Master Humphrey's Clock Page 5

  INTRODUCTION TO THE GIANT CHRONICLES

  Once upon a time, that is to say, in this our time,—the exact year,month, and day are of no matter,—there dwelt in the city of London asubstantial citizen, who united in his single person the dignities ofwholesale fruiterer, alderman, common-councilman, and member of theworshipful Company of Patten-makers; who had superadded to theseextraordinary distinctions the important post and title of Sheriff, andwho at length, and to crown all, stood next in rotation for the high andhonourable office of Lord Mayor.

  He was a very substantial citizen indeed. His face was like the fullmoon in a fog, with two little holes punched out for his eyes, a veryripe pear stuck on for his nose, and a wide gash to serve for a mouth.The girth of his waistcoat was hung up and lettered in his tailor’s shopas an extraordinary curiosity. He breathed like a heavy snorer, and hisvoice in speaking came thickly forth, as if it were oppressed and stifledby feather-beds. He trod the ground like an elephant, and eat and dranklike—like nothing but an alderman, as he was.

  This worthy citizen had risen to his great eminence from smallbeginnings. He had once been a very lean, weazen little boy, neverdreaming of carrying such a weight of flesh upon his bones or of money inhis pockets, and glad enough to take his dinner at a baker’s door, andhis tea at a pump. But he had long ago forgotten all this, as it wasproper that a wholesale fruiterer, alderman, common-councilman, member ofthe worshipful Company of Patten-makers, past sheriff, and, above all, aLord Mayor that was to be, should; and he never forgot it more completelyin all his life than on the eighth of November in the year of hiselection to the great golden civic chair, which was the day before hisgrand dinner at Guildhall.

  It happened that as he sat that evening all alone in his counting-house,looking over the bill of fare for next day, and checking off the fatcapons in fifties, and the turtle-soup by the hundred quarts, for hisprivate amusement,—it happened that as he sat alone occupied in thesepleasant calculations, a strange man came in and asked him how he did,adding, ‘If I am half as much changed as you, sir, you have norecollection of me, I am sure.’

  The strange man was not over and above well dressed, and was very farfrom being fat or rich-looking in any sense of the word, yet he spokewith a kind of modest confidence, and assumed an easy, gentlemanly sortof an air, to which nobody but a rich man can lawfully presume. Besidesthis, he interrupted the good citizen just as he had reckoned threehundred and seventy-two fat capons, and was carrying them over to thenext column; and as if that were not aggravation enough, the learnedrecorder for the city of London had only ten minutes previously gone outat that very same door, and had turned round and said, ‘Good night, mylord.’ Yes, he had said, ‘my lord;’—he, a man of birth and education, ofthe Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, Barrister-at-Law,—he who hadan uncle in the House of Commons, and an aunt almost but not quite in theHouse of Lords (for she had married a feeble peer, and made him vote asshe liked),—he, this man, this learned recorder, had said, ‘my lord.’‘I’ll not wait till to-morrow to give you your title, my Lord Mayor,’says he, with a bow and a smile; ‘you are Lord Mayor _de facto_, if not_de jure_. Good night, my lord.’

  The Lord Mayor elect thought of this, and turning to the stranger, andsternly bidding him ‘go out of his private counting-house,’ broughtforward the three hundred and seventy-two fat capons, and went on withhis account.

  ‘Do you remember,’ said the other, stepping forward,—‘_do_ you rememberlittle Joe Toddyhigh?’

  The port wine fled for a moment from the fruiterer’s nose as he muttered,‘Joe Toddyhigh! What about Joe Toddyhigh?’

  ‘_I_ am Joe Toddyhigh,’ cried the visitor. ‘Look at me, look hard atme,—harder, harder. You know me now? You know little Joe again? What ahappiness to us both, to meet the very night before your grandeur! O!give me your hand, Jack,—both hands,—both, for the sake of old times.’

  ‘You pinch me, sir. You’re a-hurting of me,’ said the Lord Mayor electpettishly. ‘Don’t,—suppose anybody should come,—Mr. Toddyhigh, sir.’

  ‘Mr. Toddyhigh!’ repeated the other ruefully.

