud reign.”
“_To Friendship,” by Anderson._
IN less than an hour after the incident above recorded, Major Oldschool
was seated in the parlour, at the head of the table, entertaining “Mr.
and Mrs. Sandboys, their son and daughter,” to a “quiet cup of tea;”
while Mrs. Coddle kept continually fidgeting in and out of the
room—bobbing in now with a plate of muffins—and now with a pot of
marmalade; and each time she did so, whispering in the Major’s ear, as
she placed “the delicacy” on the table, some fresh instructions as to
the mode of conducting the ceremonies on such important occasions. At
one time she would nudge his elbow, as she leant over the table, and
say, aside, to him, “There you are again draining the teapot down to the
very dregs!” and at another, she would exclaim, in an under-tone, “What
ever are you about, filling up the cups without emptying the
slops!”—until the poor Major grew so confused as to the formalities of
the tea-table, that he emptied the entire contents of the cream jug into
the slop-basin; and in his anxiety to hand the tea-cake to Mrs.
Sandboys, and prevail upon her to take “just one small piece more,” left
the tap of the urn running, and was not aware of his neglect until
Cursty suddenly jumped up from his chair, startled by a stream of
boiling-hot pouring on to his knees.
The Sandboys, however, were all too well pleased with their recent good
fortune to do other than laugh at the little mishaps of the tea-table;
and Mr. Sandboys himself had been so often in hot water of late, that
after the first smart of that from the urn, he could afford to chuckle
over the accident almost as heartily as his son Jobby, who no sooner saw
his father start up, and wildly drag the front of his trousers from his
knee, than guessing what had happened, the lad was seized with a comic
convulsion while in the act of drinking his fourth cup, and spurted the
entire contents of it over the clean cap of Mrs. Coddle as she rushed
frantically to the urn to stay the scalding torrent that was pouring
from the tap.
When the tea-things had been removed, and the party had settled
themselves down for a friendly chat, Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys recounted to
the Major all the adventures they had gone through since their departure
from Buttermere; and the Major, in his turn, when he had sympathized and
laughed with them at their many troubles, ran over the several feats of
arms performed by himself and their mutual friend, the Colonel, in
India. He told them how they had gouged a diamond worth several lacs of
rupees out of the eye of one of the idols they had taken;—and the
Sandboys, on the other hand, informed him how they had been defrauded of
their season ticket for the Great Exhibition by a scoundrelly Frenchman
styling himself the Count de Sangshimmy. And thus they continued, each
narrating to the other the several scenes in which they had figured as
principal actors, till Mr. Sandboys, in summing up the long list of
mishaps he had experienced in his endeavours to get a sight of the
contents of the Great Exhibition, was irresistibly led to the conclusion
that the whole series of events was the work of a stony-hearted Fate,
and that it formed part of the records of Destiny, as kept by the
Registrar-General of Calamities-to-come, that neither he nor any member
of his family should ever set foot in the interior of the Crystal
Palace. He began to regard himself as the hero in some Greek tragedy,
which he had a faint remembrance of reading in his college days at St.
Bees. Accordingly, he communicated to his dear Aggy the resolution which
the recapitulation of his many trials had induced in his mind—namely,
that it was sheer pig-headedness on their part to attempt to swim
against the current of events, or to play the Canute of 1851, and seek
to drive back the tide in their affairs.
Mrs. Sandboys did not require much persuasion to bring her to the same
opinion. She was sick and tired of t’wretched place, she said, and would
gladly send, “t’first thing” on t’morrow to Mrs. Wewitz for their boxes,
so that they might start for Cockermouth by that evening’s train. Major
Oldschool did all he could to laugh the Cumberland couple out of their
fatalistic fancies, but his gibes and jests were of no avail. Mr.
Sandboys assured him he was as immoveable as the Great Pyramid, and that
Archimedes himself, even with his huge lever and the required fulcrum,
would find that something more than a straw was needed to stir him. And
thus the evening passed, the Major striving by every means to induce
them to prolong their visit, telling them of the many wonders of the
“Great Show”—at one moment describing to them the splendour of the glass
fountain—and the next, picturing the beauty of the Veiled Vestal;—now
speaking in hyperbolical raptures to Mrs. Sandboys of the magnificence
of the silks and velvets from Lyons, and the ribbons from Coventry,—then
turning to Elcy, and descanting on the size and value and brilliance of
the far-famed Koh-i-noor, and the admired jewels of the Queen of
Spain,—and afterwards trying to excite the curiosity of Mr. Sandboys
with a glowing detail of the marvels of machinery in motion—the
self-acting mules, and the Jacquard lace machinery, and the centrifugal
pumps, and the steam printing-press, and the envelope machine—but
despite the enthusiasm of his friend, Cursty remained fixed in his
determination; and so as not to allow the Major even the chance of
shaking it, the resolute Mountaineer took his chamber candlestick, and
retired with his family to the apartments that the Major had directed
Mrs. Coddle to have prepared for them.
