We are overwhelmed with “Chips” from letter-writers, letter-senders,
letter-receivers, letter-sorters, and post-office clerks. Our own office
has become a post-office. It would seem as if all the letters that ought
to have been written for delivery on several previous Sundays in the
ordinary course, and by the agency of the great establishment in St.
Martin’s-le-Grand, have only not been indited in order that we might be
the sufferers. Doubtless, the other channels of public information have
equally received in the course of each week the surplus of what would
have been, but for the Plumptre and Ashley obstruction, Sunday letters.
The public are in arms, and every arm has a pen at the end; every pen is
dipped in the blackest ink of indignation, or is tinged with the milder
tint of remonstrance.
Our most desperate remonstrants are provincial post-office clerks; for
it would appear that Lord Ashley’s outcasts from Sunday society have a
worse chance of being received into it now than ever. Their labours are
in many cases so heavy on Saturday nights, that they are obliged to lie
in bed during the whole of church time on Sunday, to recover from their
fatigues.
We select one from the heap, for publication. The writer gives a clear
account of the hardships of a provincial post-office clerk before he was
relieved from Sunday duty by the Royal mandate.
“Sir,
“For three years I was what you are pleased to call in your article on
the ‘Sunday Screw’ a Post-Office Pariah, at an office in a most
‘corresponding’ town; my Sunday duties were as follows:—at four I
rose, sorted my letters and newspapers, delivered them to the
messengers, sorted and stamped (both sides) the letters for the
cross-country mails, swept out and dusted the place, then I went to my
room again, had a nap, rose, washed, and dressed in my best; I came
down to breakfast at eight, took a walk, till Church time, and amused
myself till five in the afternoon, when I attended at the office and
received letters till half-past six.
“I usually attended divine service; at eight I sorted and stamped the
letters and dispatched the mails; at nine I had done my work; all this
I did myself and never dreamed of being assisted. The rush of business
is now, I understand, so great on the arrival of the Saturday
afternoon mails, that every assistant and Post-Office clerk will wish
Lord Ashley safely imprisoned in the Whited Sepulchres.
“Your, very obediently,
“EX-PARIAH.”
Judging from the tone in which the earnest remonstrances from all kinds
of people that pile our tables are couched, we fear that, during the
last few Sundays, the bulk of the disappointed public in the provinces
has benefited very little by the change in a moral point of view.
Vexation has, we fear, taken the place of that religious, calm, and
beneficent state of mind in which the Sabbath ought to be passed. The
object, therefore, of the promoters of the measure—increased veneration
for the first day of the week—has failed; for of course their whole and
sole object in the affair has been the furtherance of the cause of
religion, and not a desire to get quits with Mr. Rowland Hill for the
calm, manly, triumphant manner in which he caused truth to vanquish them
in the recent agitation on the same question.
DUST;
OR UGLINESS REDEEMED.
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-grey sky, a huge
Dust-heap of a dirty black colour,—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 neighbourhoods of a
great city. Towards this dusky mountain old Peg Dotting was now making
her way.
Advancing towards 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 labourers 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 shrivelled leg dangled, as if by the weight of a
hob-nailed boot that covered a foot large enough for a ploughman.
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 this 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 be
seen following each other up its side, nearly midway; pigs routed round
its base,—and, now and then, one bolder than the rest would venture some
way up, attracted by the mixed odours 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 not do so
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 brickmakers.
Two other departments, called the “software” 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
ploughed 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 coloured 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 melted 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 jewellery,—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, towards 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 favour 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 run’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 sun-rise, 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
brickfield at that time, near the canal yonder. The sun was just arising
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 had 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 towards 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 my 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 three score 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 favoured them with her little adventure.
“There was no moon, nor stars, nor 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 light me with the lantern 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 be 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
colour. 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 back-sliding—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 home by an old woman like me,
whom it has pleased heaven to afflict with the loss of one leg, and the
pain, expanse, 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
turned 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 down.”
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
endeavoured, 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
churchyard, 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,
then to purple and 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
endeavoured 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 as the day was drawing to a close.
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 mash 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 ecstasies at the prize.
Even the white cat-skins 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 Herries and
Farquhar, in 1847. But banker’s 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 grey 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 chaldron 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 colours and odours 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 enfolded 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 drowndedd man?”
“A drowndedd 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 him, 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
the weakness of his aged companion, who was pulled forwards 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 swirling
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 recognised 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 towards 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 afeared. We’re only your good angels, like—only poor
cinder-sifters—don’tee be afeared.”
By various kindly attentions and manœuvres such as these poor people had
been accustomed to practise 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 his 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 neighbourhood 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.
* * * * *
Monthly Supplement of ‘HOUSEHOLD WORDS,’
Conducted by CHARLES DICKENS.
_Price 2d., Stamped 3d._,
THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE
OF
CURRENT EVENTS.
_The Number, containing a history of the past month, was
issued with the Magazines._
* * * * *
Published at the Office, No 16, Wellington Street North, Strand.
Printed by BRADBURY & EVANS, Whitefriars, London.
------------------------------------------------------------------------