  ‘O, don’t bother,’ said the Lord Mayor elect, scratching his head. ‘Dearme! Why, I thought you was dead. What a fellow you are!’

  Indeed, it was a pretty state of things, and worthy the tone of vexationand disappointment in which the Lord Mayor spoke. Joe Toddyhigh had beena poor boy with him at Hull, and had oftentimes divided his last pennyand parted his last crust to relieve his wants; for though Joe was adestitute child in those times, he was as faithful and affectionate inhis friendship as ever man of might could be. They parted one day toseek their fortunes in different directions. Joe went to sea, and thenow wealthy citizen begged his way to London, They separated with manytears, like foolish fellows as they were, and agreed to remain fastfriends, and if they lived, soon to communicate again.

  When he was an errand-boy, and even in the early days of hisapprenticeship, the citizen had many a time trudged to the Post-office toask if there were any letter from poor little Joe, and had gone homeagain with tears in his eyes, when he found no news of his only friend.The world is a wide place, and it was a long time before the letter came;when it did, the writer was forgotten. It turned from white to yellowfrom lying in the Post-office with nobody to claim it, and in course oftime was torn up with five hundred others, and sold for waste-paper. Andnow at last, and when it might least have been expected, here was thisJoe Toddyhigh turning up and claiming acquaintance with a great publiccharacter, who on the morrow would be cracking jokes with the PrimeMinister of England, and who had only, at any time during the next twelvemonths, to say the word, and he could shut up Temple Bar, and make it nothoroughfare for the king himself!

  ‘I am sure I don’t know what to say, Mr. Toddyhigh,’ said the Lord Mayorelect; ‘I really don’t. It’s very inconvenient. I’d sooner have giventwenty pound,—it’s very inconvenient, really.’—A thought had come intohis mind, that perhaps his old friend might say something passionatewhich would give him an excuse for being angry himself. No such thing.Joe looked at him steadily, but very mildly, and did not open his lips.

  ‘Of course I shall pay you what I owe you,’ said the Lord Mayor elect,fidgeting in his chair. ‘You lent me—I think it was a shilling or somesmall coin—when we parted company, and that of course I shall pay withgood interest. I can pay my way with any man, and always have done. Ifyou look into the Mansion House the day after to-morrow,—some time afterdusk,—and ask for my private clerk, you’ll find he has a draft for you.I haven’t got time to say anything more just now, unless,’—he hesitated,for, coupled with a strong desire to glitter for once in all his glory inthe eyes of his former companion, was a distrust of his appearance, whichmight be more shabby than he could tell by that feeble light,—‘unlessyou’d like to come to the dinner to-morrow. I don’t mind your havingthis ticket, if you like to take it. A great many people would givetheir ears for it, I can tell you.’

  His old friend took the card without speaking a word, and instantlydeparted. His sunburnt face and gray hair were present to the citizen’smind for a moment; but by the time he reached three hundred andeighty-one fat capons, he had quite forgotten him.

  Joe Toddyhigh had never been in the capital of Europe before, and hewandered up and down the streets that night amazed at the number ofchurches and other public buildings, the splendour of the shops, theriches that were heaped up on every side, the glare of light in whichthey were displayed, and the concourse of people who hurried to and fro,indifferent, apparently, to all the wonders that surrounded them. But inall the long streets and broad squares, there were none but strangers; itwas quite a relief to turn down a by-way and hear his own footsteps onthe pavement. He went home to his inn, thought that London was a dreary,desolate place, and felt disposed to doubt the existence of onetrue-hearted man in the whole worshipful Company of Patten-makers.Finally, he went to bed, and dreamed that he and the Lord Mayor electwer
e boys again.

  He went next day to the dinner; and when in a burst of light and music,and in the midst of splendid decorations and surrounded by brilliantcompany, his former friend appeared at the head of the Hall, and washailed with shouts and cheering, he cheered and shouted with the best,and for the moment could have cried. The next moment he cursed hisweakness in behalf of a man so changed and selfish, and quite hated ajolly-looking old gentleman opposite for declaring himself in the prideof his heart a Patten-maker.