In the morning, Mr. Sandboys, having slept upon his determination of the
previous evening, and being several hours nearer to the time which he
had fixed for his return to Buttermere, began to think what his
neighbours down there would say, when they heard that he and his whole
family had been up to London to see the Great Exhibition, and had come
away again without ever setting foot in the place. He would be the
laughing-stock of the country for miles round; there wouldn’t be a
keeping-room far or near but what would have some cock-and-a-bull story
or other to tell about them. Besides, why should he deprive the children
of the sight? If Fate had decreed _he_ was never to witness it, that was
no reason why Elcy and Jobby should be kept away; and after all that
dear girl had gone through for him, he was sure she deserved some little
return for her goodness. Then again, he knew Jobby, poor boy, was mad to
have a peep at the machinery room, which he had heard and read so much
about; and it would be something for him to talk about when he got to be
an old man, that he had seen the first Exhibition of Industry in this
country: besides, the lad was naturally of a mechanical turn of mind; he
had spoilt no less than three Dutch clocks out of the kitchen in trying
to clean them; and then at making bird-traps and artificial flies for
fishing, there wasn’t a boy in the village could come near him. Who
could say what effect the Great Exhibition might have on such a mind?
And thus Mr. Sandboys continued inwardly framing excuses to himself why
they should delay their departure to Buttermere for four-and-twenty
hours longer at least.
While the preceding train of thoughts had been passing through the mind
of the wavering Cursty, a like chain of reasoning had been going on in
Mrs. Sandboys’ brain, unknown to her husband. She, too, had been asking
herself “how it would look,” when the neighbours came to know that they
had never so much as put their heads inside the doors of the very place
they had come hundreds of miles to see; and she, like her lord and
master, had been persuading herself, that at least, if she chose to keep
away, it was her bounden duty to let the “dear” children see the grand
sight.
Neither, however, ventured to give the least hint to the other as to the
nature of their morning’s reflections; and it was only when Mr. Sandboys
sat in front of the looking-glass, rubbing the lather over his chin
previously to shaving, till he looked like a twelfth-cake, that he
communicated to his darling Aggy, while she was in the act of hunting
after the grey hairs among her front curls, his doubts as to the
propriety of their quitting London for Buttermere that evening. After he
had exhausted the arguments in favour of the children—to all of which
Mrs. Sandboys, as she poked the top part of her head close against the
looking-glass over the mantelpiece, the better to find the stray silver
threads she was searching for, gave her most cordial assent—the
Cumberland gentleman touched upon the point which constituted, as it
were, the fulcrum upon which his moral lever turned, and confessed that
he did not like to be beaten in the object he had undertaken. If they
had tried to gain admittance to the Exhibition only once, he urged, and
had been prevented by some unforeseen accident, it would not have
mattered so much, and they might have returned then with even a good
grace; but now that they had made so many attempts, and failed so
repeatedly, they would naturally look ridiculous in every person’s eyes,
provided they left London without succeeding in their purpose, after all
the pains they had taken, and the sufferings they had endured to
accomplish it. Of course, all the neighbours would say, “Well, hang it!
I wud ha’seen t’ pleace, if I’d died for it!” and only laugh at them for
their weakness.
Aggy, who seemed to have excellent sport that morning, and kept
twitching out the grey hairs like a Thames angler does gudgeons, fully
concurred with all the sapient Cursty uttered, and expressed her
approbation with each fresh jerk, though with greater warmth, perhaps,
than she otherwise might have done, owing to the sharp twinge which
accompanied the delicate operation in which she was engaged.
But Mr. Christopher Sandboys had yet to tackle the moral part of his
subject; and as, in the process of shaving, he laid hold of himself by
the nose the better to accomplish the razorial fancy-work round the
corners, he frankly acknowledged, that to run away from the metropolis,
after what they had experienced, would betray a deficiency of moral
courage on their parts, which would be utterly unworthy of the sturdy
mountain race to which they belonged. Besides, it was the sure criterion
of a weak mind to give way to the force of circumstances; and he asked
himself and his wife, what was nobler than to see an honest man driving
his head, like a moral battering-ram, against a thick wall of
difficulties, and ultimately overthrowing it. Then, as he called to mind
the fortitude of the Grecian and Roman heroes of his college days, he
added—“Did not moral greatness consist merely in bearing and subduing
the misfortunes that beset us, and certainly not in packing up our boxes
and running from them by the first express train.” And as Mr. Sandboys
delivered himself of this heroic sentiment, he, in the ardour of his
enthusiasm, gave his head so self-satisfied a jerk, that, forgetting the
perilous act in which he was engaged, he inflicted a gash that put his
powers of endurance severely to the test, and immediately dissipated the
whole of the stock of courage upon which he was priding himself.
The upshot of the above conjugal consultation was, that there was passed
that morning at the breakfast-table a resolution, proposed by Mr.
Sandboys, seconded by his darling Aggy, and carried with acclamations by
the Major and the entire family, declaring that one more attempt should
be made to visit the Great Exhibition, and expressive of the opinion of
the meeting, that the sooner such attempt was made the better.
Accordingly, it was finally arranged, as the weather at that time looked
particularly promising, that the whole family should “slip on their
things” immediately after breakfast, and start for the Crystal Palace by
the first omnibus.
Again the Sandboys were, one and all, in high glee at the prospect of
witnessing the “World’s Show” at last, and Elcy and Jobby immediately
lost their appetite in expectation of the coming treat.
