CHAPTER I—THE STREETS—MORNING

Sketches by Boz

Illustrative of Every-Day Life

and Every-Day People

by Charles Dickens

_With Illustrations by George Cruickshank and Phiz_

LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, ld.

NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

1903

PREFACE

The whole of these Sketches were written and published, one by one,

when I was a very young man. They were collected and republished while

I was still a very young man; and sent into the world with all their

imperfections (a good many) on their heads.

They comprise my first attempts at authorship—with the exception of

certain tragedies achieved at the mature age of eight or ten, and

represented with great applause to overflowing nurseries. I am

conscious of their often being extremely crude and ill-considered, and

bearing obvious marks of haste and inexperience; particularly in that

section of the present volume which is comprised under the general head

of Tales.

But as this collection is not originated now, and was very leniently

and favourably received when it was first made, I have not felt it

right either to remodel or expunge, beyond a few words and phrases here

and there.

OUR PARISH

CHAPTER I—THE BEADLE. THE PARISH ENGINE. THE SCHOOLMASTER

How much is conveyed in those two short words—‘The Parish!’ And with

how many tales of distress and misery, of broken fortune and ruined

hopes, too often of unrelieved wretchedness and successful knavery, are

they associated! A poor man, with small earnings, and a large family,

just manages to live on from hand to mouth, and to procure food from

day to day; he has barely sufficient to satisfy the present cravings of

nature, and can take no heed of the future. His taxes are in arrear,

quarter-day passes by, another quarter-day arrives: he can procure no

more quarter for himself, and is summoned by—the parish. His goods are

distrained, his children are crying with cold and hunger, and the very

bed on which his sick wife is lying, is dragged from beneath her. What

can he do? To whom is he to apply for relief? To private charity? To

benevolent individuals? Certainly not—there is his parish. There are

the parish vestry, the parish infirmary, the parish surgeon, the parish

officers, the parish beadle. Excellent institutions, and gentle,

kind-hearted men. The woman dies—she is buried by the parish. The

children have no protector—they are taken care of by the parish. The

man first neglects, and afterwards cannot obtain, work—he is relieved

by the parish; and when distress and drunkenness have done their work

upon him, he is maintained, a harmless babbling idiot, in the parish

asylum.

The parish beadle is one of the most, perhaps _the_ most, important

member of the local administration. He is not so well off as the

churchwardens, certainly, nor is he so learned as the vestry-clerk, nor

does he order things quite so much his own way as either of them. But

his power is very great, notwithstanding; and the dignity of his office

is never impaired by the absence of efforts on his part to maintain it.

The beadle of our parish is a splendid fellow. It is quite delightful

to hear him, as he explains the state of the existing poor laws to the

deaf old women in the board-room passage on business nights; and to

hear what he said to the senior churchwarden, and what the senior

churchwarden said to him; and what ‘we’ (the beadle and the other

gentlemen) came to the determination of doing. A miserable-looking

woman is called into the boardroom, and represents a case of extreme

destitution, affecting herself—a widow, with six small children. ‘Where

do you live?’ inquires one of the overseers. ‘I rents a two-pair back,

gentlemen, at Mrs. Brown’s, Number 3, Little King William’s-alley,

which has lived there this fifteen year, and knows me to be very

hard-working and industrious, and when my poor husband was alive,

gentlemen, as died in the hospital’—‘Well, well,’ interrupts the

overseer, taking a note of the address, ‘I’ll send Simmons, the beadle,

to-morrow morning, to ascertain whether your story is correct; and if

so, I suppose you must have an order into the House—Simmons, go to this

woman’s the first thing to-morrow morning, will you?’ Simmons bows

assent, and ushers the woman out. Her previous admiration of ‘the

board’ (who all sit behind great books, and with their hats on) fades

into nothing before her respect for her lace-trimmed conductor; and her

account of what has passed inside, increases—if that be possible—the

marks of respect, shown by the assembled crowd, to that solemn

functionary. As to taking out a summons, it’s quite a hopeless case if

Simmons attends it, on behalf of the parish. He knows all the titles of

the Lord Mayor by heart; states the case without a single stammer: and

it is even reported that on one occasion he ventured to make a joke,

which the Lord Mayor’s head footman (who happened to be present)

afterwards told an intimate friend, confidentially, was almost equal to

one of Mr. Hobler’s.

See him again on Sunday in his state-coat and cocked-hat, with a

large-headed staff for show in his left hand, and a small cane for use

in his right. How pompously he marshals the children into their places!

and how demurely the little urchins look at him askance as he surveys

them when they are all seated, with a glare of the eye peculiar to

beadles! The churchwardens and overseers being duly installed in their

curtained pews, he seats himself on a mahogany bracket, erected

expressly for him at the top of the aisle, and divides his attention

between his prayer-book and the boys. Suddenly, just at the

commencement of the communion service, when the whole congregation is

hushed into a profound silence, broken only by the voice of the

officiating clergyman, a penny is heard to ring on the stone floor of

the aisle with astounding clearness. Observe the generalship of the

beadle. His involuntary look of horror is instantly changed into one of

perfect indifference, as if he were the only person present who had not

heard the noise. The artifice succeeds. After putting forth his right

leg now and then, as a feeler, the victim who dropped the money

ventures to make one or two distinct dives after it; and the beadle,

gliding softly round, salutes his little round head, when it again

appears above the seat, with divers double knocks, administered with

the cane before noticed, to the intense delight of three young men in

an adjacent pew, who cough violently at intervals until the conclusion

of the sermon.

Such are a few traits of the importance and gravity of a parish

beadle—a gravity which has never been disturbed in any case that has

come under our observation, except when the services of that

particularly useful machine, a parish fire-engine, are required: then

indeed all is bustle. Two little boys run to the beadle as fast as

their legs will carry them, and report from their own personal

observation that some neighbouring chimney is on fire; the engine is

hastily got out, and a plentiful supply of boys being obtained, and

harnessed to it with ropes, away they rattle over the pavement, the

beadle, running—we do not exaggerate—running at the side, until they

arrive at some house, smelling strongly of soot, at the door of which

the beadle knocks with considerable gravity for half-an-hour. No

attention being paid to these manual applications, and the turn-cock

having turned on the water, the engine turns off amidst the shouts of

the boys; it pulls up once more at the work-house, and the beadle

‘pulls up’ the unfortunate householder next day, for the amount of his

legal reward. We never saw a parish engine at a regular fire but once.

It came up in gallant style—three miles and a half an hour, at least;

there was a capital supply of water, and it was first on the spot. Bang

went the pumps—the people cheered—the beadle perspired profusely; but

it was unfortunately discovered, just as they were going to put the

fire out, that nobody understood the process by which the engine was

filled with water; and that eighteen boys, and a man, had exhausted

themselves in pumping for twenty minutes, without producing the

slightest effect!

The personages next in importance to the beadle, are the master of the

workhouse and the parish schoolmaster. The vestry-clerk, as everybody

knows, is a short, pudgy little man, in black, with a thick gold

watch-chain of considerable length, terminating in two large seals and

a key. He is an attorney, and generally in a bustle; at no time more

so, than when he is hurrying to some parochial meeting, with his gloves

crumpled up in one hand, and a large red book under the other arm. As

to the churchwardens and overseers, we exclude them altogether, because

all we know of them is, that they are usually respectable tradesmen,

who wear hats with brims inclined to flatness, and who occasionally

testify in gilt letters on a blue ground, in some conspicuous part of

the church, to the important fact of a gallery having being enlarged

and beautified, or an organ rebuilt.

The master of the workhouse is not, in our parish—nor is he usually in

any other—one of that class of men the better part of whose existence

has passed away, and who drag out the remainder in some inferior

situation, with just enough thought of the past, to feel degraded by,

and discontented with the present. We are unable to guess precisely to

our own satisfaction what station the man can have occupied before; we

should think he had been an inferior sort of attorney’s clerk, or else

the master of a national school—whatever he was, it is clear his

present position is a change for the better. His income is small

certainly, as the rusty black coat and threadbare velvet collar

demonstrate: but then he lives free of house-rent, has a limited

allowance of coals and candles, and an almost unlimited allowance of

authority in his petty kingdom. He is a tall, thin, bony man; always

wears shoes and black cotton stockings with his surtout; and eyes you,

as you pass his parlour-window, as if he wished you were a pauper, just

to give you a specimen of his power. He is an admirable specimen of a

small tyrant: morose, brutish, and ill-tempered; bullying to his

inferiors, cringing to his superiors, and jealous of the influence and

authority of the beadle.

Our schoolmaster is just the very reverse of this amiable official. He

has been one of those men one occasionally hears of, on whom misfortune

seems to have set her mark; nothing he ever did, or was concerned in,

appears to have prospered. A rich old relation who had brought him up,

and openly announced his intention of providing for him, left him

10,000_l._ in his will, and revoked the bequest in a codicil. Thus

unexpectedly reduced to the necessity of providing for himself, he

procured a situation in a public office. The young clerks below him,

died off as if there were a plague among them; but the old fellows over

his head, for the reversion of whose places he was anxiously waiting,

lived on and on, as if they were immortal. He speculated and lost. He

speculated again and won—but never got his money. His talents were

great; his disposition, easy, generous and liberal. His friends

profited by the one, and abused the other. Loss succeeded loss;

misfortune crowded on misfortune; each successive day brought him

nearer the verge of hopeless penury, and the quondam friends who had

been warmest in their professions, grew strangely cold and indifferent.

He had children whom he loved, and a wife on whom he doted. The former

turned their backs on him; the latter died broken-hearted. He went with

the stream—it had ever been his failing, and he had not courage

sufficient to bear up against so many shocks—he had never cared for

himself, and the only being who had cared for him, in his poverty and

distress, was spared to him no longer. It was at this period that he

applied for parochial relief. Some kind-hearted man who had known him

in happier times, chanced to be churchwarden that year, and through his

interest he was appointed to his present situation.

He is an old man now. Of the many who once crowded round him in all the

hollow friendship of boon-companionship, some have died, some have

fallen like himself, some have prospered—all have forgotten him. Time

and misfortune have mercifully been permitted to impair his memory, and

use has habituated him to his present condition. Meek, uncomplaining,

and zealous in the discharge of his duties, he has been allowed to hold

his situation long beyond the usual period; and he will no doubt

continue to hold it, until infirmity renders him incapable, or death

releases him. As the grey-headed old man feebly paces up and down the

sunny side of the little court-yard between school hours, it would be

difficult, indeed, for the most intimate of his former friends to

recognise their once gay and happy associate, in the person of the

Pauper Schoolmaster.

CHAPTER II—THE CURATE. THE OLD LADY. THE HALF-PAY CAPTAIN

We commenced our last chapter with the beadle of our parish, because we

are deeply sensible of the importance and dignity of his office. We

will begin the present, with the clergyman. Our curate is a young

gentleman of such prepossessing appearance, and fascinating manners,

that within one month after his first appearance in the parish, half

the young-lady inhabitants were melancholy with religion, and the other

half, desponding with love. Never were so many young ladies seen in our

parish church on Sunday before; and never had the little round angels’

faces on Mr. Tomkins’s monument in the side aisle, beheld such devotion

on earth as they all exhibited. He was about five-and-twenty when he

first came to astonish the parishioners. He parted his hair on the

centre of his forehead in the form of a Norman arch, wore a brilliant

of the first water on the fourth finger of his left hand (which he

always applied to his left cheek when he read prayers), and had a deep

sepulchral voice of unusual solemnity. Innumerable were the calls made

by prudent mammas on our new curate, and innumerable the invitations

with which he was assailed, and which, to do him justice, he readily

accepted. If his manner in the pulpit had created an impression in his

favour, the sensation was increased tenfold, by his appearance in

private circles. Pews in the immediate vicinity of the pulpit or

reading-desk rose in value; sittings in the centre aisle were at a

premium: an inch of room in the front row of the gallery could not be

procured for love or money; and some people even went so far as to

assert, that the three Miss Browns, who had an obscure family pew just

behind the churchwardens’, were detected, one Sunday, in the free seats

by the communion-table, actually lying in wait for the curate as he

passed to the vestry! He began to preach extempore sermons, and even

grave papas caught the infection. He got out of bed at half-past twelve

o’clock one winter’s night, to half-baptise a washerwoman’s child in a

slop-basin, and the gratitude of the parishioners knew no bounds—the

very churchwardens grew generous, and insisted on the parish defraying

the expense of the watch-box on wheels, which the new curate had

ordered for himself, to perform the funeral service in, in wet weather.

