MY old companion tells me it is midnight. The fire glows brightly,
crackling with a sharp and cheerful sound, as if it loved to burn. The
merry cricket on the hearth (my constant visitor), this ruddy blaze, my
clock, and I, seem to share the world among us, and to be the only things
awake. The wind, high and boisterous but now, has died away and hoarsely
mutters in its sleep. I love all times and seasons each in its turn, and
am apt, perhaps, to think the present one the best; but past or coming I
always love this peaceful time of night, when long-buried thoughts,
favoured by the gloom and silence, steal from their graves, and haunt the
scenes of faded happiness and hope.
The popular faith in ghosts has a remarkable affinity with the whole
current of our thoughts at such an hour as this, and seems to be their
necessary and natural consequence. For who can wonder that man should
feel a vague belief in tales of disembodied spirits wandering through
those places which they once dearly affected, when he himself, scarcely
less separated from his old world than they, is for ever lingering upon
past emotions and bygone times, and hovering, the ghost of his former
self, about the places and people that warmed his heart of old? It is
thus that at this quiet hour I haunt the house where I was born, the
rooms I used to tread, the scenes of my infancy, my boyhood, and my
youth; it is thus that I prowl around my buried treasure (though not of
gold or silver), and mourn my loss; it is thus that I revisit the ashes
of extinguished fires, and take my silent stand at old bedsides. If my
spirit should ever glide back to this chamber when my body is mingled
with the dust, it will but follow the course it often took in the old
man’s lifetime, and add but one more change to the subjects of its
contemplation.
In all my idle speculations I am greatly assisted by various legends
connected with my venerable house, which are current in the
neighbourhood, and are so numerous that there is scarce a cupboard or
corner that has not some dismal story of its own. When I first
entertained thoughts of becoming its tenant, I was assured that it was
haunted from roof to cellar, and I believe that the bad opinion in which
my neighbours once held me, had its rise in my not being torn to pieces,
or at least distracted with terror, on the night I took possession; in
either of which cases I should doubtless have arrived by a short cut at
the very summit of popularity.
But traditions and rumours all taken into account, who so abets me in
every fancy and chimes with my every thought, as my dear deaf friend? and
how often have I cause to bless the day that brought us two together! Of
all days in the year I rejoice to think that it should have been
Christmas Day, with which from childhood we associate something friendly,
hearty, and sincere.
I had walked out to cheer myself with the happiness of others, and, in
the little tokens of festivity and rejoicing, of which the streets and
houses present so many upon that day, had lost some hours. Now I stopped
to look at a merry party hurrying through the snow on foot to their place
of meeting, and now turned back to see a whole coachful of children
safely deposited at the welcome house. At one time, I admired how
carefully the working man carried the baby in its gaudy hat and feathers,
and how his wife, trudging patiently on behind, forgot even her care of
her gay clothes, in exchanging greeting with the child as it crowed and
laughed over the father’s shoulder; at another, I pleased myself with
some passing scene of gallantry or courtship, and was glad to believe
that for a season half the world of poverty was gay.
As the day closed in, I still rambled through the streets, feeling a
companionship in the bright fires that cast their warm reflection on the
windows as I passed, and losing all sense of my own loneliness in
imagining the sociality and kind-fellowship that everywhere prevailed.
At length I happened to stop before a Tavern, and, encountering a Bill of
Fare in the window, it all at once brought it into my head to wonder what
kind of people dined alone in Taverns upon Christmas Day.
Solitary men are accustomed, I suppose, unconsciously to look upon
solitude as their own peculiar property. I had sat alone in my room on
many, many anniversaries of this great holiday, and had never regarded it
but as one of universal assemblage and rejoicing. I had excepted, and
with an aching heart, a crowd of prisoners and beggars; but _these_ were
not the men for whom the Tavern doors were open. Had they any customers,
or was it a mere form?—a form, no doubt.
Trying to feel quite sure of this, I walked away; but before I had gone
many paces, I stopped and looked back. There was a provoking air of
business in the lamp above the door which I could not overcome. I began
to be afraid there might be many customers—young men, perhaps, struggling
with the world, utter strangers in this great place, whose friends lived
at a long distance off, and whose means were too slender to enable them
to make the journey. The supposition gave rise to so many distressing
little pictures, that in preference to carrying them home with me, I
determined to encounter the realities. So I turned and walked in.
I was at once glad and sorry to find that there was only one person in
the dining-room; glad to know that there were not more, and sorry that he
should be there by himself. He did not look so old as I, but like me he
was advanced in life, and his hair was nearly white. Though I made more
noise in entering and seating myself than was quite necessary, with the
view of attracting his attention and saluting him in the good old form of
that time of year, he did not raise his head, but sat with it resting on
his hand, musing over his half-finished meal.
I called for something which would give me an excuse for remaining in the
room (I had dined early, as my housekeeper was engaged at night to
partake of some friend’s good cheer), and sat where I could observe
without intruding on him. After a time he looked up. He was aware that
somebody had entered, but could see very little of me, as I sat in the
shade and he in the light. He was sad and thoughtful, and I forbore to
trouble him by speaking.
Let me believe it was something better than curiosity which riveted my
attention and impelled me strongly towards this gentleman. I never saw
so patient and kind a face. He should have been surrounded by friends,
and yet here he sat dejected and alone when all men had their friends
about them. As often as he roused himself from his reverie he would fall
into it again, and it was plain that, whatever were the subject of his
thoughts, they were of a melancholy kind, and would not be controlled.
He was not used to solitude. I was sure of that; for I know by myself
that if he had been, his manner would have been different, and he would
have taken some slight interest in the arrival of another. I could not
fail to mark that he had no appetite; that he tried to eat in vain; that
time after time the plate was pushed away, and he relapsed into his
former posture.
His mind was wandering among old Christmas days, I thought. Many of them
sprung up together, not with a long gap between each, but in unbroken
succession like days of the week. It was a great change to find himself
for the first time (I quite settled that it _was_ the first) in an empty
silent room with no soul to care for. I could not help following him in
imagination through crowds of pleasant faces, and then coming back to
that dull place with its bough of mistletoe sickening in the gas, and
sprigs of holly parched up already by a Simoom of roast and boiled. The
very waiter had gone home; and his representative, a poor, lean, hungry
man, was keeping Christmas in his jacket.
I grew still more interested in my friend. His dinner done, a decanter
of wine was placed before him. It remained untouched for a long time,
but at length with a quivering hand he filled a glass and raised it to
his lips. Some tender wish to which he had been accustomed to give
utterance on that day, or some beloved name that he had been used to
pledge, trembled upon them at the moment. He put it down very
hastily—took it up once more—again put it down—pressed his hand upon his
face—yes—and tears stole down his cheeks, I am certain.
Without pausing to consider whether I did right or wrong, I stepped
across the room, and sitting down beside him laid my hand gently on his
arm.
‘My friend,’ I said, ‘forgive me if I beseech you to take comfort and
consolation from the lips of an old man. I will not preach to you what I
have not practised, indeed. Whatever be your grief, be of a good
heart—be of a good heart, pray!’
‘I see that you speak earnestly,’ he replied, ‘and kindly I am very sure,
but—’
I nodded my head to show that I understood what he would say; for I had
already gathered, from a certain fixed expression in his face, and from
the attention with which he watched me while I spoke, that his sense of
hearing was destroyed. ‘There should be a freemasonry between us,’ said
I, pointing from himself to me to explain my meaning; ‘if not in our gray
hairs, at least in our misfortunes. You see that I am but a poor
cripple.’
I never felt so happy under my affliction since the trying moment of my
first becoming conscious of it, as when he took my hand in his with a
smile that has lighted my path in life from that day, and we sat down
side by side.
This was the beginning of my friendship with the deaf gentleman; and when
was ever the slight and easy service of a kind word in season repaid by
such attachment and devotion as he has shown to me!
He produced a little set of tablets and a pencil to facilitate our
conversation, on that our first acquaintance; and I well remember how
awkward and constrained I was in writing down my share of the dialogue,
and how easily he guessed my meaning before I had written half of what I
had to say. He told me in a faltering voice that he had not been
accustomed to be alone on that day—that it had always been a little
festival with him; and seeing that I glanced at his dress in the
expectation that he wore mourning, he added hastily that it was not that;
if it had been he thought he could have borne it better. From that time
to the present we have never touched upon this theme. Upon every return
of the same day we have been together; and although we make it our annual
custom to drink to each other hand in hand after dinner, and to recall
with affectionate garrulity every circumstance of our first meeting, we
always avoid this one as if by mutual consent.