The morning meal finished, the boy flew up the stairs four at a time,
dragging his laughing sister after him, and kept bobbing in and out of
her room all the while she was dressing, intent upon playing her some
monkey trick or other. Now, to his sister’s horror, he would seize her
white drawn-bonnet, and putting it on the crown of his head like an
apple-woman’s, scamper off with it, sliding down the banisters; then he
would bounce suddenly into her room again, and dab down a cup of sour
milk on her dressing-table, telling her she would find that a plummy
thing to bathe her freckles with.
Mrs. Sandboys was perhaps more fidgety than ever over the toilet of
herself and Cursty. She _would_ insist upon arranging his neckcloth, and
tying his waistcoat in for him; nor did she spare any pains to set
herself off to the best possible advantage.
And when they were all ready, they assembled in the parlour to receive
the instructions of the Major as to the precautions they should take
against losing one another in the monster building. The old soldier was
in the course of impressing upon the family the necessity of keeping
together, and arranging to meet at the glass fountain in the transept at
a stated hour, in case they should get parted from one another in the
crowd—or else, as he said jokingly, they might be all the day hunting
after each other through the several countries of the globe—first
bobbing into China, and then scampering through Russia, and after that
scouring round America, while perhaps the missing one was wandering
quietly among the Channel Islands, or taking a five minutes’ lounge
through India; and he had scarcely completed his many injunctions as to
how they were always to keep an eye upon “the party” who carried the
sandwiches—for they must remember that he was the most important member
of the whole body, and that if he were lost, their dinner was lost
too—when—
There was a faint tap at the parlour door, and the moment after Mrs.
Fokesell, popping her head into the room, requested to speak with Mr.
Sandboys.
A cold shiver passed through Cursty’s frame at the mysterious nature of
the summons. After so many slips ’twixt the (crystal) cup and his lip,
he could not help having a presentiment that something dreadful was
about to happen; and as a means of acquiring additional courage to bear
up against the calamity, whatever it might be, he begged Mrs. Fokesell
to step in and communicate what she had to say in the presence of the
company.
The landlady coughed hesitatingly, and nodded, and beckoned to Mr.
Sandboys, so as to indicate to him, in the most expressive pantomime she
was mistress of, that she wished to speak with him alone.
Cursty, who was now more alarmed than ever, hurried over to Mrs.
Sandboys, who had been intently watching the landlady’s gestures, and
requested her to see what it was the woman wanted.
Aggy stepped across to the door, and in a whisper begged to be made
acquainted with the nature of Mrs. Fokesell’s business; but the landlady
still hesitated, saying, “in a nasty insinuating way, that Mrs. Sandboys
didn’t half like,” that “she had rayther tell what she had to tell to
the gentleman hisself.” When Mrs, Sandboys, whose curiosity was now
piqued almost to a painful degree, found that it was useless trying to
get out of the woman the purport of the tidings she had to communicate,
she returned and intimated as much to her husband, who, though
pretending to be deep in conversation with the Major, had been listening
the while to what was passing at the door.
Cursty felt his heart sink heavily into his boots, like a stone in a
well, and solemnly summoning Mrs. Fokesell into the room, bade her, in
as firm a voice as he could manage under the circumstances, tell him
then and there what it was all about.
Mrs. Fokesell, who grew angry on finding that her regard for delicacy
was in no way appreciated, bounced boldly into the room, and, looking
Mr. Sandboys full in the face, said, as she shook her head rapidly at
him—
“Well, then, if you _will_ have it! there’s the beadle from the work’us
has come after you.”
Mr. Sandboys stood aghast;—his jaw fell like a French toy nut-cracker’s,
and his hair stood on end till it looked almost like a grenadier’s cap.
The Major, to conceal the smiles which he could not suppress, turned a
half _pirouette_ on his wooden leg, as if he were a pair of animated
compasses describing the arc of a circle.
Mrs. Sandboys looked a whole library, or several hundred volumes, of
doubt and fears at her wretched partner. What _could_ it all mean? she
mentally inquired, as she untied her bonnet strings, and began fanning
herself violently with her pocket-handkerchief.
A solemn silence reigned for a minute or two after Mrs. Fokesell’s
announcement—a silence like that which succeeds a violent peal of
thunder.
“T’ beadle from t’ workhouse!” exclaimed the amazed north countryman.
“What in t’ warld can t’ man want wi’ me?”
“Want!” echoed the indignant landlady, with a jerk of her head that made
the grubby artificial flowers in her cap shake again. “Well, if your own
conscience wont tell you, there’s the beadle hisself in the passage, and
you’d better step out and ask him; for it ain’t my place to breed words
in a family.”
Here the shoulders of the Major, who was pretending to be looking out of
the window, were seen to shake violently, while Mrs. Sandboys cried,
“Breed words! What _can_ t’ mean?”
Cursty, who began to perceive that matters were assuming a very serious
complexion, summoned all his little philosophy to his aid, and making
the greatest possible show of it in his countenance, like a tradesman
with a small stock of goods dressing his shop-window to the best
advantage, directed Mrs. Fokesell to desire the parish functionary to
step in.
The next moment the Terror of boys at church, and the Leader of parish
engines to chimneys on fire, marched into the room in all the imposing
pomp of gold lace, cocked hat, and capes, and the countenance, which was
all austerity to the children in the free seats, relaxed into a pleasing
benignity immediately the possessor of it discovered that the “party” of
whom he had come in quest belonged to the “respectable classes.”
Mr. Sandboys, in the best style of injured innocence, inquired briskly
of the officer what was the nature of his business with him.
The discreet functionary looked cautiously round the apartment, and then
winking the eye that was nearest to Mrs. Sandboys, as much as to remind
the gentleman that ladies were present, began fiddling with the gold
lace round his cocked hat, and replied that he had been sent on to him
by the Board.
“T’ Board!—what Board?” shouted Christopher.
“The Board of Guardians,” was the reply. And then the beadle proceeded
to ask the gentleman whether his name was not Christopher Sandboys; and
receiving an answer in the affirmative, he begged further to be informed
whether the gentleman did not reside in Buttermere, in the county of
Cumberland. Mr. Sandboys having assented, the functionary then inquired
whether he had not been married at Lanthwaite Green Church: and on
learning that such was the case, he told the horror-stricken Cursty that
he regretted to say he must go with him on to Marrowbone workhouse,
where the Board was a-sitting.
“But what for?” shrieked Cursty, as he stamped rapidly up and down the
room, in positive bewilderment at the extraordinary character of the
occurrence. There could be no mistake this time as to his being the
person who was wanted, for the man had got his name and place of
residence, and evidently knew all about him.
The only reply the parish officer made to the inquiry was to wink his
eye a second time in a more marked manner than before, and to jerk his
elbow two or three times in the direction of Mrs. Sandboys.
“Don’t stand there, man!” shouted the infuriated mountaineer, “winking
your d——d eye at me! But tell me what you want here!”
The parish functionary, who was anxious for the sake of the prospective
perquisite, to break the matter as mildly as possible to the gentleman,
replied that he had a hunpleasant hoffice to preform, and that he was
hanxious to preform it in as delikit a manner as he could—and hoping no
offence, if the gen’elman would step into the passage with him, he’d
give him all the particlers: but it wasn’t hexactly a case to speak on
afore ladies. And here the official winked his eye again, and nudged his
elbow in the direction of Mrs. Sandboys.
“Ladies!” echoed the almost maddened Christopher—“that lady is my wife,
and I’ve no secrets from her, man;” and so saying, he drew forth his
handkerchief, and wiped away the perspiration that now stood upon his
brow like the moisture on the inside of the windows of a hackney-coach
on a frosty day.
“In coorse she is!” responded the beadle, with a knowing air; “every
party I wisits says the very hidentical same thing; but it ain’t no
business of mine, and I’m not the kerackter to take a pleasure in
ruining the peace of families; so, if you’ll just step outside here for
a minute, I’ll tell you about it, and I’ve no doubt but what the whole
sore can be heasily ’ealed with a little palm-oil, you know.” And here
the functionary described a small circle inside his hand, and winked
once more at the wonder-stricken Mr. Sandboys.
Mr. Cursty, on second thoughts, began to imagine that perhaps it might
end the affair more quietly if he did as the man urged, and though Mrs.
Sandboys was for having the whole matter explained in her presence,
Cursty deemed it more prudent to retire in company with the beadle, and
accordingly stepped into the passage to ascertain what on earth could be
the nature of the present charge against him.
There the parish official explained to the gentleman, in as low a tone
as possible, that he was wanted at the work’us on a case of desertion.
“Desertion of what?—of whom?—shouted out the innocent Mr. Sandboys, in
the height of his indignation. “I never was in t’army in all my life.”
But the beadle mildly insinuated that he was afeard the matter didn’t
consarn the harmy, though p’raps it might have summat to do with the
hinfant-ry; but whether it were a child or a wife what Mr. Sandboys had
left chargeable to the parish, he couldn’t say; all he knowed was, that
he had horders to take the gen’elman back with him, on a charge of that
naytur, and then he hoped no offence, and he axed the gen’elman’s
pardon, but he’d a delikit dooty to preform, and he always struv to
preform it with every regard to the feelings of the ladies and gen’elmen
consarned; whereupon, having looked cautiously round, and whispered in
Cursty’s ear that if he’d leave it all to him, it shouldn’t stand him in
no more than 3_s._ 6_d._ a week, and what was more, he’d take care the
papers didn’t get hold on it, the officer kept touching his hair and
nodding his head in a manner that plainly indicated he expected some
small gratuity for the discretion he had used, and the services he had
proffered in connexion with the “delikit” dooty he had to preform.
“I thought I’d keep it dark, you know, sir, from your old ’ooman,” he
added, as Mr. Sandboys seemed disposed to pay no attention to his hints.
“Females takes these little tender matters to heart, so that many
gen’elmen’s told me it’s been worth scores of pounds to ’em my minding
my p’s and q’s in the presence of their good ladies. Bless you, if I was
to out with all I knows, I should ruin the peace of half the families in
our parish. Gen’elmen will be gen’elmen, you know, sir;” and then making
that peculiar noise out of the corner of his mouth, in which the drivers
of horses delight, he nudged the astounded Cursty familiarly in the
ribs, while he added, “but ladies can’t, for the lives on ’em, make no
allowance for the secret _hammers_ of the lawful partners of their
buzzems.” And “the authority” having delivered himself of these
sentiments, went through the same insinuating pantomime as before.
But Mr. Sandboys being wholly unaccustomed to hints of such a nature,
hurried quickly past the obsequious functionary, and telling his
bewildered Aggy that some other misunderstanding had occurred, though
what it was, and what it referred to, was more than he could make out
just then, seized his hat, and without waiting to listen to her
remonstrances, suddenly left the house in company with the parochial
officer.
On reaching the workhouse, the mystery concerning which the bewildered
Cursty had been puzzling his brains for the last hour, was quickly
explained. The Flower Hawker, who had become possessed of Mr. Sandboys’
inexpressibles, had retired into the country on the “tramp,” leaving his
“pardner” behind to take up her abode in the workhouse until his return.
On entering that establishment, however, and undergoing the change of
dress customary on such occasions, the “marriage lines” belonging to Mr.
and Mrs. Sandboys, which the woman had appropriated (owing to the total
absence of any similar document appertaining to herself) were discovered
secreted in her bosom, and the name Christopher Sandboys being
recognised by the authorities as that of the pickpocket who had been
arrested at the Crystal Palace, the parish officers had made it their
business to track out the whereabouts of the said Christopher; and
learning at the police-office that he had recently been discharged from
custody, and had afterwards retired in company with his witness, a
gentleman from Craven-street in the Strand, they had directed their
constable to bring “the man” before them, so that he might be made
responsible for the maintenance of his wife.
Mr. Sandboys had no little difficulty in making “the Board” comprehend
and believe the facts of the case; for though the woman denied that he
was her husband, as stoutly as Cursty did that she was his wife, the
ever suspicious authorities could not help fancying but what there was
some trick in the affair, and that the woman persisted in her statement
of having picked up the paper in the street, merely from a desire to
keep “her pardner” out of trouble, so that it was not until Mr. Sandboys
had sent for Major Oldschool to speak once more to his respectability,
that he was allowed to return to the bosom of his family.
Mrs. Sandboys was too delighted at obtaining possession of her marriage
certificate once more to do other than laugh heartily at what had
occurred, and though Cursty felt inclined to trace the finger of Destiny
in the whole affair, Aggy, from the pleasant termination of the
occurrence, could not consent to look upon the circumstance as a
disappointment, and made up her mind to go the very next shilling-day to
the Exhibition. Cursty, however, was fully persuaded that they should
never set foot within the Crystal Palace, and was for going home by the
first train in the morning; and it was not until Major Oldschool
consented, provided Mr. Sandboys would remain his guest till the Monday
following, that he himself would accompany them and see them safe
through the entire expedition.
This offer was more than Mr. Sandboys could withstand; and accordingly,
on the condition that, come what may, the family should leave town for
Buttermere the day after their visit to the Exhibition, he at length
consented to make one more trial under the guidance of his excellent
friend, Major Oldschool. In this frame of mind we must now leave the
family for awhile, to revert to another member of the same
establishment.
* * * * *
Mrs. Quinine, whose health had in no way improved since we left her, lay
still stretched upon the sofa of Mrs. Fokesell’s second floor, enacting
the part of the interesting invalid as usual. For the last three months,
however, her hand had been removed from her cheek, and her fingers
busily engaged in inserting tiny embroidered crowns into tiny muslin
caps—little things that seemed fit only to serve for the head-dress to
an apple-dumpling. Dr. Twaddles had called daily at the house for eight
weeks past to inquire “how we were getting on,” and had held himself in
readiness, for the same lengthened space of time, to answer the lady’s
summons with the least possible delay. Mrs. Pilchers had arrived with
her bundle, and had been sleeping on chairs in the studio for the last
six weeks. The white satin pincushion ornamented with the well-known
infantine greeting of
WELCOME
LITTLE STRANGER.
inscribed in pins, had been forwarded by one of the lady’s “dearest”
schoolfellows, so long since that it had lost much of the original
delicacy of its complexion. “The basket” had been prepared for many
weeks, and stood on the toilet-table in the lady’s bed-room with its
powder-box and puff, and its little soft goat’s-hair brush stuck in the
side-pockets, and the bassinet remained done up in silver paper in the
corner of the room; but though all these extensive preparations had been
made for the “little stranger,” and its welcome had been _pinned_ by a
friendly hand, the lady and all her female friends were kept in a state
of the most tantalizing suspense; for no “little stranger” came.
Each day some new article was added to the infantine wardrobe or
furniture, in anticipation of the arrival of the long-looked-for little
guest. To-day, Mrs. Pilchers was despatched for the newly-invented
“artificial mother” that the lady had seen advertised, and thought it
best to be prepared with; to-morrow, the same accommodating dame was
hurried off after a half-guinea bottle of the immortal Mrs. Johnson’s
Soothing Syrup. Then Mr. Quinine would signalize himself as a “dear
man,” by one day presenting his wife with a “sweet pretty” coral and
bells, and another, sending her home a “love” of a baby-jumper. All the
preliminary arrangements were on the most extensive scale; quarts of
dill-water, pound packets of “soujie,” cashmere cloaks and hoods,
india-rubber rings, wicker rattles, nursing-aprons, pap-warming
nightlamps—each and every of the several puerperal properties had been
got ready, even down to the white glove for the knocker, (indicative of
a “little kid,”) together with the small five-shilling advertisement in
the morning papers concerning “the lady of Fuseli Quinine, Esq.” Indeed,
the entire _mise en scene_ of the forthcoming spectacle had been “got
up,” as the theatrical managers say, “utterly regardless of expense.”