He sent three pints of gruel and a quarter of a pound of tea to a poor

woman who had been brought to bed of four small children, all at

once—the parish were charmed. He got up a subscription for her—the

woman’s fortune was made. He spoke for one hour and twenty-five

minutes, at an anti-slavery meeting at the Goat and Boots—the

enthusiasm was at its height. A proposal was set on foot for presenting

the curate with a piece of plate, as a mark of esteem for his valuable

services rendered to the parish. The list of subscriptions was filled

up in no time; the contest was, not who should escape the contribution,

but who should be the foremost to subscribe. A splendid silver inkstand

was made, and engraved with an appropriate inscription; the curate was

invited to a public breakfast, at the before-mentioned Goat and Boots;

the inkstand was presented in a neat speech by Mr. Gubbins, the

ex-churchwarden, and acknowledged by the curate in terms which drew

tears into the eyes of all present—the very waiters were melted.

One would have supposed that, by this time, the theme of universal

admiration was lifted to the very pinnacle of popularity. No such

thing. The curate began to cough; four fits of coughing one morning

between the Litany and the Epistle, and five in the afternoon service.

Here was a discovery—the curate was consumptive. How interestingly

melancholy! If the young ladies were energetic before, their sympathy

and solicitude now knew no bounds. Such a man as the curate—such a

dear—such a perfect love—to be consumptive! It was too much. Anonymous

presents of black-currant jam, and lozenges, elastic waistcoats, bosom

friends, and warm stockings, poured in upon the curate until he was as

completely fitted out with winter clothing, as if he were on the verge

of an expedition to the North Pole: verbal bulletins of the state of

his health were circulated throughout the parish half-a-dozen times a

day; and the curate was in the very zenith of his popularity.

About this period, a change came over the spirit of the parish. A very

quiet, respectable, dozing old gentleman, who had officiated in our

chapel-of-ease for twelve years previously, died one fine morning,

without having given any notice whatever of his intention. This

circumstance gave rise to counter-sensation the first; and the arrival

of his successor occasioned counter-sensation the second. He was a

pale, thin, cadaverous man, with large black eyes, and long straggling

black hair: his dress was slovenly in the extreme, his manner ungainly,

his doctrines startling; in short, he was in every respect the

antipodes of the curate. Crowds of our female parishioners flocked to

hear him; at first, because he was _so_ odd-looking, then because his

face was _so_ expressive, then because he preached _so_ well; and at

last, because they really thought that, after all, there was something

about him which it was quite impossible to describe. As to the curate,

he was all very well; but certainly, after all, there was no denying

that—that—in short, the curate wasn’t a novelty, and the other

clergyman was. The inconstancy of public opinion is proverbial: the

congregation migrated one by one. The curate coughed till he was black

in the face—it was in vain. He respired with difficulty—it was equally

ineffectual in awakening sympathy. Seats are once again to be had in

any part of our parish church, and the chapel-of-ease is going to be

enlarged, as it is crowded to suffocation every Sunday!

The best known and most respected among our parishioners, is an old

lady, who resided in our parish long before our name was registered in

the list of baptisms. Our parish is a suburban one, and the old lady

lives in a neat row of houses in the most airy and pleasant part of it.

The house is her own; and it, and everything about it, except the old

lady herself, who looks a little older than she did ten years ago, is

in just the same state as when the old gentleman was living. The little

front parlour, which is the old lady’s ordinary sitting-room, is a

perfect picture of quiet neatness; the carpet is covered with brown

Holland, the glass and picture-frames are carefully enveloped in yellow

muslin; the table-covers are never taken off, except when the leaves

are turpentined and bees’-waxed, an operation which is regularly

commenced every other morning at half-past nine o’clock—and the little

nicknacks are always arranged in precisely the same manner. The greater

part of these are presents from little girls whose parents live in the

same row; but some of them, such as the two old-fashioned watches

(which never keep the same time, one being always a quarter of an hour

too slow, and the other a quarter of an hour too fast), the little

picture of the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold as they appeared

in the Royal Box at Drury Lane Theatre, and others of the same class,

have been in the old lady’s possession for many years. Here the old

lady sits with her spectacles on, busily engaged in needlework—near the

window in summer time; and if she sees you coming up the steps, and you

happen to be a favourite, she trots out to open the street-door for you

before you knock, and as you must be fatigued after that hot walk,

insists on your swallowing two glasses of sherry before you exert

yourself by talking. If you call in the evening you will find her

cheerful, but rather more serious than usual, with an open Bible on the

table, before her, of which ‘Sarah,’ who is just as neat and methodical

as her mistress, regularly reads two or three chapters in the parlour

aloud.

The old lady sees scarcely any company, except the little girls before

noticed, each of whom has always a regular fixed day for a periodical

tea-drinking with her, to which the child looks forward as the greatest

treat of its existence. She seldom visits at a greater distance than

the next door but one on either side; and when she drinks tea here,

Sarah runs out first and knocks a double-knock, to prevent the

possibility of her ‘Missis’s’ catching cold by having to wait at the

door. She is very scrupulous in returning these little invitations, and

when she asks Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so, to meet Mr. and Mrs.

Somebody-else, Sarah and she dust the urn, and the best china

tea-service, and the Pope Joan board; and the visitors are received in

the drawing-room in great state. She has but few relations, and they

are scattered about in different parts of the country, and she seldom

sees them. She has a son in India, whom she always describes to you as

a fine, handsome fellow—so like the profile of his poor dear father

over the sideboard, but the old lady adds, with a mournful shake of the

head, that he has always been one of her greatest trials; and that

indeed he once almost broke her heart; but it pleased God to enable her

to get the better of it, and she would prefer your never mentioning the

subject to her again. She has a great number of pensioners: and on

Saturday, after she comes back from market, there is a regular levee of

old men and women in the passage, waiting for their weekly gratuity.

Her name always heads the list of any benevolent subscriptions, and

hers are always the most liberal donations to the Winter Coal and Soup

Distribution Society. She subscribed twenty pounds towards the erection

of an organ in our parish church, and was so overcome the first Sunday

the children sang to it, that she was obliged to be carried out by the

pew-opener. Her entrance into church on Sunday is always the signal for

a little bustle in the side aisle, occasioned by a general rise among

the poor people, who bow and curtsey until the pew-opener has ushered

the old lady into her accustomed seat, dropped a respectful curtsey,

and shut the door: and the same ceremony is repeated on her leaving

church, when she walks home with the family next door but one, and

talks about the sermon all the way, invariably opening the conversation

by asking the youngest boy where the text was.

Thus, with the annual variation of a trip to some quiet place on the

sea-coast, passes the old lady’s life. It has rolled on in the same

unvarying and benevolent course for many years now, and must at no

distant period be brought to its final close. She looks forward to its

termination, with calmness and without apprehension. She has everything

to hope and nothing to fear.

A very different personage, but one who has rendered himself very

conspicuous in our parish, is one of the old lady’s next-door

neighbours. He is an old naval officer on half-pay, and his bluff and

unceremonious behaviour disturbs the old lady’s domestic economy, not a

little. In the first place, he _will_ smoke cigars in the front court,

and when he wants something to drink with them—which is by no means an

uncommon circumstance—he lifts up the old lady’s knocker with his

walking-stick, and demands to have a glass of table ale, handed over

the rails. In addition to this cool proceeding, he is a bit of a Jack

of all trades, or to use his own words, ‘a regular Robinson Crusoe;’

and nothing delights him better than to experimentalise on the old

lady’s property. One morning he got up early, and planted three or four

roots of full-grown marigolds in every bed of her front garden, to the

inconceivable astonishment of the old lady, who actually thought when

she got up and looked out of the window, that it was some strange

eruption which had come out in the night. Another time he took to

pieces the eight-day clock on the front landing, under pretence of

cleaning the works, which he put together again, by some undiscovered

process, in so wonderful a manner, that the large hand has done nothing

but trip up the little one ever since. Then he took to breeding

silk-worms, which he _would_ bring in two or three times a day, in

little paper boxes, to show the old lady, generally dropping a worm or

two at every visit. The consequence was, that one morning a very stout

silk-worm was discovered in the act of walking up-stairs—probably with

the view of inquiring after his friends, for, on further inspection, it

appeared that some of his companions had already found their way to

every room in the house. The old lady went to the seaside in despair,

and during her absence he completely effaced the name from her brass

door-plate, in his attempts to polish it with aqua-fortis.

But all this is nothing to his seditious conduct in public life. He

attends every vestry meeting that is held; always opposes the

constituted authorities of the parish, denounces the profligacy of the

churchwardens, contests legal points against the vestry-clerk, will

make the tax-gatherer call for his money till he won’t call any longer,

and then he sends it: finds fault with the sermon every Sunday, says

that the organist ought to be ashamed of himself, offers to back

himself for any amount to sing the psalms better than all the children

put together, male and female; and, in short, conducts himself in the

most turbulent and uproarious manner. The worst of it is, that having a

high regard for the old lady, he wants to make her a convert to his

views, and therefore walks into her little parlour with his newspaper

in his hand, and talks violent politics by the hour. He is a

charitable, open-hearted old fellow at bottom, after all; so, although

he puts the old lady a little out occasionally, they agree very well in

the main, and she laughs as much at each feat of his handiwork when it

is all over, as anybody else.

CHAPTER III—THE FOUR SISTERS

The row of houses in which the old lady and her troublesome neighbour

reside, comprises, beyond all doubt, a greater number of characters

within its circumscribed limits, than all the rest of the parish put

together. As we cannot, consistently with our present plan, however,

extend the number of our parochial sketches beyond six, it will be

better perhaps, to select the most peculiar, and to introduce them at

once without further preface.

The four Miss Willises, then, settled in our parish thirteen years ago.

It is a melancholy reflection that the old adage, ‘time and tide wait

for no man,’ applies with equal force to the fairer portion of the

creation; and willingly would we conceal the fact, that even thirteen

years ago the Miss Willises were far from juvenile. Our duty as

faithful parochial chroniclers, however, is paramount to every other

consideration, and we are bound to state, that thirteen years since,

the authorities in matrimonial cases, considered the youngest Miss

Willis in a very precarious state, while the eldest sister was

positively given over, as being far beyond all human hope. Well, the

Miss Willises took a lease of the house; it was fresh painted and

papered from top to bottom: the paint inside was all wainscoted, the

marble all cleaned, the old grates taken down, and register-stoves, you

could see to dress by, put up; four trees were planted in the back

garden, several small baskets of gravel sprinkled over the front one,

vans of elegant furniture arrived, spring blinds were fitted to the

windows, carpenters who had been employed in the various preparations,

alterations, and repairs, made confidential statements to the different

maid-servants in the row, relative to the magnificent scale on which

the Miss Willises were commencing; the maid-servants told their

‘Missises,’ the Missises told their friends, and vague rumours were

circulated throughout the parish, that No. 25, in Gordon-place, had

been taken by four maiden ladies of immense property.

At last, the Miss Willises moved in; and then the ‘calling’ began. The

house was the perfection of neatness—so were the four Miss Willises.

Everything was formal, stiff, and cold—so were the four Miss Willises.

