Christmas Stories

“I hope not, sir,” said Trotty, faintly. “I’d sooner die of want!”

“Divide the amount of tripe before-mentioned, Alderman,” said Mr. Filer, “by the estimated number of existing widows and orphans, and the result will be one pennyweight of tripe to each. Not a grain is left for that man. Consequently, he’s a robber.”

Trotty was so shocked, that it gave him no concern to see the Alderman finish the tripe himself. It was a relief to get rid of it, anyhow.

“And what do you say?” asked the Alderman, jocosely, of the red-faced gentleman in the blue coat. “You have heard friend Filer. What do you say?”

“What’s it possible to say?” returned the gentleman. “What is to be said? Who can take any interest in a fellow like this,” meaning Trotty; “in such degenerate times as these? Look at him. What an object! The good old times, the grand old times, the great old times! Those were the times for a bold peasantry, and all that sort of thing. Those were the times for every sort of thing, in fact. There’s nothing now-a-days. Ah!” sighed the red-faced gentleman. “The good old times, the good old times!”

The gentleman didn’t specify what particular times he alluded to; nor did he say whether he objected to the present times, from a disinterested consciousness that they had done nothing very remarkable in producing himself.

“The good old times, the good old times,” repeated the gentleman. “What times they were! They were the only times. It’s of no use talking about any other times, or discussing what the people are in these times. You don’t call these, times, do you? I don’t. Look into Strutt’s Costumes, and see what a Porter used to be, in any of the good old English reigns.”

“He hadn’t, in his very best circumstances, a shirt to his back, or a stocking to his foot; and there was scarcely a vegetable in all England for him to put into his mouth,” said Mr. Filer. “I can prove it, by tables.”

But still the red-faced gentleman extolled the good old times, the grand old times, the great old times. No matter what anybody else said, he still went turning round and round in one set form of words concerning them; as a poor squirrel turns and turns in its revolving cage; touching the mechanism, and trick of which, it has probably quite as distinct perceptions, as ever this red-faced gentleman had of his deceased Millennium.

It is possible that poor Trotty’s faith in these very vague Old Times was not entirely destroyed, for he felt vague enough at that moment. One thing, however, was plain to him, in the midst of his distress; to wit, that however these gentlemen might differ in details, his misgivings of that morning, and of many other mornings, were well founded. “No, no. We can’t go right or do right,” thought Trotty in despair. “There is no good in us. We are born bad!”

But Trotty had a father’s heart within him; which had somehow got into his breast in spite of this decree; and he could not bear that Meg, in the blush of her brief joy, should have her fortune read by these wise gentlemen. “God help her,” thought poor Trotty. “She will know it soon enough.”

He anxiously signed, therefore, to the young smith, to take her away. But he was so busy, talking to her softly at a little distance, that he only became conscious of this desire, simultaneously with Alderman Cute. Now, the Alderman had not yet had his say, but he was a philosopher, too—practical, though! Oh, very practical—and, as he had no idea of losing any portion of his audience, he cried “Stop!”

“Now, you know,” said the Alderman, addressing his two friends, with a self-complacent smile upon his face which was habitual to him, “I am a plain man, and a practical man; and I go to work in a plain practical way. That’s my way. There is not the least mystery or difficulty in dealing with this sort of people if you only understand ’em, and can talk to ’em in their own manner. Now, you Porter! Don’t you ever tell me, or anybody else, my friend, that you haven’t always enough to eat, and of the best; because I know better. I have tasted your tripe, you know, and you can’t ‘chaff ’ me. You understand what ‘chaff ’ means, eh? That’s the right word, isn’t it? Ha, ha, ha! Lord bless you,” said the Alderman, turning to his friends again, “it’s the easiest thing on earth to deal with this sort of people, if you understand ’em.”

Famous man for the common people, Alderman Cute! Never out of temper with them! Easy, affable, joking, knowing gentleman!

“You see, my friend,” pursued the Alderman, “there’s a great deal of nonsense talked about Want—‘hard up,’ you know; that’s the phrase, isn’t it? ha! ha! ha!—and I intend to Put it Down. There’s a certain amount of cant in vogue about Starvation, and I mean to Put it Down. That’s all! Lord bless you,” said the Alderman, turning to his friends again, “you may Put Down anything among this sort of people, if you only know the way to set about it.”

Trotty took Meg’s hand and drew it through his arm. He didn’t seem to know what he was doing though.

“Your daughter, eh?” said the Alderman, chucking her familiarly under the chin.

Always affable with the working classes, Alderman Cute! Knew what pleased them! Not a bit of pride!

“Where’s her mother?” asked that worthy gentleman.

“Dead,” said Toby. “Her mother got up linen; and was called to Heaven when She was born.”

“Not to get up linen there, I suppose,” remarked the Alderman pleasantly.

Toby might or might not have been able to separate his wife in Heaven from her old pursuits. But query: If Mrs. Alderman Cute had gone to Heaven, would Mr. Alderman Cute have pictured her as holding any state or station there?

“And you’re making love to her, are you?” said Cute to the young smith.

“Yes,” returned Richard quickly, for he was nettled by the question. “And we are going to be married on New Year’s Day.”

“What do you mean!” cried Filer sharply. “Married!”

“Why, yes, we’re thinking of it, Master,” said Richard. “We’re rather in a hurry, you see, in case it should be Put Down first.”

“Ah!” cried Filer, with a groan. “Put that down indeed, Alderman, and you’ll do something. Married! Married!! The ignorance of the first principles of political economy on the part of these people; their improvidence; their wickedness; is, by Heavens! enough to—Now look at that couple, will you!”

Well? They were worth looking at. And marriage seemed as reasonable and fair a deed as they need have in contemplation.

“A man may live to be as old as Methuselah,” said Mr. Filer, “and may labour all his life for the benefit of such people as those; and may heap up facts on figures, facts on figures, facts on figures, mountains high and dry; and he can no more hope to persuade ’em that they have no right or business to be married, than he can hope to persuade ’em that they have no earthly right or business to be born. And that we know they haven’t. We reduced it to a mathematical certainty long ago!”

Alderman Cute was mightily diverted, and laid his right forefinger on the side of his nose, as much as to say to both his friends, “Observe me, will you! Keep your eye on the practical man!”—and called Meg to him.

“Come here, my girl!” said Alderman Cute.

The young blood of her lover had been mounting, wrathfully, within the last few minutes; and he was indisposed to let her come. But, setting a constraint upon himself, he came forward with a stride as Meg approached, and stood beside her. Trotty kept her hand within his arm still, but looked from face to face as wildly as a sleeper in a dream.

“Now, I’m going to give you a word or two of good advice, my girl,” said the Alderman, in his nice easy way. “It’s my place to give advice, you know, because I’m a Justice. You know I’m a Justice, don’t you?”

Meg timidly said, “Yes.” But everybody knew Alderman Cute was a Justice! Oh dear, so active a Justice always! Who such a mote of brightness in the public eye, as Cute!

“You are going to be married, you say,” pursued the Alderman. “Very unbecoming and indelicate in one of your sex! But never mind that. After you are married, you’ll quarrel with your husband and come to be a distressed wife. You may think not; but you will, because I tell you so. Now, I give you fair warning, that I have made up my mind to Put distressed wives Down. So, don’t be brought before me. You’ll have children—boys. Those boys will grow up bad, of course, and run wild in the streets, without shoes and stockings. Mind, my young friend! I’ll convict ’em summarily, every one, for I am determined to Put boys without shoes and stockings, Down. Perhaps your husband will die young (most likely) and leave you with a baby. Then you’ll be turned out of doors, and wander up and down the streets. Now, don’t wander near me, my dear, for I am resolved, to Put all wandering mothers Down. All young mothers, of all sorts and kinds, it’s my determination to Put Down. Don’t think to plead illness as an excuse with me; or babies as an excuse with me; for all sick persons and young children (I hope you know the church-service, but I’m afraid not) I am determined to Put Down. And if you attempt, desperately, and ungratefully, and impiously, and fraudulently attempt, to drown yourself, or hang yourself, I’ll have no pity for you, for I have made up my mind to Put all suicide Down! If there is one thing,” said the Alderman, with his self-satisfied smile, “on which I can be said to have made up my mind more than on another, it is to Put suicide Down. So don’t try it on. That’s the phrase, isn’t it? Ha, ha! now we understand each other.”

Toby knew not whether to be agonised or glad, to see that Meg had turned a deadly white, and dropped her lover’s hand.