Suddenly, however, it struck “the lady of Fuseli Quinine, Esq.,” that
one thing was still wanting to complete her stock of infantine
furniture. She had forgotten that time-honoured preserver of the peace
of families—a nurse’s chair; and felt convinced that, without the aid of
the popular soporific seat, her “tiddy ickle sing” would never close its
eyes; for Mrs. Quinine, enlightened by the profound experiences of
Pilchers, was assured that that kind of wabbly, waggly, bobby motion
which is peculiar to steam-boats, and the horror of children of a larger
growth, was the delight of all those of a tender age, as if the
homuncule was specially pleased in having a taste of “the ups and downs”
of life at the earliest possible period in its existence.
And certainly Mesdames Pilchers and Quinine were fully borne out in
their opinions by the prevailing pacific treatment adopted by mothers
and nurses in general. The fashionable theory among those entrusted with
the care of infants seems to be, that babies, like physic, “when taken
should be well shaken;” and, accordingly, the early existence of the
poor little things is made to consist of a series of agitations in every
possible direction. In the arms they are bobbed up and down—in the
rocking chair they are waggled backwards and forwards—in the cradle they
wabble from side to side—on the knee they are joggled till they shake
again, like lumps of _blanc-mange_—and if allowed to remain quiet for a
few minutes in that position, they are continually thumped on the back,
as if they had swallowed a fish bone in their pap.
“The lady of Fuseli Quinine, Esq.,” was sufficiently impressed with the
correctness of what may be styled “the undulating theory” of nursing,
that she no sooner discovered she had overlooked what, as newspaper
critics say, “should be in every nursery,” than the lady began to think
how she could remedy the defect.
A domestic consultation was held with the sagacious Pilchers, when it
was arranged that it would be useless purchasing a new chair for the
express purpose of wabbling the little stranger about, when “any old
thing could be cut down, and have the rockers put to it, at a quarter
the expense; whereupon Mrs. Quinine suddenly remembered that they had a
spare arm-chair in the studio, which would be the very thing.” Mrs.
Pilchers having retired to try the quality of the article, returned in a
few moments, saying that the legs would want cutting down about
one-half, and then “it would do capital.” It was accordingly arranged
that “Nurse” should learn the address of Mrs. Fokesell’s jobbing
carpenter, and get him to come in for an hour or two, and make such
alterations as were wanted.
While Mrs. Pilchers is thus engaged, we will avail ourselves of the
uninteresting circumstance to return to “Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys, their
son and daughter.”
The day appointed for the family’s visit to the Great Exhibition, under
the escort of the gallant Major Oldschool, had at length arrived; and
the old soldier and his friends having partaken of an early breakfast,
the Sandboys retired to their rooms, to prepare once more for the
eventful occasion, confident that at length their long-pent-up curiosity
was about to be gratified.
Mrs. Sandboys had not only to arrange her own toilet, but to look after
that of her boy Jobby, and his father Cursty as well. She had to tie the
neckcloth and the waistcoat-strings of the elder Sandboys, and to sew
fresh strap buttons on to the trousers of the younger male member of the
family, as well as to take in a large sippet in the back of one of his
father’s “white vests,” before _that_ boy could be made to look, as his
mother said, in any way decent; adding that, really he did grow so fast,
that it was as much as she could do to keep his trousers strapped down
below the top of his socks.
Elcy’s toilet, too, was not a matter of a moment to arrange. There was
her front hair to take out of the “crackers,” which she had concealed
during breakfast behind her bandeaus, and there was her “back hair” to
plait, and this, even with a young lady from the mountains of
Cumberland, was a good half-hour’s occupation.
During the unusually long toilet of the Sandboys family, Major Oldschool
fidgeted about his room for a few minutes, and then it struck him that
as he should have to “beau” the ladies about, he really ought to treat
himself to a pair of new gloves for the occasion; for really, as he
said, he had carried his black kid about with him screwed up in his
hands so long during the hot weather, that they were as stiff and
crinkly as French plums. Accordingly he put on his hat, and, lest he
should detain the ladies, hurried as fast as his wooden leg would carry
him into the Strand, there to purchase, for the “first time these thirty
years,” a pair of “yellow kids.”
In the meantime, the jobbing carpenter had stepped round “first thing in
the morning,” as he had been ordered, to cut down the arm-chair, and fix
on the rockers which he had brought with him. Mrs. Quinine was no sooner
informed of his arrival than she directed Mrs. Pilchers to take the
chair to the man, and let him do it down stairs, for that to have him
sawing in the next room to her would be more than her nerves could bear.
Accordingly, “Nurse” having called the carpenter to fetch the chair,
followed him with it into the passage: there she happened to catch sight
of the open door and unoccupied state of Major Oldschool’s apartments,
and having heard on the previous evening in the kitchen that the
“parlours” were going to spend the day at the Great Exhibition, she
immediately concluded that the Major had left with his friends for the
Crystal Palace: so Mrs. Pilchers, being a discreet woman, and averse to
“noises” and “breeding words,” as she called it, in strange places,
thought it would be better, since Mrs. Fokesell was a very odd person
and had very odd ways with her, if the man just stepped into Major
Oldschool’s room, while the old gentleman was out, and did what little
he had to do to the chair in that place, without asking any favours of
the landlady. Then having strictly enjoined the man to be careful and
make no dirt, she told him he might go into the parlour, and there alter
the chair.
The carpenter accordingly carried the arm-chair into the Major’s
apartment, while Mrs. Pilchers returned to “her lady.” The workman, to
obtain as much light as possible, proceeded with the chair to the
window, and placed it down on its side, the better to shorten the legs.
He was in the act of opening his basket of tools, when hearing Mrs.
Fokesell’s voice calling him from above stairs, he hastened away to
learn what she desired. On reaching the drawing-room, the landlady
requested the carpenter to bring his tools with him, saying that she
wanted him to look to the lock of the cheffonier in the first floor, for
that Baron de Boltzoff, the foreign gentleman who had her drawing-rooms,
and was as mean as a Scotch pawnbroker, complained that the thing
wouldn’t fasten properly, and had even lowered hisself to that degree to
accuse her and the poor girl of pilfering his trumpery tea and sugar,
confessing that he actually counted the lumps, and marked where the
gunpowder stood in the caddy in black-lead pencil. Mrs. Fokesell then
told the man she should like him to cobble the lock up somehow, but not
to put her to any expense about it, as it was only an old rickety affair
that she had picked up in Brokers’-row cheap, and to make it lock at all
fast it must have a new bolt put to it, she knew, but that was more than
she could afford to have done to the thing. All she wanted was just to
keep the gentleman quiet by letting him see she had had it attended to.
The carpenter having hastened down stairs again for his basket of tools,
hurried off, as requested, to the drawing-rooms for a short while,
leaving Mrs. Quinine’s arm-chair lying on its side in front of the
parlour window, as he had placed it.
The man had scarcely quitted the parlour of Major Oldschool, when that
gentleman returned, admiring the unusually delicate appearance of his
hands, as he entered the room. The first thing that struck his
attention, after having taken off his gloves, and placed them carefully
on the brim of his hat, in readiness against the coming of the Sandboys
family, was the “strange chair” lying on its side by the front window of
his apartment.
“Bless my soul!—how extraordinary! Who on earth could have brought this
thing here?—and whatever could they have been doing, for it to get
thrown down on its side in this manner? It’s very odd,—very odd,
indeed!” exclaimed the Major, as he stood for a minute or two, eyeing it
suspiciously behind his glasses.
But, nothing resulting from his profound reflections, Major Oldschool
lifted up the chair from its recumbent position, and having placed it on
its legs, sat himself down in it to try what kind of accommodation it
might afford a gentleman of his “build.”
“‘Pon my soul!” he inwardly ejaculated, as he wriggled himself into the
seat, and rested his shoulders against the back; “it’s deuced
comfortable—just suits me, for all the world, as if it was made to
measure! Precious deal better than those d—d “confessionals” that they
have now, and that keep you as upright as a ramrod, and shove your knees
almost into your mouth; or those cursed Yankee things, that keep you on
the wabble like a rocking-horse, and make you look as rickety and
short-legged as one of those Italian ‘tombelas.’”
“A-ah!” he exclaimed, with great gusto, as he stretched himself far back
in his new seat, “there’s nothing like your good old-fashioned
arm-chair, after all, with double the regulation allowance of
horse-hair.” Then stretching his arms above his head as he yawned, he
added, “‘Pon my word, if it wasn’t for the swarms of flies at my bald
head, I _do_ think I should drop off to sleep in the chair, for really
it is _so_ precious comfortable and I got up _so_ plaguey early, that
it’s as much as I can do to keep my eyelids apart. Well, bless me, those
Sandboys are long enough pipe-claying their facings; if I’d known only
as much, I might have managed to have treated myself to forty winks more
this morning, instead of being up with the milk.”
“‘Pon my life!” he cried, as he shook himself after the first drowsy
nod, “if the ladies are not down soon, they’ll find me driving my pigs
to market when they _do_ come;” then, suddenly giving a violent pat on
his forehead, that ‘went off’ like a percussion cap, he exclaimed, “D—n
the flies, how they do bite;—and I was just dropping off so
nicely;—there is no resting for the sharp, needle-like things,—one would
fancy my head was a small sugar-cask, from the way in which they dig
their proboscises into it. D—n the flies!” he roared again, giving his
cranium another and a harder slap; “they’ll pick me to the bone if they
go on in this way.” Then, to screen himself from the flies, he seized
the red moreen curtain that hung close beside the chair in which he was
seated, and withdrawing it from the brass sunflower-like pin, threw it
over him, so that his whole body was concealed behind its drapery, and
there was no trace of him to be seen, beyond his wooden leg, which
struck straight out from the side of the curtain, and had very much the
appearance of the handle of the cinder-sifter, as it projects half out
of the dust-bin.
In a few minutes, what with the warmth of the day, the early rising, and
the relief from the fangs of his tiny tormentors, the flies, the Major
was dead asleep.
It was at this critical point that Mrs. Pilchers descended the stairs to
see how the carpenter was proceeding with the transmogrification of the
arm-chair, into a nurse’s _ditto_—and as she bobbed her head in at the
parlour door, she discovered, to her great surprise, that the room was
apparently empty.