Not a single chair of the whole set was ever seen out of its place—not

a single Miss Willis of the whole four was ever seen out of hers. There

they always sat, in the same places, doing precisely the same things at

the same hour. The eldest Miss Willis used to knit, the second to draw,

the two others to play duets on the piano. They seemed to have no

separate existence, but to have made up their minds just to winter

through life together. They were three long graces in drapery, with the

addition, like a school-dinner, of another long grace afterwards—the

three fates with another sister—the Siamese twins multiplied by two.

The eldest Miss Willis grew bilious—the four Miss Willises grew bilious

immediately. The eldest Miss Willis grew ill-tempered and religious—the

four Miss Willises were ill-tempered and religious directly. Whatever

the eldest did, the others did, and whatever anybody else did, they all

disapproved of; and thus they vegetated—living in Polar harmony among

themselves, and, as they sometimes went out, or saw company ‘in a

quiet-way’ at home, occasionally icing the neighbours. Three years

passed over in this way, when an unlooked for and extraordinary

phenomenon occurred. The Miss Willises showed symptoms of summer, the

frost gradually broke up; a complete thaw took place. Was it possible?

one of the four Miss Willises was going to be married!

Now, where on earth the husband came from, by what feelings the poor

man could have been actuated, or by what process of reasoning the four

Miss Willises succeeded in persuading themselves that it was possible

for a man to marry one of them, without marrying them all, are

questions too profound for us to resolve: certain it is, however, that

the visits of Mr. Robinson (a gentleman in a public office, with a good

salary and a little property of his own, besides) were received—that

the four Miss Willises were courted in due form by the said Mr

Robinson—that the neighbours were perfectly frantic in their anxiety to

discover which of the four Miss Willises was the fortunate fair, and

that the difficulty they experienced in solving the problem was not at

all lessened by the announcement of the eldest Miss Willis,—‘_We_ are

going to marry Mr. Robinson.’

It was very extraordinary. They were so completely identified, the one

with the other, that the curiosity of the whole row—even of the old

lady herself—was roused almost beyond endurance. The subject was

discussed at every little card-table and tea-drinking. The old

gentleman of silk-worm notoriety did not hesitate to express his

decided opinion that Mr. Robinson was of Eastern descent, and

contemplated marrying the whole family at once; and the row, generally,

shook their heads with considerable gravity, and declared the business

to be very mysterious. They hoped it might all end well;—it certainly

had a very singular appearance, but still it would be uncharitable to

express any opinion without good grounds to go upon, and certainly the

Miss Willises were _quite_ old enough to judge for themselves, and to

be sure people ought to know their own business best, and so forth.

At last, one fine morning, at a quarter before eight o’clock, a.m., two

glass-coaches drove up to the Miss Willises’ door, at which Mr.

Robinson had arrived in a cab ten minutes before, dressed in a

light-blue coat and double-milled kersey pantaloons, white neckerchief,

pumps, and dress-gloves, his manner denoting, as appeared from the

evidence of the housemaid at No. 23, who was sweeping the door-steps at

the time, a considerable degree of nervous excitement. It was also

hastily reported on the same testimony, that the cook who opened the

door, wore a large white bow of unusual dimensions, in a much smarter

head-dress than the regulation cap to which the Miss Willises

invariably restricted the somewhat excursive tastes of female servants

in general.

The intelligence spread rapidly from house to house. It was quite clear

that the eventful morning had at length arrived; the whole row

stationed themselves behind their first and second floor blinds, and

waited the result in breathless expectation.

At last the Miss Willises’ door opened; the door of the first

glass-coach did the same. Two gentlemen, and a pair of ladies to

correspond—friends of the family, no doubt; up went the steps, bang

went the door, off went the first class-coach, and up came the second.

The street door opened again; the excitement of the whole row

increased—Mr. Robinson and the eldest Miss Willis. ‘I thought so,’ said

the lady at No. 19; ‘I always said it was _Miss_ Willis!’—‘Well, I

never!’ ejaculated the young lady at No. 18 to the young lady at No.

17.—‘Did you ever, dear!’ responded the young lady at No. 17 to the

young lady at No. 18. ‘It’s too ridiculous!’ exclaimed a spinster of an

_un_certain age, at No. 16, joining in the conversation. But who shall

portray the astonishment of Gordon-place, when Mr. Robinson handed in

_all_ the Miss Willises, one after the other, and then squeezed himself

into an acute angle of the glass-coach, which forthwith proceeded at a

brisk pace, after the other glass-coach, which other glass-coach had

itself proceeded, at a brisk pace, in the direction of the parish

church! Who shall depict the perplexity of the clergyman, when _all_

the Miss Willises knelt down at the communion-table, and repeated the

responses incidental to the marriage service in an audible voice—or who

shall describe the confusion which prevailed, when—even after the

difficulties thus occasioned had been adjusted—_all_ the Miss Willises

went into hysterics at the conclusion of the ceremony, until the sacred

edifice resounded with their united wailings!

As the four sisters and Mr. Robinson continued to occupy the same house

after this memorable occasion, and as the married sister, whoever she

was, never appeared in public without the other three, we are not quite

clear that the neighbours ever would have discovered the real Mrs.

Robinson, but for a circumstance of the most gratifying description,

which _will_ happen occasionally in the best-regulated families. Three

quarter-days elapsed, and the row, on whom a new light appeared to have

been bursting for some time, began to speak with a sort of implied

confidence on the subject, and to wonder how Mrs. Robinson—the youngest

Miss Willis that was—got on; and servants might be seen running up the

steps, about nine or ten o’clock every morning, with ‘Missis’s

compliments, and wishes to know how Mrs. Robinson finds herself this

morning?’ And the answer always was, ‘Mrs. Robinson’s compliments, and

she’s in very good spirits, and doesn’t find herself any worse.’ The

piano was heard no longer, the knitting-needles were laid aside,

drawing was neglected, and mantua-making and millinery, on the smallest

scale imaginable, appeared to have become the favourite amusement of

the whole family. The parlour wasn’t quite as tidy as it used to be,

and if you called in the morning, you would see lying on a table, with

an old newspaper carelessly thrown over them, two or three particularly

small caps, rather larger than if they had been made for a

moderate-sized doll, with a small piece of lace, in the shape of a

horse-shoe, let in behind: or perhaps a white robe, not very large in

circumference, but very much out of proportion in point of length, with

a little tucker round the top, and a frill round the bottom; and once

when we called, we saw a long white roller, with a kind of blue margin

down each side, the probable use of which, we were at a loss to

conjecture. Then we fancied that Dr. Dawson, the surgeon, &c., who

displays a large lamp with a different colour in every pane of glass,

at the corner of the row, began to be knocked up at night oftener than

he used to be; and once we were very much alarmed by hearing a

hackney-coach stop at Mrs. Robinson’s door, at half-past two o’clock in

the morning, out of which there emerged a fat old woman, in a cloak and

night-cap, with a bundle in one hand, and a pair of pattens in the

other, who looked as if she had been suddenly knocked up out of bed for

some very special purpose.

When we got up in the morning we saw that the knocker was tied up in an

old white kid glove; and we, in our innocence (we were in a state of

bachelorship then), wondered what on earth it all meant, until we heard

the eldest Miss Willis, _in propriâ personâ_ say, with great dignity,

in answer to the next inquiry, ‘_My_ compliments, and Mrs. Robinson’s

doing as well as can be expected, and the little girl thrives

wonderfully.’ And then, in common with the rest of the row, our

curiosity was satisfied, and we began to wonder it had never occurred

to us what the matter was, before.

CHAPTER IV—THE ELECTION FOR BEADLE

A great event has recently occurred in our parish. A contest of

paramount interest has just terminated; a parochial convulsion has

taken place. It has been succeeded by a glorious triumph, which the

country—or at least the parish—it is all the same—will long remember.

We have had an election; an election for beadle. The supporters of the

old beadle system have been defeated in their stronghold, and the

advocates of the great new beadle principles have achieved a proud

victory.

Our parish, which, like all other parishes, is a little world of its

own, has long been divided into two parties, whose contentions,

slumbering for a while, have never failed to burst forth with unabated

vigour, on any occasion on which they could by possibility be renewed.

Watching-rates, lighting-rates, paving-rates, sewer’s-rates,

church-rates, poor’s-rates—all sorts of rates, have been in their turns

the subjects of a grand struggle; and as to questions of patronage, the

asperity and determination with which they have been contested is

scarcely credible.

The leader of the official party—the steady advocate of the

churchwardens, and the unflinching supporter of the overseers—is an old

gentleman who lives in our row. He owns some half a dozen houses in it,

and always walks on the opposite side of the way, so that he may be

able to take in a view of the whole of his property at once. He is a

tall, thin, bony man, with an interrogative nose, and little restless

perking eyes, which appear to have been given him for the sole purpose

of peeping into other people’s affairs with. He is deeply impressed

with the importance of our parish business, and prides himself, not a

little, on his style of addressing the parishioners in vestry

assembled. His views are rather confined than extensive; his principles

more narrow than liberal. He has been heard to declaim very loudly in

favour of the liberty of the press, and advocates the repeal of the

stamp duty on newspapers, because the daily journals who now have a

monopoly of the public, never give _verbatim_ reports of vestry

meetings. He would not appear egotistical for the world, but at the

same time he must say, that there are _speeches_—that celebrated speech

of his own, on the emoluments of the sexton, and the duties of the

office, for instance—which might be communicated to the public, greatly

to their improvement and advantage.

His great opponent in public life is Captain Purday, the old naval

officer on half-pay, to whom we have already introduced our readers.

The captain being a determined opponent of the constituted authorities,

whoever they may chance to be, and our other friend being their steady

supporter, with an equal disregard of their individual merits, it will

readily be supposed, that occasions for their coming into direct

collision are neither few nor far between. They divided the vestry

fourteen times on a motion for heating the church with warm water

instead of coals: and made speeches about liberty and expenditure, and

prodigality and hot water, which threw the whole parish into a state of

excitement. Then the captain, when he was on the visiting committee,

and his opponent overseer, brought forward certain distinct and

specific charges relative to the management of the workhouse, boldly

expressed his total want of confidence in the existing authorities, and

moved for ‘a copy of the recipe by which the paupers’ soup was

prepared, together with any documents relating thereto.’ This the

overseer steadily resisted; he fortified himself by precedent, appealed

to the established usage, and declined to produce the papers, on the

ground of the injury that would be done to the public service, if

documents of a strictly private nature, passing between the master of

the workhouse and the cook, were to be thus dragged to light on the

motion of any individual member of the vestry. The motion was lost by a

majority of two; and then the captain, who never allows himself to be

defeated, moved for a committee of inquiry into the whole subject. The

affair grew serious: the question was discussed at meeting after

meeting, and vestry after vestry; speeches were made, attacks

repudiated, personal defiances exchanged, explanations received, and

the greatest excitement prevailed, until at last, just as the question

was going to be finally decided, the vestry found that somehow or

other, they had become entangled in a point of form, from which it was

impossible to escape with propriety. So, the motion was dropped, and

everybody looked extremely important, and seemed quite satisfied with

the meritorious nature of the whole proceeding.

This was the state of affairs in our parish a week or two since, when

Simmons, the beadle, suddenly died. The lamented deceased had

over-exerted himself, a day or two previously, in conveying an aged

female, highly intoxicated, to the strong room of the work-house. The

excitement thus occasioned, added to a severe cold, which this

indefatigable officer had caught in his capacity of director of the

parish engine, by inadvertently playing over himself instead of a fire,

proved too much for a constitution already enfeebled by age; and the

intelligence was conveyed to the Board one evening that Simmons had

died, and left his respects.

The breath was scarcely out of the body of the deceased functionary,

when the field was filled with competitors for the vacant office, each

of whom rested his claims to public support, entirely on the number and

extent of his family, as if the office of beadle were originally

instituted as an encouragement for the propagation of the human

species. ‘Bung for Beadle. Five small children!’—‘Hopkins for Beadle.

Seven small children!!’—‘Timkins for Beadle. Nine small children!!!’

Such were the placards in large black letters on a white ground, which

were plentifully pasted on the walls, and posted in the windows of the

principal shops. Timkins’s success was considered certain: several

mothers of families half promised their votes, and the nine small

children would have run over the course, but for the production of

another placard, announcing the appearance of a still more meritorious

candidate. ‘Spruggins for Beadle. Ten small children (two of them

twins), and a wife!!!’ There was no resisting this; ten small children

would have been almost irresistible in themselves, without the twins,

but the touching parenthesis about that interesting production of

nature, and the still more touching allusion to Mrs. Spruggins, must

ensure success. Spruggins was the favourite at once, and the appearance

of his lady, as she went about to solicit votes (which encouraged

confident hopes of a still further addition to the house of Spruggins

at no remote period), increased the general prepossession in his

favour. The other candidates, Bung alone excepted, resigned in despair.

The day of election was fixed; and the canvass proceeded with briskness

and perseverance on both sides.

The members of the vestry could not be supposed to escape the

contagious excitement inseparable from the occasion. The majority of

the lady inhabitants of the parish declared at once for Spruggins; and

the _quondam_ overseer took the same side, on the ground that men with

large families always had been elected to the office, and that although

he must admit, that, in other respects, Spruggins was the least

qualified candidate of the two, still it was an old practice, and he

saw no reason why an old practice should be departed from. This was

enough for the captain. He immediately sided with Bung, canvassed for

him personally in all directions, wrote squibs on Spruggins, and got

his butcher to skewer them up on conspicuous joints in his shop-front;

frightened his neighbour, the old lady, into a palpitation of the

heart, by his awful denunciations of Spruggins’s party; and bounced in

and out, and up and down, and backwards and forwards, until all the

sober inhabitants of the parish thought it inevitable that he must die

of a brain fever, long before the election began.

The day of election arrived. It was no longer an individual struggle,

but a party contest between the ins and outs. The question was, whether

the withering influence of the overseers, the domination of the

churchwardens, and the blighting despotism of the vestry-clerk, should

be allowed to render the election of beadle a form—a nullity: whether

they should impose a vestry-elected beadle on the parish, to do their

bidding and forward their views, or whether the parishioners,

fearlessly asserting their undoubted rights, should elect an

independent beadle of their own.

The nomination was fixed to take place in the vestry, but so great was

the throng of anxious spectators, that it was found necessary to

adjourn to the church, where the ceremony commenced with due solemnity.

The appearance of the churchwardens and overseers, and the

ex-churchwardens and ex-overseers, with Spruggins in the rear, excited

general attention. Spruggins was a little thin man, in rusty black,

with a long pale face, and a countenance expressive of care and

fatigue, which might either be attributed to the extent of his family

or the anxiety of his feelings. His opponent appeared in a cast-off

coat of the captain’s—a blue coat with bright buttons; white trousers,

and that description of shoes familiarly known by the appellation of

‘high-lows.’ There was a serenity in the open countenance of Bung—a

kind of moral dignity in his confident air—an ‘I wish you may get it’

sort of expression in his eye—which infused animation into his

supporters, and evidently dispirited his opponents.

The ex-churchwarden rose to propose Thomas Spruggins for beadle. He had

known him long. He had had his eye upon him closely for years; he had

watched him with twofold vigilance for months. (A parishioner here

suggested that this might be termed ‘taking a double sight,’ but the

observation was drowned in loud cries of ‘Order!’) He would repeat that

he had had his eye upon him for years, and this he would say, that a

more well-conducted, a more well-behaved, a more sober, a more quiet

man, with a more well-regulated mind, he had never met with. A man with

a larger family he had never known (cheers). The parish required a man

who could be depended on (‘Hear!’ from the Spruggins side, answered by

ironical cheers from the Bung party). Such a man he now proposed (‘No,’

‘Yes’). He would not allude to individuals (the ex-churchwarden

continued, in the celebrated negative style adopted by great speakers).

He would not advert to a gentleman who had once held a high rank in the

service of his majesty; he would not say, that that gentleman was no

gentleman; he would not assert, that that man was no man; he would not

say, that he was a turbulent parishioner; he would not say, that he had

grossly misbehaved himself, not only on this, but on all former

occasions; he would not say, that he was one of those discontented and

treasonable spirits, who carried confusion and disorder wherever they

went; he would not say, that he harboured in his heart envy, and

hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness. No! He wished to have

everything comfortable and pleasant, and therefore, he would

say—nothing about him (cheers).

The captain replied in a similar parliamentary style. He would not say,

he was astonished at the speech they had just heard; he would not say,

he was disgusted (cheers). He would not retort the epithets which had

been hurled against him (renewed cheering); he would not allude to men

once in office, but now happily out of it, who had mismanaged the

workhouse, ground the paupers, diluted the beer, slack-baked the bread,

boned the meat, heightened the work, and lowered the soup (tremendous

cheers). He would not ask what such men deserved (a voice, ‘Nothing

a-day, and find themselves!’). He would not say, that one burst of

general indignation should drive them from the parish they polluted

with their presence (‘Give it him!’). He would not allude to the

unfortunate man who had been proposed—he would not say, as the vestry’s

tool, but as Beadle. He would not advert to that individual’s family;

he would not say, that nine children, twins, and a wife, were very bad

examples for pauper imitation (loud cheers). He would not advert in

detail to the qualifications of Bung. The man stood before him, and he

would not say in his presence, what he might be disposed to say of him,

if he were absent. (Here Mr. Bung telegraphed to a friend near him,

under cover of his hat, by contracting his left eye, and applying his

right thumb to the tip of his nose). It had been objected to Bung that

he had only five children (‘Hear, hear!’ from the opposition). Well; he

had yet to learn that the legislature had affixed any precise amount of

infantine qualification to the office of beadle; but taking it for

granted that an extensive family were a great requisite, he entreated

them to look to facts, and compare _data_, about which there could be

no mistake. Bung was 35 years of age. Spruggins—of whom he wished to

speak with all possible respect—was 50. Was it not more than

possible—was it not very probable—that by the time Bung attained the

latter age, he might see around him a family, even exceeding in number

and extent, that to which Spruggins at present laid claim (deafening

cheers and waving of handkerchiefs)? The captain concluded, amidst loud

applause, by calling upon the parishioners to sound the tocsin, rush to

the poll, free themselves from dictation, or be slaves for ever.

On the following day the polling began, and we never have had such a

bustle in our parish since we got up our famous anti-slavery petition,

which was such an important one, that the House of Commons ordered it

to be printed, on the motion of the member for the district. The

captain engaged two hackney-coaches and a cab for Bung’s people—the cab

for the drunken voters, and the two coaches for the old ladies, the

greater portion of whom, owing to the captain’s impetuosity, were

driven up to the poll and home again, before they recovered from their

flurry sufficiently to know, with any degree of clearness, what they

had been doing. The opposite party wholly neglected these precautions,

and the consequence was, that a great many ladies who were walking

leisurely up to the church—for it was a very hot day—to vote for

Spruggins, were artfully decoyed into the coaches, and voted for Bung.

The captain’s arguments, too, had produced considerable effect: the

attempted influence of the vestry produced a greater. A threat of

exclusive dealing was clearly established against the vestry-clerk—a

case of heartless and profligate atrocity. It appeared that the

delinquent had been in the habit of purchasing six penn’orth of

muffins, weekly, from an old woman who rents a small house in the

parish, and resides among the original settlers; on her last weekly

visit, a message was conveyed to her through the medium of the cook,

couched in mysterious terms, but indicating with sufficient clearness,

that the vestry-clerk’s appetite for muffins, in future, depended

entirely on her vote on the beadleship. This was sufficient: the stream

had been turning previously, and the impulse thus administered directed

its final course. The Bung party ordered one shilling’s-worth of

muffins weekly for the remainder of the old woman’s natural life; the

parishioners were loud in their exclamations; and the fate of Spruggins

was sealed.

It was in vain that the twins were exhibited in dresses of the same

pattern, and night-caps, to match, at the church door: the boy in Mrs.

Spruggins’s right arm, and the girl in her left—even Mrs. Spruggins

herself failed to be an object of sympathy any longer. The majority

attained by Bung on the gross poll was four hundred and twenty-eight,

and the cause of the parishioners triumphed.

CHAPTER V—THE BROKER’S MAN

The excitement of the late election has subsided, and our parish being

once again restored to a state of comparative tranquillity, we are

enabled to devote our attention to those parishioners who take little

share in our party contests or in the turmoil and bustle of public

life. And we feel sincere pleasure in acknowledging here, that in

collecting materials for this task we have been greatly assisted by Mr.

Bung himself, who has imposed on us a debt of obligation which we fear

we can never repay. The life of this gentleman has been one of a very

chequered description: he has undergone transitions—not from grave to

gay, for he never was grave—not from lively to severe, for severity

forms no part of his disposition; his fluctuations have been between

poverty in the extreme, and poverty modified, or, to use his own

emphatic language, ‘between nothing to eat and just half enough.’ He is

not, as he forcibly remarks, ‘one of those fortunate men who, if they

were to dive under one side of a barge stark-naked, would come up on

the other with a new suit of clothes on, and a ticket for soup in the

waistcoat-pocket:’ neither is he one of those, whose spirit has been

broken beyond redemption by misfortune and want. He is just one of the

careless, good-for-nothing, happy fellows, who float, cork-like, on the

surface, for the world to play at hockey with: knocked here, and there,

and everywhere: now to the right, then to the left, again up in the

air, and anon to the bottom, but always reappearing and bounding with

the stream buoyantly and merrily along. Some few months before he was

prevailed upon to stand a contested election for the office of beadle,

necessity attached him to the service of a broker; and on the

opportunities he here acquired of ascertaining the condition of most of

the poorer inhabitants of the parish, his patron, the captain, first

grounded his claims to public support. Chance threw the man in our way

a short time since. We were, in the first instance, attracted by his

prepossessing impudence at the election; we were not surprised, on

further acquaintance, to find him a shrewd, knowing fellow, with no

inconsiderable power of observation; and, after conversing with him a

little, were somewhat struck (as we dare say our readers have

frequently been in other cases) with the power some men seem to have,

not only of sympathising with, but to all appearance of understanding

feelings to which they themselves are entire strangers. We had been

expressing to the new functionary our surprise that he should ever have

served in the capacity to which we have just adverted, when we

gradually led him into one or two professional anecdotes. As we are

induced to think, on reflection, that they will tell better in nearly

his own words, than with any attempted embellishments of ours, we will

at once entitle them.

MR BUNG’S NARRATIVE

‘It’s very true, as you say, sir,’ Mr. Bung commenced, ‘that a broker’s

man’s is not a life to be envied; and in course you know as well as I

do, though you don’t say it, that people hate and scout ’em because

they’re the ministers of wretchedness, like, to poor people. But what

could I do, sir? The thing was no worse because I did it, instead of

somebody else; and if putting me in possession of a house would put me

in possession of three and sixpence a day, and levying a distress on

another man’s goods would relieve my distress and that of my family, it

can’t be expected but what I’d take the job and go through with it. I

never liked it, God knows; I always looked out for something else, and

the moment I got other work to do, I left it. If there is anything

wrong in being the agent in such matters—not the principal, mind

you—I’m sure the business, to a beginner like I was, at all events,

carries its own punishment along with it. I wished again and again that

the people would only blow me up, or pitch into me—that I wouldn’t have

minded, it’s all in my way; but it’s the being shut up by yourself in

one room for five days, without so much as an old newspaper to look at,

or anything to see out o’ the winder but the roofs and chimneys at the

back of the house, or anything to listen to, but the ticking, perhaps,

of an old Dutch clock, the sobbing of the missis, now and then, the low

talking of friends in the next room, who speak in whispers, lest “the

man” should overhear them, or perhaps the occasional opening of the

door, as a child peeps in to look at you, and then runs half-frightened

away—it’s all this, that makes you feel sneaking somehow, and ashamed

of yourself; and then, if it’s wintertime, they just give you fire

enough to make you think you’d like more, and bring in your grub as if

they wished it ’ud choke you—as I dare say they do, for the matter of

that, most heartily. If they’re very civil, they make you up a bed in

the room at night, and if they don’t, your master sends one in for you;

but there you are, without being washed or shaved all the time, shunned

by everybody, and spoken to by no one, unless some one comes in at

dinner-time, and asks you whether you want any more, in a tone as much

to say, “I hope you don’t,” or, in the evening, to inquire whether you

wouldn’t rather have a candle, after you’ve been sitting in the dark

half the night. When I was left in this way, I used to sit, think,

think, thinking, till I felt as lonesome as a kitten in a wash-house

copper with the lid on; but I believe the old brokers’ men who are

regularly trained to it, never think at all. I have heard some on ’em

say, indeed, that they don’t know how!