  As the banquet proceeded, he took more and more to heart the richcitizen’s unkindness; and that, not from any envy, but because he feltthat a man of his state and fortune could all the better afford torecognise an old friend, even if he were poor and obscure. The more hethought of this, the more lonely and sad he felt. When the companydispersed and adjourned to the ball-room, he paced the hall and passagesalone, ruminating in a very melancholy condition upon the disappointmenthe had experienced.

  It chanced, while he was lounging about in this moody state, that hestumbled upon a flight of stairs, dark, steep, and narrow, which heascended without any thought about the matter, and so came into a littlemusic-gallery, empty and deserted. From this elevated post, whichcommanded the whole hall, he amused himself in looking down upon theattendants who were clearing away the fragments of the feast very lazily,and drinking out of all the bottles and glasses with most commendableperseverance.

  His attention gradually relaxed, and he fell fast asleep.

  When he awoke, he thought there must be something the matter with hiseyes; but, rubbing them a little, he soon found that the moonlight wasreally streaming through the east window, that the lamps were allextinguished, and that he was alone. He listened, but no distant murmurin the echoing passages, not even the shutting of a door, broke the deepsilence; he groped his way down the stairs, and found that the door atthe bottom was locked on the other side. He began now to comprehend thathe must have slept a long time, that he had been overlooked, and was shutup there for the night.

  His first sensation, perhaps, was not altogether a comfortable one, forit was a dark, chilly, earthy-smelling place, and something too large,for a man so situated, to feel at home in. However, when the momentaryconsternation of his surprise was over, he made light of the accident,and resolved to feel his way up the stairs again, and make himself ascomfortable as he could in the gallery until morning. As he turned toexecute this purpose, he heard the clocks strike three.

  Any such invasion of a dead stillness as the striking of distant clocks,causes it to appear the more intense and insupportable when the sound hasceased. He listened with strained attention in the hope that some clock,lagging behind its fellows, had yet to strike,—looking all the time intothe profound darkness before him, until it seemed to weave itself into ablack tissue, patterned with a hundred reflections of his own eyes. Butthe bells had all pealed out their warning for that once, and the gust ofwind that moaned through the place seemed cold and heavy with their ironbreath.

  The time and circumstances were favourable to reflection. He tried tokeep his thoughts to the current, unpleasant though it was, in which theyhad moved all day, and to think with what a romantic feeling he hadlooked forward to shaking his old friend by the hand before he died, andwhat a wide and cruel difference there was between the meeting they hadhad, and that which he had so often and so long anticipated. Still, hewas disordered by waking to such sudden loneliness, and could not preventhis mind from running upon odd tales of people of undoubted courage, who,being shut up by night in vaults or churches, or other dismal places, hadscaled great heights to get out, and fled from silence as they had neverdone from danger. This brought to his mind the moonlight through thewindow, and bethinking himself of it, he groped his way back up thecrooked stairs,—but very stealthily, as though he were fearful of beingoverheard.

  He was very much astonished when he approached the gallery again, to seea light in the building: still more so, on advancing hastily and lookinground, to observe no visible source from which it could proceed. But howmuch greater yet was his astonishment at the spectacle which this lightrevealed.

  The statues of the two giants, Gog and Magog, each above fourteen feet inheight, those which succeeded to still older and more barbarous figures,after the Great Fire of London, and which stand in the Guildhall to thisday, were endowed with life and motion. These guardian genii of the Cityhad quitted their pedestals, and reclined in easy attitudes in the greatstained glass window. Between them was an ancient cask, which seemed tobe full of wine; for the younger Giant, clapping his huge hand upon it,and throwing up his mighty leg, burst into an exulting laugh, whichreverberated through the hall like thunder.

  Joe Toddyhigh instinctively stooped down, and, more dead than alive, felthis hair stand on end, his knees knock together, and a cold damp breakout upon his forehead. But even at that minute curiosity prevailed overevery other feeling, and somewhat reassured by the good-humour of theGiants and their apparent unconsciousness of his presence, he crouched ina corner of the gallery, in as small a space as he could, and, peepingbetween the rails, observed them closely.

  It was then that the elder Giant, who had a flowing gray beard, raisedhis thoughtful eyes to his companion’s face, and in a grave and solemnvoice addressed him thus: