The Charles Dickens Christmas MEGAPACK™ Page 13

  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,” p
ursued 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.”

  Toby was greatly moved.

  “O! You have a thankful family, Sir Joseph!” cried his wife.

  “My lady,” said Sir Joseph, quite majestically, “Ingratitude is known to be the sin of that class. I expect no other return.”

  “Ah! Born bad!” thought Toby. “Nothing melts us.”

  “What man can do, I do,” pursued Sir Joseph. “I do my duty as the Poor Man’s Friend and Father; and I endeavour to educate his mind, by inculcating on all occasions the one great moral lesson which that class requires. That is, entire Dependence on myself. They have no business whatever with—with themselves. If wicked and designing persons tell them otherwise, and they become impatient and discontented, and are guilty of insubordinate conduct and black-hearted ingratitude; which is undoubtedly the case; I am their Friend and Father still. It is so Ordained. It is in the nature of things.”

  With that great sentiment, he opened the Alderman’s letter; and read it.

  “Very polite and attentive, I am sure!” exclaimed Sir Joseph. “My lady, the Alderman is so obliging as to remind me that he has had “the distinguished honour”—he is very good—of meeting me at the house of our mutual friend Deedles, the banker; and he does me the favour to inquire whether it will be agreeable to me to have Will Fern put down.”

  “Most agreeable!” replied my Lady Bowley. “The worst man among them! He has been committing a robbery, I hope?”

  “Why no,” said Sir Joseph, referring to the letter. “Not quite. Very near. Not quite. He came up to London, it seems, to look for employment (trying to better himself—that’s his story), and being found at night asleep in a shed, was taken into custody, and carried next morning before the Alderman. The Alderman observes (very properly) that he is determined to put this sort of thing down; and that if it will be agreeable to me to have Will Fern put down, he will be happy to begin with him.”

  “Let him be made an example of, by all means,” returned the lady. “Last winter, when I introduced pinking and eyelet-holing among the men and boys in the village, as a nice evening employment, and had the lines,

  O let us love our occupations,

  Bless the squire and his relations,

  Live upon our daily rations,

  And always know our proper stations,

  set to music on the new system, for them to sing the while; this very Fern—I see him now—touched that hat of his, and said, “I humbly ask your pardon, my lady, but an’t I something different from a great girl?” I expected it, of course; who can expect anything but insolence and ingratitude from that class of people! That is not to the purpose, however. Sir Joseph! Make an example of him!”

  “Hem!” coughed Sir Joseph. “Mr. Fish, if you’ll have the goodness to attend—”

  Mr. Fish immediately seized his pen, and wrote from Sir Joseph’s dictation.

  “Private. My dear Sir. I am very much indebted to you for your courtesy in the matter of the man William Fern, of whom, I regret to add, I can say nothing favourable. I have uniformly considered myself in the light of his Friend and Father, but have been repaid (a common case, I grieve to say) with ingratitude, and constant opposition to my plans. He is a turbulent and rebellious spirit. His character will not bear investigation. Nothing will persuade him to be happy when he might. Under these circumstances, it appears to me, I own, that when he comes before you again (as you informed me he promised to do to-morrow, pending your inquiries, and I think he may be so far relied upon), his committal for some short term as a Vagabond, would be a service to society, and would be a salutary example in a country where—for the sake of those who are, through good and evil report, the Friends and Fathers of the Poor, as well as with a view to that, generally speaking, misguided class themselves—examples are greatly needed. And I am,” and so forth.

  “It appears,” remarked Sir Joseph when he had signed this letter, and Mr. Fish was sealing it, “as if this were Ordained: really. At the close of the year, I wind up my account and strike my balance, even with William Fern!”

  Trotty, who had long ago relapsed, and was very low-spirited, stepped forward with a rueful face to take the letter.

  “With my compliments and thanks,” said Sir Joseph. “Stop!”