‘I put in a good many distresses in my time (continued Mr. Bung), and

in course I wasn’t long in finding, that some people are not as much to

be pitied as others are, and that people with good incomes who get into

difficulties, which they keep patching up day after day and week after

week, get so used to these sort of things in time, that at last they

come scarcely to feel them at all. I remember the very first place I

was put in possession of, was a gentleman’s house in this parish here,

that everybody would suppose couldn’t help having money if he tried. I

went with old Fixem, my old master, ’bout half arter eight in the

morning; rang the area-bell; servant in livery opened the door:

“Governor at home?”—“Yes, he is,” says the man; “but he’s breakfasting

just now.” “Never mind,” says Fixem, “just you tell him there’s a

gentleman here, as wants to speak to him partickler.” So the servant he

opens his eyes, and stares about him all ways—looking for the

gentleman, as it struck me, for I don’t think anybody but a man as was

stone-blind would mistake Fixem for one; and as for me, I was as seedy

as a cheap cowcumber. Hows’ever, he turns round, and goes to the

breakfast-parlour, which was a little snug sort of room at the end of

the passage, and Fixem (as we always did in that profession), without

waiting to be announced, walks in arter him, and before the servant

could get out, “Please, sir, here’s a man as wants to speak to you,”

looks in at the door as familiar and pleasant as may be. “Who the devil

are you, and how dare you walk into a gentleman’s house without leave?”

says the master, as fierce as a bull in fits. “My name,” says Fixem,

winking to the master to send the servant away, and putting the warrant

into his hands folded up like a note, “My name’s Smith,” says he, “and

I called from Johnson’s about that business of Thompson’s.”—“Oh,” says

the other, quite down on him directly, “How _is_ Thompson?” says he;

“Pray sit down, Mr. Smith: John, leave the room.” Out went the servant;

and the gentleman and Fixem looked at one another till they couldn’t

look any longer, and then they varied the amusements by looking at me,

who had been standing on the mat all this time. “Hundred and fifty

pounds, I see,” said the gentleman at last. “Hundred and fifty pound,”

said Fixem, “besides cost of levy, sheriff’s poundage, and all other

incidental expenses.”—“Um,” says the gentleman, “I shan’t be able to

settle this before to-morrow afternoon.”—“Very sorry; but I shall be

obliged to leave my man here till then,” replies Fixem, pretending to

look very miserable over it. “That’s very unfort’nate,” says the

gentleman, “for I have got a large party here to-night, and I’m ruined

if those fellows of mine get an inkling of the matter—just step here,

Mr. Smith,” says he, after a short pause. So Fixem walks with him up to

the window, and after a good deal of whispering, and a little chinking

of suverins, and looking at me, he comes back and says, “Bung, you’re a

handy fellow, and very honest I know. This gentleman wants an assistant

to clean the plate and wait at table to-day, and if you’re not

particularly engaged,” says old Fixem, grinning like mad, and shoving a

couple of suverins into my hand, “he’ll be very glad to avail himself

of your services.” Well, I laughed: and the gentleman laughed, and we

all laughed; and I went home and cleaned myself, leaving Fixem there,

and when I went back, Fixem went away, and I polished up the plate, and

waited at table, and gammoned the servants, and nobody had the least

idea I was in possession, though it very nearly came out after all; for

one of the last gentlemen who remained, came down-stairs into the hall

where I was sitting pretty late at night, and putting half-a-crown into

my hand, says, “Here, my man,” says he, “run and get me a coach, will

you?” I thought it was a do, to get me out of the house, and was just

going to say so, sulkily enough, when the gentleman (who was up to

everything) came running down-stairs, as if he was in great anxiety.

“Bung,” says he, pretending to be in a consuming passion. “Sir,” says

I. “Why the devil an’t you looking after that plate?”—“I was just going

to send him for a coach for me,” says the other gentleman. “And I was

just a-going to say,” says I—“Anybody else, my dear fellow,” interrupts

the master of the house, pushing me down the passage to get out of the

way—“anybody else; but I have put this man in possession of all the

plate and valuables, and I cannot allow him on any consideration

whatever, to leave the house. Bung, you scoundrel, go and count those

forks in the breakfast-parlour instantly.” You may be sure I went

laughing pretty hearty when I found it was all right. The money was

paid next day, with the addition of something else for myself, and that

was the best job that I (and I suspect old Fixem too) ever got in that

line.

‘But this is the bright side of the picture, sir, after all,’ resumed

Mr. Bung, laying aside the knowing look and flash air, with which he

had repeated the previous anecdote—‘and I’m sorry to say, it’s the side

one sees very, very seldom, in comparison with the dark one. The

civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who

have none; and there’s a consolation even in being able to patch up one

difficulty, to make way for another, to which very poor people are

strangers. I was once put into a house down George’s-yard—that little

dirty court at the back of the gas-works; and I never shall forget the

misery of them people, dear me! It was a distress for half a year’s

rent—two pound ten, I think. There was only two rooms in the house, and

as there was no passage, the lodgers up-stairs always went through the

room of the people of the house, as they passed in and out; and every

time they did so—which, on the average, was about four times every

quarter of an hour—they blowed up quite frightful: for their things had

been seized too, and included in the inventory. There was a little

piece of enclosed dust in front of the house, with a cinder-path

leading up to the door, and an open rain-water butt on one side. A

dirty striped curtain, on a very slack string, hung in the window, and

a little triangular bit of broken looking-glass rested on the sill

inside. I suppose it was meant for the people’s use, but their

appearance was so wretched, and so miserable, that I’m certain they

never could have plucked up courage to look themselves in the face a

second time, if they survived the fright of doing so once. There was

two or three chairs, that might have been worth, in their best days,

from eightpence to a shilling a-piece; a small deal table, an old

corner cupboard with nothing in it, and one of those bedsteads which

turn up half way, and leave the bottom legs sticking out for you to

knock your head against, or hang your hat upon; no bed, no bedding.

There was an old sack, by way of rug, before the fireplace, and four or

five children were grovelling about, among the sand on the floor. The

execution was only put in, to get ’em out of the house, for there was

nothing to take to pay the expenses; and here I stopped for three days,

though that was a mere form too: for, in course, I knew, and we all

knew, they could never pay the money. In one of the chairs, by the side

of the place where the fire ought to have been, was an old ’ooman—the

ugliest and dirtiest I ever see—who sat rocking herself backwards and

forwards, backwards and forwards, without once stopping, except for an

instant now and then, to clasp together the withered hands which, with

these exceptions, she kept constantly rubbing upon her knees, just

raising and depressing her fingers convulsively, in time to the rocking

of the chair. On the other side sat the mother with an infant in her

arms, which cried till it cried itself to sleep, and when it ’woke,

cried till it cried itself off again. The old ’ooman’s voice I never

heard: she seemed completely stupefied; and as to the mother’s, it

would have been better if she had been so too, for misery had changed

her to a devil. If you had heard how she cursed the little naked

children as was rolling on the floor, and seen how savagely she struck

the infant when it cried with hunger, you’d have shuddered as much as I

did. There they remained all the time: the children ate a morsel of

bread once or twice, and I gave ’em best part of the dinners my missis

brought me, but the woman ate nothing; they never even laid on the

bedstead, nor was the room swept or cleaned all the time. The

neighbours were all too poor themselves to take any notice of ’em, but

from what I could make out from the abuse of the woman up-stairs, it

seemed the husband had been transported a few weeks before. When the

time was up, the landlord and old Fixem too, got rather frightened

about the family, and so they made a stir about it, and had ’em taken

to the workhouse. They sent the sick couch for the old ’ooman, and

Simmons took the children away at night. The old ’ooman went into the

infirmary, and very soon died. The children are all in the house to

this day, and very comfortable they are in comparison. As to the

mother, there was no taming her at all. She had been a quiet,

hard-working woman, I believe, but her misery had actually drove her

wild; so after she had been sent to the house of correction

half-a-dozen times, for throwing inkstands at the overseers,

blaspheming the churchwardens, and smashing everybody as come near her,

she burst a blood-vessel one mornin’, and died too; and a happy release

it was, both for herself and the old paupers, male and female, which

she used to tip over in all directions, as if they were so many

skittles, and she the ball.

‘Now this was bad enough,’ resumed Mr. Bung, taking a half-step towards

the door, as if to intimate that he had nearly concluded. ‘This was bad

enough, but there was a sort of quiet misery—if you understand what I

mean by that, sir—about a lady at one house I was put into, as touched

me a good deal more. It doesn’t matter where it was exactly: indeed,

I’d rather not say, but it was the same sort o’ job. I went with Fixem

in the usual way—there was a year’s rent in arrear; a very small

servant-girl opened the door, and three or four fine-looking little

children was in the front parlour we were shown into, which was very

clean, but very scantily furnished, much like the children themselves.

“Bung,” says Fixem to me, in a low voice, when we were left alone for a

minute, “I know something about this here family, and my opinion is,

it’s no go.” “Do you think they can’t settle?” says I, quite anxiously;

for I liked the looks of them children. Fixem shook his head, and was

just about to reply, when the door opened, and in come a lady, as white

as ever I see any one in my days, except about the eyes, which were red

with crying. She walked in, as firm as I could have done; shut the door

carefully after her, and sat herself down with a face as composed as if

it was made of stone. “What is the matter, gentlemen?” says she, in a

surprisin’ steady voice. “_Is_ this an execution?” “It is, mum,” says

Fixem. The lady looked at him as steady as ever: she didn’t seem to

have understood him. “It is, mum,” says Fixem again; “this is my

warrant of distress, mum,” says he, handing it over as polite as if it

was a newspaper which had been bespoke arter the next gentleman.

‘The lady’s lip trembled as she took the printed paper. She cast her

eye over it, and old Fixem began to explain the form, but saw she

wasn’t reading it, plain enough, poor thing. “Oh, my God!” says she,

suddenly a-bursting out crying, letting the warrant fall, and hiding

her face in her hands. “Oh, my God! what will become of us!” The noise

she made, brought in a young lady of about nineteen or twenty, who, I

suppose, had been a-listening at the door, and who had got a little boy

in her arms: she sat him down in the lady’s lap, without speaking, and

she hugged the poor little fellow to her bosom, and cried over him,

till even old Fixem put on his blue spectacles to hide the two tears,

that was a-trickling down, one on each side of his dirty face. “Now,

dear ma,” says the young lady, “you know how much you have borne. For

all our sakes—for pa’s sake,” says she, “don’t give way to this!”—“No,

no, I won’t!” says the lady, gathering herself up, hastily, and drying

her eyes; “I am very foolish, but I’m better now—much better.” And then

she roused herself up, went with us into every room while we took the

inventory, opened all the drawers of her own accord, sorted the

children’s little clothes to make the work easier; and, except doing

everything in a strange sort of hurry, seemed as calm and composed as

if nothing had happened. When we came down-stairs again, she hesitated

a minute or two, and at last says, “Gentlemen,” says she, “I am afraid

I have done wrong, and perhaps it may bring you into trouble. I

secreted just now,” she says, “the only trinket I have left in the

world—here it is.” So she lays down on the table a little miniature

mounted in gold. “It’s a miniature,” she says, “of my poor dear father!

I little thought once, that I should ever thank God for depriving me of

the original, but I do, and have done for years back, most fervently.

Take it away, sir,” she says, “it’s a face that never turned from me in

sickness and distress, and I can hardly bear to turn from it now, when,

God knows, I suffer both in no ordinary degree.” I couldn’t say

nothing, but I raised my head from the inventory which I was filling

up, and looked at Fixem; the old fellow nodded to me significantly, so

I ran my pen through the “_Mini_” I had just written, and left the

miniature on the table.

‘Well, sir, to make short of a long story, I was left in possession,

and in possession I remained; and though I was an ignorant man, and the

master of the house a clever one, I saw what he never did, but what he

would give worlds now (if he had ’em) to have seen in time. I saw, sir,

that his wife was wasting away, beneath cares of which she never

complained, and griefs she never told. I saw that she was dying before

his eyes; I knew that one exertion from him might have saved her, but

he never made it. I don’t blame him: I don’t think he _could_ rouse

himself. She had so long anticipated all his wishes, and acted for him,

that he was a lost man when left to himself. I used to think when I

caught sight of her, in the clothes she used to wear, which looked

shabby even upon her, and would have been scarcely decent on any one

else, that if I was a gentleman it would wring my very heart to see the

woman that was a smart and merry girl when I courted her, so altered

through her love for me. Bitter cold and damp weather it was, yet,

though her dress was thin, and her shoes none of the best, during the

whole three days, from morning to night, she was out of doors running

about to try and raise the money. The money _was_ raised and the

execution was paid out. The whole family crowded into the room where I

was, when the money arrived. The father was quite happy as the

inconvenience was removed—I dare say he didn’t know how; the children

looked merry and cheerful again; the eldest girl was bustling about,

making preparations for the first comfortable meal they had had since

the distress was put in; and the mother looked pleased to see them all

so. But if ever I saw death in a woman’s face, I saw it in hers that

night.

‘I was right, sir,’ continued Mr. Bung, hurriedly passing his

coat-sleeve over his face; ‘the family grew more prosperous, and good

fortune arrived. But it was too late. Those children are motherless

now, and their father would give up all he has since gained—house,

home, goods, money: all that he has, or ever can have, to restore the

wife he has lost.’

CHAPTER VI—THE LADIES’ SOCIETIES

Our Parish is very prolific in ladies’ charitable institutions. In

winter, when wet feet are common, and colds not scarce, we have the

ladies’ soup distribution society, the ladies’ coal distribution

society, and the ladies’ blanket distribution society; in summer, when

stone fruits flourish and stomach aches prevail, we have the ladies’

dispensary, and the ladies’ sick visitation committee; and all the year

round we have the ladies’ child’s examination society, the ladies’

bible and prayer-book circulation society, and the ladies’

childbed-linen monthly loan society. The two latter are decidedly the

most important; whether they are productive of more benefit than the

rest, it is not for us to say, but we can take upon ourselves to

affirm, with the utmost solemnity, that they create a greater stir and

more bustle, than all the others put together.

We should be disposed to affirm, on the first blush of the matter, that

the bible and prayer-book society is not so popular as the

childbed-linen society; the bible and prayer-book society has, however,

considerably increased in importance within the last year or two,

having derived some adventitious aid from the factious opposition of

the child’s examination society; which factious opposition originated

in manner following:—When the young curate was popular, and all the

unmarried ladies in the parish took a serious turn, the charity

children all at once became objects of peculiar and especial interest.

The three Miss Browns (enthusiastic admirers of the curate) taught, and

exercised, and examined, and re-examined the unfortunate children,

until the boys grew pale, and the girls consumptive with study and

fatigue. The three Miss Browns stood it out very well, because they

relieved each other; but the children, having no relief at all,

exhibited decided symptoms of weariness and care. The unthinking part

of the parishioners laughed at all this, but the more reflective

portion of the inhabitants abstained from expressing any opinion on the

subject until that of the curate had been clearly ascertained.

The opportunity was not long wanting. The curate preached a charity

sermon on behalf of the charity school, and in the charity sermon

aforesaid, expatiated in glowing terms on the praiseworthy and

indefatigable exertions of certain estimable individuals. Sobs were

heard to issue from the three Miss Browns’ pew; the pew-opener of the

division was seen to hurry down the centre aisle to the vestry door,

and to return immediately, bearing a glass of water in her hand. A low

moaning ensued; two more pew-openers rushed to the spot, and the three

Miss Browns, each supported by a pew-opener, were led out of the

church, and led in again after the lapse of five minutes with white

pocket-handkerchiefs to their eyes, as if they had been attending a

funeral in the churchyard adjoining. If any doubt had for a moment

existed, as to whom the allusion was intended to apply, it was at once

removed. The wish to enlighten the charity children became universal,

and the three Miss Browns were unanimously besought to divide the

school into classes, and to assign each class to the superintendence of

two young ladies.

A little learning is a dangerous thing, but a little patronage is more

so; the three Miss Browns appointed all the old maids, and carefully

excluded the young ones. Maiden aunts triumphed, mammas were reduced to

the lowest depths of despair, and there is no telling in what act of

violence the general indignation against the three Miss Browns might

have vented itself, had not a perfectly providential occurrence changed

the tide of public feeling. Mrs. Johnson Parker, the mother of seven

extremely fine girls—all unmarried—hastily reported to several other

mammas of several other unmarried families, that five old men, six old

women, and children innumerable, in the free seats near her pew, were

in the habit of coming to church every Sunday, without either bible or

prayer-book. Was this to be borne in a civilised country? Could such

things be tolerated in a Christian land? Never! A ladies’ bible and

prayer-book distribution society was instantly formed: president, Mrs.

Johnson Parker; treasurers, auditors, and secretary, the Misses Johnson

Parker: subscriptions were entered into, books were bought, all the

free-seat people provided therewith, and when the first lesson was

given out, on the first Sunday succeeding these events, there was such

a dropping of books, and rustling of leaves, that it was morally

impossible to hear one word of the service for five minutes afterwards.

The three Miss Browns, and their party, saw the approaching danger, and

endeavoured to avert it by ridicule and sarcasm. Neither the old men

nor the old women could read their books, now they had got them, said

the three Miss Browns. Never mind; they could learn, replied Mrs.

Johnson Parker. The children couldn’t read either, suggested the three

Miss Browns. No matter; they could be taught, retorted Mrs. Johnson

Parker. A balance of parties took place. The Miss Browns publicly

examined—popular feeling inclined to the child’s examination society.

The Miss Johnson Parkers publicly distributed—a reaction took place in

favour of the prayer-book distribution. A feather would have turned the

scale, and a feather did turn it. A missionary returned from the West

Indies; he was to be presented to the Dissenters’ Missionary Society on

his marriage with a wealthy widow. Overtures were made to the

Dissenters by the Johnson Parkers. Their object was the same, and why

not have a joint meeting of the two societies? The proposition was

accepted. The meeting was duly heralded by public announcement, and the

room was crowded to suffocation. The Missionary appeared on the

platform; he was hailed with enthusiasm. He repeated a dialogue he had

heard between two negroes, behind a hedge, on the subject of

distribution societies; the approbation was tumultuous. He gave an

imitation of the two negroes in broken English; the roof was rent with

applause. From that period we date (with one trifling exception) a

daily increase in the popularity of the distribution society, and an

increase of popularity, which the feeble and impotent opposition of the

examination party, has only tended to augment.

Now, the great points about the childbed-linen monthly loan society

are, that it is less dependent on the fluctuations of public opinion

than either the distribution or the child’s examination; and that, come

what may, there is never any lack of objects on which to exercise its

benevolence. Our parish is a very populous one, and, if anything,

contributes, we should be disposed to say, rather more than its due

share to the aggregate amount of births in the metropolis and its

environs. The consequence is, that the monthly loan society flourishes,

and invests its members with a most enviable amount of bustling

patronage. The society (whose only notion of dividing time, would

appear to be its allotment into months) holds monthly tea-drinkings, at

which the monthly report is received, a secretary elected for the month

ensuing, and such of the monthly boxes as may not happen to be out on

loan for the month, carefully examined.

We were never present at one of these meetings, from all of which it is

scarcely necessary to say, gentlemen are carefully excluded; but Mr.

Bung has been called before the board once or twice, and we have his

authority for stating, that its proceedings are conducted with great

order and regularity: not more than four members being allowed to speak

at one time on any pretence whatever. The regular committee is composed

exclusively of married ladies, but a vast number of young unmarried

ladies of from eighteen to twenty-five years of age, respectively, are

admitted as honorary members, partly because they are very useful in

replenishing the boxes, and visiting the confined; partly because it is

highly desirable that they should be initiated, at an early period,

into the more serious and matronly duties of after-life; and partly,

because prudent mammas have not unfrequently been known to turn this

circumstance to wonderfully good account in matrimonial speculations.

In addition to the loan of the monthly boxes (which are always painted

blue, with the name of the society in large white letters on the lid),

the society dispense occasional grants of beef-tea, and a composition

of warm beer, spice, eggs, and sugar, commonly known by the name of

‘candle,’ to its patients. And here again the services of the honorary

members are called into requisition, and most cheerfully conceded.

Deputations of twos or threes are sent out to visit the patients, and

on these occasions there is such a tasting of candle and beef-tea, such

a stirring about of little messes in tiny saucepans on the hob, such a

dressing and undressing of infants, such a tying, and folding, and

pinning; such a nursing and warming of little legs and feet before the

fire, such a delightful confusion of talking and cooking, bustle,

importance, and officiousness, as never can be enjoyed in its full

extent but on similar occasions.

In rivalry of these two institutions, and as a last expiring effort to

acquire parochial popularity, the child’s examination people

determined, the other day, on having a grand public examination of the

pupils; and the large school-room of the national seminary was, by and

with the consent of the parish authorities, devoted to the purpose.

Invitation circulars were forwarded to all the principal parishioners,

including, of course, the heads of the other two societies, for whose

especial behoof and edification the display was intended; and a large

audience was confidently anticipated on the occasion. The floor was

carefully scrubbed the day before, under the immediate superintendence

of the three Miss Browns; forms were placed across the room for the

accommodation of the visitors, specimens in writing were carefully

selected, and as carefully patched and touched up, until they

astonished the children who had written them, rather more than the

company who read them; sums in compound addition were rehearsed and

re-rehearsed until all the children had the totals by heart; and the

preparations altogether were on the most laborious and most

comprehensive scale. The morning arrived: the children were

yellow-soaped and flannelled, and towelled, till their faces shone

again; every pupil’s hair was carefully combed into his or her eyes, as

the case might be; the girls were adorned with snow-white tippets, and

caps bound round the head by a single purple ribbon: the necks of the

elder boys were fixed into collars of startling dimensions.

The doors were thrown open, and the Misses Brown and Co. were

discovered in plain white muslin dresses, and caps of the same—the

child’s examination uniform. The room filled: the greetings of the

company were loud and cordial. The distributionists trembled, for their

popularity was at stake. The eldest boy fell forward, and delivered a

propitiatory address from behind his collar. It was from the pen of Mr.

Henry Brown; the applause was universal, and the Johnson Parkers were

aghast. The examination proceeded with success, and terminated in

triumph. The child’s examination society gained a momentary victory,

and the Johnson Parkers retreated in despair.

A secret council of the distributionists was held that night, with Mrs.