Meantime we have gone on strengthening in our friendship and regard and
forming an attachment which, I trust and believe, will only be
interrupted by death, to be renewed in another existence. I scarcely
know how we communicate as we do; but he has long since ceased to be deaf
to me. He is frequently my companion in my walks, and even in crowded
streets replies to my slightest look or gesture, as though he could read
my thoughts. From the vast number of objects which pass in rapid
succession before our eyes, we frequently select the same for some
particular notice or remark; and when one of these little coincidences
occurs, I cannot describe the pleasure which animates my friend, or the
beaming countenance he will preserve for half-an-hour afterwards at
least.
He is a great thinker from living so much within himself, and, having a
lively imagination, has a facility of conceiving and enlarging upon odd
ideas, which renders him invaluable to our little body, and greatly
astonishes our two friends. His powers in this respect are much assisted
by a large pipe, which he assures us once belonged to a German Student.
Be this as it may, it has undoubtedly a very ancient and mysterious
appearance, and is of such capacity that it takes three hours and a half
to smoke it out. I have reason to believe that my barber, who is the
chief authority of a knot of gossips, who congregate every evening at a
small tobacconist’s hard by, has related anecdotes of this pipe and the
grim figures that are carved upon its bowl, at which all the smokers in
the neighbourhood have stood aghast; and I know that my housekeeper,
while she holds it in high veneration, has a superstitious feeling
connected with it which would render her exceedingly unwilling to be left
alone in its company after dark.
Whatever sorrow my dear friend has known, and whatever grief may linger
in some secret corner of his heart, he is now a cheerful, placid, happy
creature. Misfortune can never have fallen upon such a man but for some
good purpose; and when I see its traces in his gentle nature and his
earnest feeling, I am the less disposed to murmur at such trials as I may
have undergone myself. With regard to the pipe, I have a theory of my
own; I cannot help thinking that it is in some manner connected with the
event that brought us together; for I remember that it was a long time
before he even talked about it; that when he did, he grew reserved and
melancholy; and that it was a long time yet before he brought it forth.
I have no curiosity, however, upon this subject; for I know that it
promotes his tranquillity and comfort, and I need no other inducement to
regard it with my utmost favour.
Such is the deaf gentleman. I can call up his figure now, clad in sober
gray, and seated in the chimney-corner. As he puffs out the smoke from
his favourite pipe, he casts a look on me brimful of cordiality and
friendship, and says all manner of kind and genial things in a cheerful
smile; then he raises his eyes to my clock, which is just about to
strike, and, glancing from it to me and back again, seems to divide his
heart between us. For myself, it is not too much to say that I would
gladly part with one of my poor limbs, could he but hear the old clock’s
voice.
[Picture: The Two Friends]
Of our two friends, the first has been all his life one of that easy,
wayward, truant class whom the world is accustomed to designate as
nobody’s enemies but their own. Bred to a profession for which he never
qualified himself, and reared in the expectation of a fortune he has
never inherited, he has undergone every vicissitude of which such an
existence is capable. He and his younger brother, both orphans from
their childhood, were educated by a wealthy relative, who taught them to
expect an equal division of his property; but too indolent to court, and
too honest to flatter, the elder gradually lost ground in the affections
of a capricious old man, and the younger, who did not fail to improve his
opportunity, now triumphs in the possession of enormous wealth. His
triumph is to hoard it in solitary wretchedness, and probably to feel
with the expenditure of every shilling a greater pang than the loss of
his whole inheritance ever cost his brother.
