Poor Job Caudle was one of the few men whom Nature, in her casual
bounty to women, sends into the world as patient listeners. He was,
perhaps, in more respects than one, all ears. And these ears, Mrs.
Caudle--his lawful, wedded wife as she would ever and anon impress
upon him, for she was not a woman to wear chains without shaking
them--took whole and sole possession of. They were her entire
property; as expressly made to convey to Caudle's brain the stream of
wisdom that continually flowed from the lips of his wife, as was the
tin funnel through which Mrs. Caudle in vintage time bottled her
elder wine. There was, however, this difference between the wisdom
and the wine. The wine was always sugared: the wisdom, never. It
was expressed crude from the heart of Mrs. Caudle; who, doubtless,
trusted to the sweetness of her husband's disposition to make it
agree with him.
Philosophers have debated whether morning or night is most conducive
to the strongest and clearest moral impressions. The Grecian sage
confessed that his labours smelt of the lamp. In like manner did
Mrs. Caudle's wisdom smell of the rushlight. She knew that her
husband was too much distracted by his business as toyman and doll-
merchant to digest her lessons in the broad day. Besides, she could
never make sure of him: he was always liable to be summoned to the
shop. Now from eleven at night until seven in the morning there was
no retreat for him. He was compelled to lie and listen. Perhaps
there was little magnanimity in this on the part of Mrs. Caudle; but
in marriage, as in war, it is permitted to take every advantage of
the enemy. Besides, Mrs. Caudle copied very ancient and classic
authority. Minerva's bird, the very wisest thing in feathers, is
silent all the day. So was Mrs. Caudle. Like the owl, she hooted
only at night.
Mr. Caudle was blessed with an indomitable constitution. One fact
will prove the truth of this. He lived thirty years with Mrs.
Caudle, surviving her. Yes, it took thirty years for Mrs. Caudle to
lecture and dilate upon the joys, griefs, duties, and vicissitudes
comprised within that seemingly small circle--the wedding-ring. We
say, seemingly small; for the thing, as viewed by the vulgar, naked
eye, is a tiny hoop made for the third feminine finger. Alack! like
the ring of Saturn, for good or evil, it circles a whole world. Or,
to take a less gigantic figure, it compasses a vast region: it may
be Arabia Felix, and it may be Arabia Petrea.
A lemon-hearted cynic might liken the wedding-ring to an ancient
circus, in which wild animals clawed one another for the sport of
lookers-on. Perish the hyperbole! We would rather compare it to an
elfin ring, in which dancing fairies made the sweetest music for
infirm humanity.
Manifold are the uses of rings. Even swine are tamed by them. You
will see a vagrant, hilarious, devastating porker--a full-blooded
fellow that would bleed into many, many fathoms of black pudding--you
will see him, escaped from his proper home, straying in a neighbour's
garden. How he tramples upon the heart's-ease: how, with quivering
snout, he roots up lilies--odoriferous bulbs! Here he gives a
reckless snatch at thyme and marjoram--and here he munches violets
and gilly-flowers. At length the marauder is detected, seized by his
owner, and driven, beaten home. To make the porker less dangerous,
it is determined that he shall be RINGED. The sentence is
pronounced--execution ordered. Listen to his screams!
"Would you not think the knife was in his throat?
And yet they're only boring through his nose!"
Hence, for all future time, the porker behaves himself with a sort of
forced propriety--for in either nostril he carries a ring. It is,
for the greatness of humanity, a saddening thought, that sometimes
men must be treated no better than pigs.
But Mr. Job Caudle was not of these men. Marriage to him was not
made a necessity. No; for him call it if you will a happy chance--a
golden accident. It is, however, enough for us to know that he was
married; and was therefore made the recipient of a wife's wisdom.
Mrs. Caudle, like Mahomet's dove, continually pecked at the good
man's ears; and it is a happiness to learn from what he left behind
that he had hived all her sayings in his brain; and further, that he
employed the mellow evening of his life to put such sayings down,
that, in due season, they might be enshrined in imperishable type.
When Mr. Job Caudle was left in this briary world without his daily
guide and nocturnal monitress, he was in the ripe fulness of fifty-
seven. For three hours at least after he went to bed--such slaves
are we to habit--he could not close an eye. His wife still talked at
his side. True it was, she was dead and decently interred. His
mind--it was a comfort to know it--could not wander on this point;
this he knew. Nevertheless, his wife was with him. The Ghost of her
Tongue still talked as in the life; and again and again did Job
Caudle hear the monitions of bygone years. At times, so loud, so
lively, so real were the sounds, that Job, with a cold chill, doubted
if he were really widowed. And then, with the movement of an arm, a
foot, he would assure himself that he was alone in his holland.
Nevertheless, the talk continued. It was terrible to be thus haunted
by a voice: to have advice, commands, remonstrance, all sorts of
saws and adages still poured upon him, and no visible wife. Now did
the voice speak from the curtains; now from the tester; and now did
it whisper to Job from the very pillow that he pressed. "It's a
dreadful thing that her tongue should walk in this manner," said Job,
and then he thought confusedly of exorcism, or at least of counsel
from the parish priest.
Whether Job followed his own brain, or the wise direction of another,
we know not. But he resolved every night to commit to paper one
curtain lecture of his late wife. The employment would, possibly,
lay the ghost that haunted him. It was her dear tongue that cried
for justice, and when thus satisfied, it might possibly rest in
quiet. And so it happened. Job faithfully chronicled all his late
wife's lectures; the ghost of her tongue was thenceforth silent, and
Job slept all his after nights in peace.
When Job died, a small packet of papers was found inscribed as
follows:-
"Curtain Lectures delivered in the course of Thirty Years by Mrs.
Margaret Caudle, and suffered by Job, her Husband."
That Mr. Caudle had his eye upon the future printer, is made pretty
probable by the fact that in most places he had affixed the text--
such text for the most part arising out of his own daily conduct--to
the lecture of the night. He had also, with an instinctive knowledge
of the dignity of literature, left a bank-note of very fair amount
with the manuscript. Following our duty as editor, we trust we have
done justice to both documents.