With that due regard to the interest of “her lady” which distinguishes
every “monthly nuss,” when in no way benefited by the defrauding of her,
Mrs. Pilchers proceeded to search the house in a state of high
excitement for the truant journeyman, and learning from Mrs. Fokesell
that the man was engaged in the drawing-room, at an odd job for her, the
consciousness that this same odd job was being performed at “her lady’s”
expense, caused Mrs. Pilchers, in the height of her indignation, to give
a jerk of her christening cap, that made its ultramarine geraniums bob
backwards and forwards on their wire stalks like the ship in the paper
sea of the clock-work pictures. The “nuss” then bounced out of the
kitchen as if she were a baby’s india-rubber ball, inflated with anger,
mentally dilating on the “unheerd on imperence” of the act, and made the
best of her way to the first floor in quest of her carpenter.
Having called the man out of the room, Mrs. Pilchers communicated to him
“just a bit of her mind” on the heinousness of his allowing “any one” to
take an hour of his time out of “her lady’s half day;” and having
lectured the carpenter in her most moral style, she desired him to take
his tools down that minute and do the chair, or she would have in
“somebody what would.”
The poor man, who, like the rest of the “jobbing operatives,” was of
rather an obsequious, if not servile turn, stammered out an apology, and
returned in a state of considerable flurry to the drawing-room to fetch
the saw required for the operation.
For fear of giving offence to Mrs. Fokesell, the carpenter descended the
stairs as softly as he could, but he had scarcely reached the passage
before the drawing-room bell was rung violently, and Mrs. Fokesell,
suspecting that “nuss” had been and taken the man off the job she had
set him, hurried up from the kitchen.
The carpenter, who shrewdly imagined that the bell was rung to inquire
into the cause of his leaving his work in the drawing-room before it was
finished, and being anxious, above all things, not to give offence to
the landlady, who was one of his best customers, hastened into the
parlour to get Mrs. Quinine’s job over as quickly as possible. With
scarcely a thought as to what he was doing, the nervous man rushed saw
in hand to the window, where he had left the arm-chair, and perceiving
the wooden leg of Major Oldschool protruding from behind the window
curtain, he, in the flurry of the moment, mistook it for the upper
fore-leg of the chair that he had left lying on its side, and
immediately set to work to reduce it one half.
At this moment, the united voices of Fokesell and Pilchers were heard
wrangling as the ladies descended the stairs, and the carpenter, in his
trepidation, sawed quicker than ever. He had nearly severed the Major’s
wooden limb in two, when, to his horror, he felt the leg suddenly
withdrawn from his hold, and immediately he saw the curtains thrown on
one side, and the face of the angry Major Oldschool glaring fiercely at
him.
The man stood for a moment spell-bound, as it suddenly flashed across
his mind that he had mistaken a human wooden leg for one of the lower
limbs of a chair, and that he had been caught in the act of curtailing
it of its proper proportions; and the old Major no sooner discovered the
nature of the attack that had been made upon his artificial limb, than
he remained transfixed with astonishment at the outrageous audacity of
the deed.
The two stared wildly at each other, utterly tongue-tied for the
instant; and before the Major could proceed to wreak his vengeance on
the man, the carpenter had rushed madly from the room.
The Major, furious at the outrage, jumped from his seat, and was about
to give chase to the workman, but no sooner did he place the
half-divided limb on the ground, than snap went the wooden member,
breaking under his weight, and he was thrown heavily on his side upon
the floor; while, at the same time, the carpenter, on turning the corner
of the door, ran, in his hurry, full butt against the contending
Fokesell and Pilchers, who, being utterly unprepared for so sudden a
concussion, were precipitated forcibly to the ground, the carpenter
falling with his whole weight upon them; and as he did so, the ladies
gave vent to the peculiar sound made by paviours on the descent of their
heavy rammers.
It was at this alarming crisis that the family of the Sandboys came down
from their respective bed-rooms, all smiles and ribbons, and on the
tiptoe of expectation for the long-looked-for peep at the Great
Exhibition. The first thing that met their eyes on reaching the passage
were the forms of the wretched landlady and nurse buried beneath the
heavy body of the jobbing carpenter.
It was no time to stand still and inquire what it all could possibly
mean, so the Cimbrians at once proceeded to clear a way to the Major’s
room by exhuming the bodies of the ladies from beneath the superficial
stratum of the bewildered journeyman; while Jobby, having stepped over
the heap, and entered the parlour, shrieked to his terrified parents
that the Major was lying prostrate there on the carpet, with his wooden
leg broken off sharp at the calf.
Then followed the explanation, with all its disheartening results. Of
course it would be impossible for the Major to accompany them to the
Exhibition shorn of half his leg, while to get it mended in sufficient
time was an equal impossibility. Though Jobby hinted that the glue-pot
was on the fire below, the Major felt in no way inclined to trust the
maintenance of his perpendicular to so weak a foundation; nor did the
several parts admit of being spliced, seeing that the limb would be
reduced several inches by the operation; and as there was no such thing
as borrowing a wooden leg at a moment’s notice in a neighbourhood that
was some miles distant from either Chelsea or Greenwich Hospital, why it
was evident that the Major must remain at home until such time as he
could get his injuries repaired; for to proceed without him was more
than Mr. Sandboys would consent to do.
Accordingly, amid much disappointment and sorrow, the family of the
Sandboys _once_ more made up their minds to abandon all hope of seeing
the interior of the Crystal Palace, and to return to their native
mountains at the earliest possible opportunity.
It was quite evident, Mr.Sandboys again repeated, that Fate had set her
face against their ever enjoying the treat, and, for his part, he was
not going to thrust his head any longer against the wall that Destiny
had run up between them and the building.
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