“And as for you, you dull dog,” said the Alderman, turning with even increased cheerfulness and urbanity to the young smith, “what are you thinking of being married for? What do you want to be married for, you silly fellow? If I was a fine, young, strapping chap like you, I should be ashamed of being milksop enough to pin myself to a woman’s apron-strings! Why, she’ll be an old woman before you’re a middle-aged man! And a pretty figure you’ll cut then, with a draggle-tailed wife and a crowd of squalling children crying after you wherever you go!”

O, he knew how to banter the common people, Alderman Cute!

“There! Go along with you,” said the Alderman, “and repent. Don’t make such a fool of yourself as to get married on New Year’s Day. You’ll think very differently of it, long before next New Year’s Day: a trim young fellow like you, with all the girls looking after you. There! Go along with you!”

They went along. Not arm in arm, or hand in hand, or interchanging bright glances; but, she in tears; he, gloomy and down-looking. Were these the hearts that had so lately made old Toby’s leap up from its faintness? No, no. The Alderman (a blessing on his head!) had Put them Down.

“As you happen to be here,” said the Alderman to Toby, “you shall carry a letter for me. Can you be quick? You’re an old man.”

Toby, who had been looking after Meg, quite stupidly, made shift to murmur out that he was very quick, and very strong.

“How old are you?” inquired the Alderman.

“I’m over sixty, sir,” said Toby.

“O! This man’s a great deal past the average age, you know,” cried Mr. Filer breaking in as if his patience would bear some trying, but this really was carrying matters a little too far.

“I feel I’m intruding, sir,” said Toby. “I—I misdoubted it this morning. Oh dear me!”

The Alderman cut him short by giving him the letter from his pocket. Toby would have got a shilling too; but Mr. Filer clearly showing that in that case he would rob a certain given number of persons of ninepence-halfpenny a-piece, he only got sixpence; and thought himself very well off to get that.

Then the Alderman gave an arm to each of his friends, and walked off in high feather; but, he immediately came hurrying back alone, as if he had forgotten something.

“Porter!” said the Alderman.

“Sir!” said Toby.

“Take care of that daughter of yours. She’s much too handsome.”

“Even her good looks are stolen from somebody or other, I suppose,” thought Toby, looking at the sixpence in his hand, and thinking of the tripe. “She’s been and robbed five hundred ladies of a bloom a-piece, I shouldn’t wonder. It’s very dreadful!”

“She’s much too handsome, my man,” repeated the Alderman. “The chances are, that she’ll come to no good, I clearly see. Observe what I say. Take care of her!” With which, he hurried off again.

“Wrong every way. Wrong every way!” said Trotty, clasping his hands. “Born bad. No business here!”

The Chimes came clashing in upon him as he said the words. Full, loud, and sounding—but with no encouragement. No, not a drop.

“The tune’s changed,” cried the old man, as he listened. “There’s not a word of all that fancy in it. Why should there be? I have no business with the New Year nor with the old one neither. Let me die!”

Still the Bells, pealing forth their changes, made the very air spin. Put ’em down, Put ’em down! Good old Times, Good old Times! Facts and Figures, Facts and Figures! Put ’em down, Put ’em down! If they said anything they said this, until the brain of Toby reeled.

He pressed his bewildered head between his hands, as if to keep it from splitting asunder. A well-timed action, as it happened; for finding the letter in one of them, and being by that means reminded of his charge, he fell, mechanically, into his usual trot, and trotted off.

CHAPTER 2

The Second Quarter

The letter Toby had received from Alderman Cute, was addressed to a great man in the great district of the town. The greatest district of the town. It must have been the greatest district of the town, because it was commonly called “the world” by its inhabitants. The letter positively seemed heavier in Toby’s hand, than another letter. Not because the Alderman had sealed it with a very large coat of arms and no end of wax, but because of the weighty name on the superscription, and the ponderous amount of gold and silver with which it was associated.

“How different from us!” thought Toby, in all simplicity and earnestness, as he looked at the direction. “Divide the lively turtles in the bills of mortality, by the number of gentlefolks able to buy ’em; and whose share does he take but his own! As to snatching tripe from anybody’s mouth—he’d scorn it!”

With the involuntary homage due to such an exalted character, Toby interposed a corner of his apron between the letter and his fingers.