Johnson Parker in the chair, to consider of the best means of

recovering the ground they had lost in the favour of the parish. What

could be done? Another meeting! Alas! who was to attend it? The

Missionary would not do twice; and the slaves were emancipated. A bold

step must be taken. The parish must be astonished in some way or other;

but no one was able to suggest what the step should be. At length, a

very old lady was heard to mumble, in indistinct tones, ‘Exeter Hall.’

A sudden light broke in upon the meeting. It was unanimously resolved,

that a deputation of old ladies should wait upon a celebrated orator,

imploring his assistance, and the favour of a speech; and the

deputation should also wait on two or three other imbecile old women,

not resident in the parish, and entreat their attendance. The

application was successful, the meeting was held; the orator (an

Irishman) came. He talked of green isles—other shores—vast

Atlantic—bosom of the deep—Christian charity—blood and

extermination—mercy in hearts—arms in hands—altars and homes—household

gods. He wiped his eyes, he blew his nose, and he quoted Latin. The

effect was tremendous—the Latin was a decided hit. Nobody knew exactly

what it was about, but everybody knew it must be affecting, because

even the orator was overcome. The popularity of the distribution

society among the ladies of our parish is unprecedented; and the

child’s examination is going fast to decay.

CHAPTER VII—OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOUR

We are very fond of speculating as we walk through a street, on the

character and pursuits of the people who inhabit it; and nothing so

materially assists us in these speculations as the appearance of the

house doors. The various expressions of the human countenance afford a

beautiful and interesting study; but there is something in the

physiognomy of street-door knockers, almost as characteristic, and

nearly as infallible. Whenever we visit a man for the first time, we

contemplate the features of his knocker with the greatest curiosity,

for we well know, that between the man and his knocker, there will

inevitably be a greater or less degree of resemblance and sympathy.

For instance, there is one description of knocker that used to be

common enough, but which is fast passing away—a large round one, with

the jolly face of a convivial lion smiling blandly at you, as you twist

the sides of your hair into a curl or pull up your shirt-collar while

you are waiting for the door to be opened; we never saw that knocker on

the door of a churlish man—so far as our experience is concerned, it

invariably bespoke hospitality and another bottle.

No man ever saw this knocker on the door of a small attorney or

bill-broker; they always patronise the other lion; a heavy

ferocious-looking fellow, with a countenance expressive of savage

stupidity—a sort of grand master among the knockers, and a great

favourite with the selfish and brutal.

Then there is a little pert Egyptian knocker, with a long thin face, a

pinched-up nose, and a very sharp chin; he is most in vogue with your

government-office people, in light drabs and starched cravats; little

spare, priggish men, who are perfectly satisfied with their own

opinions, and consider themselves of paramount importance.

We were greatly troubled a few years ago, by the innovation of a new

kind of knocker, without any face at all, composed of a wreath

depending from a hand or small truncheon. A little trouble and

attention, however, enabled us to overcome this difficulty, and to

reconcile the new system to our favourite theory. You will invariably

find this knocker on the doors of cold and formal people, who always

ask you why you _don’t_ come, and never say _do_.

Everybody knows the brass knocker is common to suburban villas, and

extensive boarding-schools; and having noticed this genus we have

recapitulated all the most prominent and strongly-defined species.

Some phrenologists affirm, that the agitation of a man’s brain by

different passions, produces corresponding developments in the form of

his skull. Do not let us be understood as pushing our theory to the

full length of asserting, that any alteration in a man’s disposition

would produce a visible effect on the feature of his knocker. Our

position merely is, that in such a case, the magnetism which must exist

between a man and his knocker, would induce the man to remove, and seek

some knocker more congenial to his altered feelings. If you ever find a

man changing his habitation without any reasonable pretext, depend upon

it, that, although he may not be aware of the fact himself, it is

because he and his knocker are at variance. This is a new theory, but

we venture to launch it, nevertheless, as being quite as ingenious and

infallible as many thousands of the learned speculations which are

daily broached for public good and private fortune-making.

Entertaining these feelings on the subject of knockers, it will be

readily imagined with what consternation we viewed the entire removal

of the knocker from the door of the next house to the one we lived in,

some time ago, and the substitution of a bell. This was a calamity we

had never anticipated. The bare idea of anybody being able to exist

without a knocker, appeared so wild and visionary, that it had never

for one instant entered our imagination.

We sauntered moodily from the spot, and bent our steps towards

Eaton-square, then just building. What was our astonishment and

indignation to find that bells were fast becoming the rule, and

knockers the exception! Our theory trembled beneath the shock. We

hastened home; and fancying we foresaw in the swift progress of events,

its entire abolition, resolved from that day forward to vent our

speculations on our next-door neighbours in person. The house adjoining

ours on the left hand was uninhabited, and we had, therefore, plenty of

leisure to observe our next-door neighbours on the other side.

The house without the knocker was in the occupation of a city clerk,

and there was a neatly-written bill in the parlour window intimating

that lodgings for a single gentleman were to be let within.

It was a neat, dull little house, on the shady side of the way, with

new, narrow floorcloth in the passage, and new, narrow stair-carpets up

to the first floor. The paper was new, and the paint was new, and the

furniture was new; and all three, paper, paint, and furniture, bespoke

the limited means of the tenant. There was a little red and black

carpet in the drawing-room, with a border of flooring all the way

round; a few stained chairs and a pembroke table. A pink shell was

displayed on each of the little sideboards, which, with the addition of

a tea-tray and caddy, a few more shells on the mantelpiece, and three

peacock’s feathers tastefully arranged above them, completed the

decorative furniture of the apartment.

This was the room destined for the reception of the single gentleman

during the day, and a little back room on the same floor was assigned

as his sleeping apartment by night.

The bill had not been long in the window, when a stout, good-humoured

looking gentleman, of about five-and-thirty, appeared as a candidate

for the tenancy. Terms were soon arranged, for the bill was taken down

immediately after his first visit. In a day or two the single gentleman

came in, and shortly afterwards his real character came out.

First of all, he displayed a most extraordinary partiality for sitting

up till three or four o’clock in the morning, drinking

whiskey-and-water, and smoking cigars; then he invited friends home,

who used to come at ten o’clock, and begin to get happy about the small

hours, when they evinced their perfect contentment by singing songs

with half-a-dozen verses of two lines each, and a chorus of ten, which

chorus used to be shouted forth by the whole strength of the company,

in the most enthusiastic and vociferous manner, to the great annoyance

of the neighbours, and the special discomfort of another single

gentleman overhead.

Now, this was bad enough, occurring as it did three times a week on the

average, but this was not all; for when the company _did_ go away,

instead of walking quietly down the street, as anybody else’s company

would have done, they amused themselves by making alarming and

frightful noises, and counterfeiting the shrieks of females in

distress; and one night, a red-faced gentleman in a white hat knocked

in the most urgent manner at the door of the powdered-headed old

gentleman at No. 3, and when the powdered-headed old gentleman, who

thought one of his married daughters must have been taken ill

prematurely, had groped down-stairs, and after a great deal of

unbolting and key-turning, opened the street door, the red-faced man in

the white hat said he hoped he’d excuse his giving him so much trouble,

but he’d feel obliged if he’d favour him with a glass of cold spring

water, and the loan of a shilling for a cab to take him home, on which

the old gentleman slammed the door and went up-stairs, and threw the

contents of his water jug out of window—very straight, only it went

over the wrong man; and the whole street was involved in confusion.

A joke’s a joke; and even practical jests are very capital in their

way, if you can only get the other party to see the fun of them; but

the population of our street were so dull of apprehension, as to be

quite lost to a sense of the drollery of this proceeding: and the

consequence was, that our next-door neighbour was obliged to tell the

single gentleman, that unless he gave up entertaining his friends at

home, he really must be compelled to part with him.

The single gentleman received the remonstrance with great good-humour,

and promised from that time forward, to spend his evenings at a

coffee-house—a determination which afforded general and unmixed

satisfaction.

The next night passed off very well, everybody being delighted with the

change; but on the next, the noises were renewed with greater spirit

than ever. The single gentleman’s friends being unable to see him in

his own house every alternate night, had come to the determination of

seeing him home every night; and what with the discordant greetings of

the friends at parting, and the noise created by the single gentleman

in his passage up-stairs, and his subsequent struggles to get his boots

off, the evil was not to be borne. So, our next-door neighbour gave the

single gentleman, who was a very good lodger in other respects, notice

to quit; and the single gentleman went away, and entertained his

friends in other lodgings.

The next applicant for the vacant first floor, was of a very different

character from the troublesome single gentleman who had just quitted

it. He was a tall, thin, young gentleman, with a profusion of brown

hair, reddish whiskers, and very slightly developed moustaches. He wore

a braided surtout, with frogs behind, light grey trousers, and

wash-leather gloves, and had altogether rather a military appearance.

So unlike the roystering single gentleman. Such insinuating manners,

and such a delightful address! So seriously disposed, too! When he

first came to look at the lodgings, he inquired most particularly

whether he was sure to be able to get a seat in the parish church; and

when he had agreed to take them, he requested to have a list of the

different local charities, as he intended to subscribe his mite to the

most deserving among them.

Our next-door neighbour was now perfectly happy. He had got a lodger at

last, of just his own way of thinking—a serious, well-disposed man, who

abhorred gaiety, and loved retirement. He took down the bill with a

light heart, and pictured in imagination a long series of quiet

Sundays, on which he and his lodger would exchange mutual civilities

and Sunday papers.

The serious man arrived, and his luggage was to arrive from the country

next morning. He borrowed a clean shirt, and a prayer-book, from our

next-door neighbour, and retired to rest at an early hour, requesting

that he might be called punctually at ten o’clock next morning—not

before, as he was much fatigued.

He _was_ called, and did not answer: he was called again, but there was

no reply. Our next-door neighbour became alarmed, and burst the door

open. The serious man had left the house mysteriously; carrying with

him the shirt, the prayer-book, a teaspoon, and the bedclothes.

Whether this occurrence, coupled with the irregularities of his former

lodger, gave our next-door neighbour an aversion to single gentlemen,

we know not; we only know that the next bill which made its appearance

in the parlour window intimated generally, that there were furnished

apartments to let on the first floor. The bill was soon removed. The

new lodgers at first attracted our curiosity, and afterwards excited

our interest.

They were a young lad of eighteen or nineteen, and his mother, a lady

of about fifty, or it might be less. The mother wore a widow’s weeds,

and the boy was also clothed in deep mourning. They were poor—very

poor; for their only means of support arose from the pittance the boy

earned, by copying writings, and translating for booksellers.

They had removed from some country place and settled in London; partly

because it afforded better chances of employment for the boy, and

partly, perhaps, with the natural desire to leave a place where they

had been in better circumstances, and where their poverty was known.

They were proud under their reverses, and above revealing their wants

and privations to strangers. How bitter those privations were, and how

hard the boy worked to remove them, no one ever knew but themselves.

Night after night, two, three, four hours after midnight, could we hear

the occasional raking up of the scanty fire, or the hollow and

half-stifled cough, which indicated his being still at work; and day

after day, could we see more plainly that nature had set that unearthly

light in his plaintive face, which is the beacon of her worst disease.

Actuated, we hope, by a higher feeling than mere curiosity, we

contrived to establish, first an acquaintance, and then a close

intimacy, with the poor strangers. Our worst fears were realised; the

boy was sinking fast. Through a part of the winter, and the whole of

the following spring and summer, his labours were unceasingly

prolonged: and the mother attempted to procure needle-work,

embroidery—anything for bread.

A few shillings now and then, were all she could earn. The boy worked

steadily on; dying by minutes, but never once giving utterance to

complaint or murmur.

One beautiful autumn evening we went to pay our customary visit to the

invalid. His little remaining strength had been decreasing rapidly for

two or three days preceding, and he was lying on the sofa at the open

window, gazing at the setting sun. His mother had been reading the

Bible to him, for she closed the book as we entered, and advanced to

meet us.