  “Stop!” echoed Mr. Fish.

  “You have heard, perhaps,” said Sir Joseph, oracularly, “certain remarks into which I have been led respecting the solemn period of time at which we have arrived, and the duty imposed upon us of settling our affairs, and being prepared. You have observed that I don’t shelter myself behind my superior standing in society, but that Mr. Fish—that gentleman—has a cheque-book at his elbow, and is in fact here, to enable me to turn over a perfectly new leaf, and enter on the epoch before us with a clean account. Now, my friend, can you lay your hand upon your heart, and say, that you also have made preparations for a New Year?”

  “I am afraid, sir,” stammered Trotty, looking meekly at him, “that I am a—a—little behind-hand with the world.”

  “Behind-hand with the world!” repeated Sir Joseph Bowley, in a tone of terrible distinctness.

  “I am afraid, sir,” faltered Trotty, “that there’s a matter of ten or twelve shillings owing to Mrs. Chickenstalker.”

  “To Mrs. Chickenstalker!” repeated Sir Joseph, in the same tone as before.

  “A shop, sir,” exclaimed Toby, “in the general line. Also a—a little money on account of rent. A very little, sir. It oughtn’t to be owing, I know, but we have been hard put to it, indeed!”

  Sir Joseph looked at his lady, and at Mr. Fish, and at Trotty, one after another, twice all round. He then made a despondent gesture with both hands at once, as if he gave the thing up altogether.

  “How a man, even among this improvident and impracticable race; an old man; a man grown grey; can look a New Year in the face, with his affairs in this condition; how he can lie down on his bed at night, and get up again in the morning, and—There!” he said, turning his back on Trotty. “Take the letter. Take the letter!”

  “I heartily wish it was otherwise, sir,” said Trotty, anxious to excuse himself. “We have been tried very hard.”

  Sir Joseph still repeating “Take the letter, take the letter!” and Mr. Fish not only saying the same thing, but giving additional force to the request by motioning the bearer to the door, he had nothing for it but to make
his bow and leave the house. And in the street, poor Trotty pulled his worn old hat down on his head, to hide the grief he felt at getting no hold on the New Year, anywhere.

  He didn’t even lift his hat to look up at the Bell tower when he came to the old church on his return. He halted there a moment, from habit: and knew that it was growing dark, and that the steeple rose above him, indistinct and faint, in the murky air. He knew, too, that the Chimes would ring immediately; and that they sounded to his fancy, at such a time, like voices in the clouds. But he only made the more haste to deliver the Alderman’s letter, and get out of the way before they began; for he dreaded to hear them tagging “Friends and Fathers, Friends and Fathers,” to the burden they had rung out last.

  Toby discharged himself of his commission, therefore, with all possible speed, and set off trotting homeward. But what with his pace, which was at best an awkward one in the street; and what with his hat, which didn’t improve it; he trotted against somebody in less than no time, and was sent staggering out into the road.

  “I beg your pardon, I’m sure!” said Trotty, pulling up his hat in great confusion, and between the hat and the torn lining, fixing his head into a kind of bee-hive. “I hope I haven’t hurt you.”

  As to hurting anybody, Toby was not such an absolute Samson, but that he was much more likely to be hurt himself: and indeed, he had flown out into the road, like a shuttlecock. He had such an opinion of his own strength, however, that he was in real concern for the other party: and said again,

  “I hope I haven’t hurt you?”

  The man against whom he had run; a sun-browned, sinewy, country-looking man, with grizzled hair, and a rough chin; stared at him for a moment, as if he suspected him to be in jest. But, satisfied of his good faith, he answered:

  “No, friend. You have not hurt me.”

  “Nor the child, I hope?” said Trotty.

  “Nor the child,” returned the man. “I thank you kindly.”

  As he said so, he glanced at a little girl he carried in his arms, asleep: and shading her face with the long end of the poor handkerchief he wore about his throat, went slowly on.