“His children,” said Trotty, and a mist rose before his eyes; “his daughters—Gentlemen may win their hearts and marry them; they may be happy wives and mothers; they may be handsome like my darling M-e-”.

He couldn’t finish the name. The final letter swelled in his throat, to the size of the whole alphabet.

“Never mind,” thought Trotty. “I know what I mean. That’s more than enough for me.” And with this consolatory rumination, trotted on.

It was a hard frost, that day. The air was bracing, crisp, and clear. The wintry sun, though powerless for warmth, looked brightly down upon the ice it was too weak to melt, and set a radiant glory there. At other times, Trotty might have learned a poor man’s lesson from the wintry sun; but, he was past that, now.

The Year was Old, that day. The patient Year had lived through the reproaches and misuses of its slanderers, and faithfully performed its work. Spring, summer, autumn, winter. It had laboured through the destined round, and now laid down its weary head to die. Shut out from hope, high impulse, active happiness, itself, but active messenger of many joys to others, it made appeal in its decline to have its toiling days and patient hours remembered, and to die in peace. Trotty might have read a poor man’s allegory in the fading year; but he was past that, now.

And only he? Or has the like appeal been ever made, by seventy years at once upon an English labourer’s head, and made in vain!

The streets were full of motion, and the shops were decked out gaily. The New Year, like an Infant Heir to the whole world, was waited for, with welcomes, presents, and rejoicings. There were books and toys for the New Year, glittering trinkets for the New Year, dresses for the New Year, schemes of fortune for the New Year; new inventions to beguile it. Its life was parcelled out in almanacks and pocket-books; the coming of its moons, and stars, and tides, was known beforehand to the moment; all the workings of its seasons in their days and nights, were calculated with as much precision as Mr. Filer could work sums in men and women.

The New Year, the New Year. Everywhere the New Year! The Old Year was already looked upon as dead; and its effects were selling cheap, like some drowned mariner’s aboardship. Its patterns were Last Year’s, and going at a sacrifice, before its breath was gone. Its treasures were mere dirt, beside the riches of its unborn successor!

Trotty had no portion, to his thinking, in the New Year or the Old.

“Put ’em down, Put ’em down! Facts and Figures, Facts and Figures! Good old Times, Good old Times! Put ’em down, Put ’em down!”—his trot went to that measure, and would fit itself to nothing else.

But, even that one, melancholy as it was, brought him, in due time, to the end of his journey. To the mansion of Sir Joseph Bowley, Member of Parliament.

The door was opened by a Porter. Such a Porter! Not of Toby’s order. Quite another thing. His place was the ticket though; not Toby’s.

This Porter underwent some hard panting before he could speak; having breathed himself by coming incautiously out of his chair, without first taking time to think about it and compose his mind. When he had found his voice—which it took him a long time to do, for it was a long way off, and hidden under a load of meat—he said in a fat whisper,

“Who’s it from?”

Toby told him.

“You’re to take it in, yourself,” said the Porter, pointing to a room at the end of a long passage, opening from the hall. “Everything goes straight in, on this day of the year. You’re not a bit too soon; for the carriage is at the door now, and they have only come to town for a couple of hours, a’ purpose.”

Toby wiped his feet (which were quite dry already) with great care, and took the way pointed out to him; observing as he went that it was an awfully grand house, but hushed and covered up, as if the family were in the country. Knocking at the room-door, he was told to enter from within; and doing so found himself in a spacious library, where, at a table strewn with files and papers, were a stately lady in a bonnet; and a not very stately gentleman in black who wrote from her dictation; while another, and an older, and a much statelier gentleman, whose hat and cane were on the table, walked up and down, with one hand in his breast, and looked complacently from time to time at his own picture—a full length; a very full length—hanging over the fireplace.

“What is this?” said the last-named gentleman. “Mr. Fish, will you have the goodness to attend?”

Mr. Fish begged pardon, and taking the letter from Toby, handed it, with great respect.

“From Alderman Cute, Sir Joseph.”

“Is this all? Have you nothing else, Porter?” inquired Sir Joseph.

Toby replied in the negative.