‘I was telling William,’ she said, ‘that we must manage to take him

into the country somewhere, so that he may get quite well. He is not

ill, you know, but he is not very strong, and has exerted himself too

much lately.’ Poor thing! The tears that streamed through her fingers,

as she turned aside, as if to adjust her close widow’s cap, too plainly

showed how fruitless was the attempt to deceive herself.

We sat down by the head of the sofa, but said nothing, for we saw the

breath of life was passing gently but rapidly from the young form

before us. At every respiration, his heart beat more slowly.

The boy placed one hand in ours, grasped his mother’s arm with the

other, drew her hastily towards him, and fervently kissed her cheek.

There was a pause. He sunk back upon his pillow, and looked long and

earnestly in his mother’s face.

‘William, William!’ murmured the mother, after a long interval, ‘don’t

look at me so—speak to me, dear!’

The boy smiled languidly, but an instant afterwards his features

resolved into the same cold, solemn gaze.

‘William, dear William! rouse yourself; don’t look at me so, love—pray

don’t! Oh, my God! what shall I do!’ cried the widow, clasping her

hands in agony—‘my dear boy! he is dying!’ The boy raised himself by a

violent effort, and folded his hands together—‘Mother! dear, dear

mother, bury me in the open fields—anywhere but in these dreadful

streets. I should like to be where you can see my grave, but not in

these close crowded streets; they have killed me; kiss me again,

mother; put your arm round my neck—’

He fell back, and a strange expression stole upon his features; not of

pain or suffering, but an indescribable fixing of every line and

muscle.

The boy was dead.

SCENES

CHAPTER I—THE STREETS—MORNING

The appearance presented by the streets of London an hour before

sunrise, on a summer’s morning, is most striking even to the few whose

unfortunate pursuits of pleasure, or scarcely less unfortunate pursuits

of business, cause them to be well acquainted with the scene. There is

an air of cold, solitary desolation about the noiseless streets which

we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by a busy, eager

crowd, and over the quiet, closely-shut buildings, which throughout the

day are swarming with life and bustle, that is very impressive.

The last drunken man, who shall find his way home before sunlight, has

just staggered heavily along, roaring out the burden of the drinking

song of the previous night: the last houseless vagrant whom penury and

police have left in the streets, has coiled up his chilly limbs in some

paved comer, to dream of food and warmth. The drunken, the dissipated,

and the wretched have disappeared; the more sober and orderly part of

the population have not yet awakened to the labours of the day, and the

stillness of death is over the streets; its very hue seems to be

imparted to them, cold and lifeless as they look in the grey, sombre

light of daybreak. The coach-stands in the larger thoroughfares are

deserted: the night-houses are closed; and the chosen promenades of

profligate misery are empty.

An occasional policeman may alone be seen at the street corners,

listlessly gazing on the deserted prospect before him; and now and then

a rakish-looking cat runs stealthily across the road and descends his

own area with as much caution and slyness—bounding first on the

water-butt, then on the dust-hole, and then alighting on the

flag-stones—as if he were conscious that his character depended on his

gallantry of the preceding night escaping public observation. A

partially opened bedroom-window here and there, bespeaks the heat of

the weather, and the uneasy slumbers of its occupant; and the dim

scanty flicker of the rushlight, through the window-blind, denotes the

chamber of watching or sickness. With these few exceptions, the streets

present no signs of life, nor the houses of habitation.

An hour wears away; the spires of the churches and roofs of the

principal buildings are faintly tinged with the light of the rising

sun; and the streets, by almost imperceptible degrees, begin to resume

their bustle and animation. Market-carts roll slowly along: the sleepy

waggoner impatiently urging on his tired horses, or vainly endeavouring

to awaken the boy, who, luxuriously stretched on the top of the

fruit-baskets, forgets, in happy oblivion, his long-cherished curiosity

to behold the wonders of London.

Rough, sleepy-looking animals of strange appearance, something between

ostlers and hackney-coachmen, begin to take down the shutters of early

public-houses; and little deal tables, with the ordinary preparations

for a street breakfast, make their appearance at the customary

stations. Numbers of men and women (principally the latter), carrying

upon their heads heavy baskets of fruit, toil down the park side of

Piccadilly, on their way to Covent-garden, and, following each other in

rapid succession, form a long straggling line from thence to the turn

of the road at Knightsbridge.

Here and there, a bricklayer’s labourer, with the day’s dinner tied up

in a handkerchief, walks briskly to his work, and occasionally a little

knot of three or four schoolboys on a stolen bathing expedition rattle

merrily over the pavement, their boisterous mirth contrasting forcibly

with the demeanour of the little sweep, who, having knocked and rung

till his arm aches, and being interdicted by a merciful legislature

from endangering his lungs by calling out, sits patiently down on the

door-step, until the housemaid may happen to awake.

Covent-garden market, and the avenues leading to it, are thronged with

carts of all sorts, sizes, and descriptions, from the heavy lumbering

waggon, with its four stout horses, to the jingling costermonger’s

cart, with its consumptive donkey. The pavement is already strewed with

decayed cabbage-leaves, broken hay-bands, and all the indescribable

litter of a vegetable market; men are shouting, carts backing, horses

neighing, boys fighting, basket-women talking, piemen expatiating on

the excellence of their pastry, and donkeys braying. These and a

hundred other sounds form a compound discordant enough to a Londoner’s

ears, and remarkably disagreeable to those of country gentlemen who are

sleeping at the Hummums for the first time.

Another hour passes away, and the day begins in good earnest. The

servant of all work, who, under the plea of sleeping very soundly, has

utterly disregarded ‘Missis’s’ ringing for half an hour previously, is

warned by Master (whom Missis has sent up in his drapery to the

landing-place for that purpose), that it’s half-past six, whereupon she

awakes all of a sudden, with well-feigned astonishment, and goes

down-stairs very sulkily, wishing, while she strikes a light, that the

principle of spontaneous combustion would extend itself to coals and

kitchen range. When the fire is lighted, she opens the street-door to

take in the milk, when, by the most singular coincidence in the world,

she discovers that the servant next door has just taken in her milk

too, and that Mr. Todd’s young man over the way, is, by an equally

extraordinary chance, taking down his master’s shutters. The inevitable

consequence is, that she just steps, milk-jug in hand, as far as next

door, just to say ‘good morning’ to Betsy Clark, and that Mr. Todd’s

young man just steps over the way to say ‘good morning’ to both of ’em;

and as the aforesaid Mr. Todd’s young man is almost as good-looking and

fascinating as the baker himself, the conversation quickly becomes very

interesting, and probably would become more so, if Betsy Clark’s

Missis, who always will be a-followin’ her about, didn’t give an angry

tap at her bedroom window, on which Mr. Todd’s young man tries to

whistle coolly, as he goes back to his shop much faster than he came

from it; and the two girls run back to their respective places, and

shut their street-doors with surprising softness, each of them poking

their heads out of the front parlour window, a minute afterwards,

however, ostensibly with the view of looking at the mail which just

then passes by, but really for the purpose of catching another glimpse

of Mr. Todd’s young man, who being fond of mails, but more of females,

takes a short look at the mails, and a long look at the girls, much to

the satisfaction of all parties concerned.

The mail itself goes on to the coach-office in due course, and the

passengers who are going out by the early coach, stare with

astonishment at the passengers who are coming in by the early coach,

who look blue and dismal, and are evidently under the influence of that

odd feeling produced by travelling, which makes the events of yesterday

morning seem as if they had happened at least six months ago, and

induces people to wonder with considerable gravity whether the friends

and relations they took leave of a fortnight before, have altered much

since they have left them. The coach-office is all alive, and the

coaches which are just going out, are surrounded by the usual crowd of

Jews and nondescripts, who seem to consider, Heaven knows why, that it

is quite impossible any man can mount a coach without requiring at

least sixpenny-worth of oranges, a penknife, a pocket-book, a last

year’s annual, a pencil-case, a piece of sponge, and a small series of

caricatures.

Half an hour more, and the sun darts his bright rays cheerfully down

the still half-empty streets, and shines with sufficient force to rouse

the dismal laziness of the apprentice, who pauses every other minute

from his task of sweeping out the shop and watering the pavement in

front of it, to tell another apprentice similarly employed, how hot it

will be to-day, or to stand with his right hand shading his eyes, and

his left resting on the broom, gazing at the ‘Wonder,’ or the

‘Tally-ho,’ or the ‘Nimrod,’ or some other fast coach, till it is out

of sight, when he re-enters the shop, envying the passengers on the

outside of the fast coach, and thinking of the old red brick house

‘down in the country,’ where he went to school: the miseries of the

milk and water, and thick bread and scrapings, fading into nothing

before the pleasant recollection of the green field the boys used to

play in, and the green pond he was caned for presuming to fall into,

and other schoolboy associations.

Cabs, with trunks and band-boxes between the drivers’ legs and outside

the apron, rattle briskly up and down the streets on their way to the

coach-offices or steam-packet wharfs; and the cab-drivers and

hackney-coachmen who are on the stand polish up the ornamental part of

their dingy vehicles—the former wondering how people can prefer ‘them

wild beast cariwans of homnibuses, to a riglar cab with a fast

trotter,’ and the latter admiring how people can trust their necks into

one of ‘them crazy cabs, when they can have a ’spectable ’ackney cotche

with a pair of ’orses as von’t run away with no vun;’ a consolation

unquestionably founded on fact, seeing that a hackney-coach horse never

was known to run at all, ‘except,’ as the smart cabman in front of the

rank observes, ‘except one, and _he_ run back’ards.’

The shops are now completely opened, and apprentices and shopmen are

busily engaged in cleaning and decking the windows for the day. The

bakers’ shops in town are filled with servants and children waiting for

the drawing of the first batch of rolls—an operation which was

performed a full hour ago in the suburbs: for the early clerk

population of Somers and Camden towns, Islington, and Pentonville, are

fast pouring into the city, or directing their steps towards

Chancery-lane and the Inns of Court. Middle-aged men, whose salaries

have by no means increased in the same proportion as their families,

plod steadily along, apparently with no object in view but the

counting-house; knowing by sight almost everybody they meet or

overtake, for they have seen them every morning (Sunday excepted)

during the last twenty years, but speaking to no one. If they do happen

to overtake a personal acquaintance, they just exchange a hurried

salutation, and keep walking on either by his side, or in front of him,

as his rate of walking may chance to be. As to stopping to shake hands,

or to take the friend’s arm, they seem to think that as it is not

included in their salary, they have no right to do it. Small office

lads in large hats, who are made men before they are boys, hurry along

in pairs, with their first coat carefully brushed, and the white

trousers of last Sunday plentifully besmeared with dust and ink. It

evidently requires a considerable mental struggle to avoid investing

part of the day’s dinner-money in the purchase of the stale tarts so

temptingly exposed in dusty tins at the pastry-cooks’ doors; but a

consciousness of their own importance and the receipt of seven

shillings a-week, with the prospect of an early rise to eight, comes to

their aid, and they accordingly put their hats a little more on one

side, and look under the bonnets of all the milliners’ and stay-makers’

apprentices they meet—poor girls!—the hardest worked, the worst paid,

and too often, the worst used class of the community.

Eleven o’clock, and a new set of people fill the streets. The goods in

the shop-windows are invitingly arranged; the shopmen in their white

neckerchiefs and spruce coats, look as it they couldn’t clean a window

if their lives depended on it; the carts have disappeared from

Covent-garden; the waggoners have returned, and the costermongers

repaired to their ordinary ‘beats’ in the suburbs; clerks are at their

offices, and gigs, cabs, omnibuses, and saddle-horses, are conveying

their masters to the same destination. The streets are thronged with a

vast concourse of people, gay and shabby, rich and poor, idle and

industrious; and we come to the heat, bustle, and activity of Noon.