Jack Redburn—he was Jack Redburn at the first little school he went to,
where every other child was mastered and surnamed, and he has been Jack
Redburn all his life, or he would perhaps have been a richer man by this
time—has been an inmate of my house these eight years past. He is my
librarian, secretary, steward, and first minister; director of all my
affairs, and inspector-general of my household. He is something of a
musician, something of an author, something of an actor, something of a
painter, very much of a carpenter, and an extraordinary gardener, having
had all his life a wonderful aptitude for learning everything that was of
no use to him. He is remarkably fond of children, and is the best and
kindest nurse in sickness that ever drew the breath of life. He has
mixed with every grade of society, and known the utmost distress; but
there never was a less selfish, a more tender-hearted, a more
enthusiastic, or a more guileless man; and I dare say, if few have done
less good, fewer still have done less harm in the world than he. By what
chance Nature forms such whimsical jumbles I don’t know; but I do know
that she sends them among us very often, and that the king of the whole
race is Jack Redburn.
I should be puzzled to say how old he is. His health is none of the
best, and he wears a quantity of iron-gray hair, which shades his face
and gives it rather a worn appearance; but we consider him quite a young
fellow notwithstanding; and if a youthful spirit, surviving the roughest
contact with the world, confers upon its possessor any title to be
considered young, then he is a mere child. The only interruptions to his
careless cheerfulness are on a wet Sunday, when he is apt to be unusually
religious and solemn, and sometimes of an evening, when he has been
blowing a very slow tune on the flute. On these last-named occasions he
is apt to incline towards the mysterious, or the terrible. As a specimen
of his powers in this mood, I refer my readers to the extract from the
clock-case which follows this paper: he brought it to me not long ago at
midnight, and informed me that the main incident had been suggested by a
dream of the night before.
His apartments are two cheerful rooms looking towards the garden, and one
of his great delights is to arrange and rearrange the furniture in these
chambers, and put it in every possible variety of position. During the
whole time he has been here, I do not think he has slept for two nights
running with the head of his bed in the same place; and every time he
moves it, is to be the last. My housekeeper was at first well-nigh
distracted by these frequent changes; but she has become quite reconciled
to them by degrees, and has so fallen in with his humour, that they often
consult together with great gravity upon the next final alteration.
Whatever his arrangements are, however, they are always a pattern of
neatness; and every one of the manifold articles connected with his
manifold occupations is to be found in its own particular place. Until
within the last two or three years he was subject to an occasional fit
(which usually came upon him in very fine weather), under the influence
of which he would dress himself with peculiar care, and, going out under
pretence of taking a walk, disappeared for several days together. At
length, after the interval between each outbreak of this disorder had
gradually grown longer and longer, it wholly disappeared; and now he
seldom stirs abroad, except to stroll out a little way on a summer’s
evening. Whether he yet mistrusts his own constancy in this respect, and
is therefore afraid to wear a coat, I know not; but we seldom see him in
any other upper garment than an old spectral-looking dressing-gown, with
very disproportionate pockets, full of a miscellaneous collection of odd
matters, which he picks up wherever he can lay his hands upon them.
Everything that is a favourite with our friend is a favourite with us;
and thus it happens that the fourth among us is Mr. Owen Miles, a most
worthy gentleman, who had treated Jack with great kindness before my deaf
friend and I encountered him by an accident, to which I may refer on some
future occasion. Mr. Miles was once a very rich merchant; but receiving
a severe shock in the death of his wife, he retired from business, and
devoted himself to a quiet, unostentatious life. He is an excellent man,
of thoroughly sterling character: not of quick apprehension, and not
without some amusing prejudices, which I shall leave to their own
development. He holds us all in profound veneration; but Jack Redburn he
esteems as a kind of pleasant wonder, that he may venture to approach
familiarly. He believes, not only that no man ever lived who could do so
many things as Jack, but that no man ever lived who could do anything so
well; and he never calls my attention to any of his ingenious
proceedings, but he whispers in my ear, nudging me at the same time with
his elbow: ‘If he had only made it his trade, sir—if he had only made it
his trade!’
They are inseparable companions; one would almost suppose that, although
Mr. Miles never by any chance does anything in the way of assistance,
Jack could do nothing without him. Whether he is reading, writing,
painting, carpentering, gardening, flute-playing, or what not, there is
Mr. Miles beside him, buttoned up to the chin in his blue coat, and
looking on with a face of incredulous delight, as though he could not
credit the testimony of his own senses, and had a misgiving that no man
could be so clever but in a dream.
These are my friends; I have now introduced myself and them.