“You have no bill or demand upon me—my name is Bowley, Sir Joseph Bowley—of any kind from anybody, have you?” said Sir Joseph. “If you have, present it. There is a cheque-book by the side of Mr. Fish. I allow nothing to be carried into the New Year. Every description of account is settled in this house at the close of the old one. So that if death was to—to—”

“To cut,” suggested Mr. Fish.

“To sever, sir,” returned Sir Joseph, with great asperity, “the cord of existence—my affairs would be found, I hope, in a state of preparation.”

“My dear Sir Joseph!” said the lady, who was greatly younger than the gentleman. “How shocking!”

“My lady Bowley,” returned Sir Joseph, floundering now and then, as in the great depth of his observations, “at this season of the year we should think of—of—ourselves. We should look into our—our accounts. We should feel that every return of so eventful a period in human transactions, involves a matter of deep moment between a man and his—and his banker.”

Sir Joseph delivered these words as if he felt the full morality of what he was saying; and desired that even Trotty should have an opportunity of being improved by such discourse. Possibly he had this end before him in still forbearing to break the seal of the letter, and in telling Trotty to wait where he was, a minute.

“You were desiring Mr. Fish to say, my lady—” observed Sir Joseph.

“Mr. Fish has said that, I believe,” returned his lady, glancing at the letter. “But, upon my word, Sir Joseph, I don’t think I can let it go after all. It is so very dear.”

“What is dear?” inquired Sir Joseph.

“That Charity, my love. They only allow two votes for a subscription of five pounds. Really monstrous!”

“My lady Bowley,” returned Sir Joseph, “you surprise me. Is the luxury of feeling in proportion to the number of votes; or is it, to a rightly constituted mind, in proportion to the number of applicants, and the wholesome state of mind to which their canvassing reduces them? Is there no excitement of the purest kind in having two votes to dispose of among fifty people?”

“Not to me, I acknowledge,” replied the lady. “It bores one. Besides, one can’t oblige one’s acquaintance. But you are the Poor Man’s Friend, you know, Sir Joseph. You think otherwise.”

“I am the Poor Man’s Friend,” observed Sir Joseph, glancing at the poor man present. “As such I may be taunted. As such I have been taunted. But I ask no other title.”

“Bless him for a noble gentleman!” thought Trotty.

“I don’t agree with Cute here, for instance,” said Sir Joseph, holding out the letter. “I don’t agree with the Filer party. I don’t agree with any party. My friend the Poor Man, has no business with anything of that sort, and nothing of that sort has any business with him. My friend the Poor Man, in my district, is my business. No man or body of men has any right to interfere between my friend and me. That is the ground I take. I assume a—a paternal character towards my friend. I say, ‘My good fellow, I will treat you paternally.’”

Toby listened with great gravity, and began to feel more comfortable.

“Your only business, my good fellow,” pursued Sir Joseph, looking abstractedly at Toby; “your only business in life is with me. You needn’t trouble yourself to think about anything. I will think for you; I know what is good for you; I am your perpetual parent. Such is the dispensation of an all-wise Providence! Now, the design of your creation is—not that you should swill, and guzzle, and associate your enjoyments, brutally, with food”; Toby thought remorsefully of the tripe; “but that you should feel the Dignity of Labour. Go forth erect into the cheerful morning air, and—and stop there. Live hard and temperately, be respectful, exercise your self-denial, bring up your family on next to nothing, pay your rent as regularly as the clock strikes, be punctual in your dealings (I set you a good example; you will find Mr. Fish, my confidential secretary, with a cash-box before him at all times); and you may trust to me to be your Friend and Father.”

“Nice children, indeed, Sir Joseph!” said the lady, with a shudder. “Rheumatisms, and fevers, and crooked legs, and asthmas, and all kinds of horrors!”

“My lady,” returned Sir Joseph, with solemnity, “not the less am I the Poor Man’s Friend and Father. Not the less shall he receive encouragement at my hands. Every quarter-day he will be put in communication with Mr. Fish. Every New Year’s Day, myself and friends will drink his health. Once every year, myself and friends will address him with the deepest feeling. Once in his life, he may even perhaps receive; in public, in the presence of the gentry; a Trifle from a Friend. And when, upheld no more by these stimulants, and the Dignity of Labour, he sinks into his comfortable grave, then, my lady”—here Sir Joseph blew his nose—“I will be a Friend and a Father—on the same terms—to his children.”