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diff --git a/1421-h/1421-h.htm b/1421-h/1421-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..653633f --- /dev/null +++ b/1421-h/1421-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1483 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy, by Charles Dickens</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy, by Charles Dickens + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy + + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Release Date: April 3, 2005 [eBook #1421] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall “Christmas Stories” +edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<h1>MRS. LIRRIPER’S LEGACY</h1> +<h2>CHAPTER I—MRS. LIRRIPER RELATES HOW SHE WENT ON, AND WENT +OVER</h2> +<p>Ah! It’s pleasant to drop into my own easy-chair my dear +though a little palpitating what with trotting up-stairs and what with +trotting down, and why kitchen stairs should all be corner stairs is +for the builders to justify though I do not think they fully understand +their trade and never did, else why the sameness and why not more conveniences +and fewer draughts and likewise making a practice of laying the plaster +on too thick I am well convinced which holds the damp, and as to chimney-pots +putting them on by guess-work like hats at a party and no more knowing +what their effect will be upon the smoke bless you than I do if so much, +except that it will mostly be either to send it down your throat in +a straight form or give it a twist before it goes there. And what +I says speaking as I find of those new metal chimneys all manner of +shapes (there’s a row of ’em at Miss Wozenham’s lodging-house +lower down on the other side of the way) is that they only work your +smoke into artificial patterns for you before you swallow it and that +I’d quite as soon swallow mine plain, the flavour being the same, +not to mention the conceit of putting up signs on the top of your house +to show the forms in which you take your smoke into your inside.</p> +<p>Being here before your eyes my dear in my own easy-chair in my own +quiet room in my own Lodging-House Number Eighty-one Norfolk Street +Strand London situated midway between the City and St. James’s—if +anything is where it used to be with these hotels calling themselves +Limited but called unlimited by Major Jackman rising up everywhere and +rising up into flagstaffs where they can’t go any higher, but +my mind of those monsters is give me a landlord’s or landlady’s +wholesome face when I come off a journey and not a brass plate with +an electrified number clicking out of it which it’s not in nature +can be glad to see me and to which I don’t want to be hoisted +like molasses at the Docks and left there telegraphing for help with +the most ingenious instruments but quite in vain—being here my +dear I have no call to mention that I am still in the Lodgings as a +business hoping to die in the same and if agreeable to the clergy partly +read over at Saint Clement’s Danes and concluded in Hatfield churchyard +when lying once again by my poor Lirriper ashes to ashes and dust to +dust.</p> +<p>Neither should I tell you any news my dear in telling you that the +Major is still a fixture in the Parlours quite as much so as the roof +of the house, and that Jemmy is of boys the best and brightest and has +ever had kept from him the cruel story of his poor pretty young mother +Mrs. Edson being deserted in the second floor and dying in my arms, +fully believing that I am his born Gran and him an orphan, though what +with engineering since he took a taste for it and him and the Major +making Locomotives out of parasols broken iron pots and cotton-reels +and them absolutely a getting off the line and falling over the table +and injuring the passengers almost equal to the originals it really +is quite wonderful. And when I says to the Major, “Major +can’t you by <i>any</i> means give us a communication with the +guard?” the Major says quite huffy, “No madam it’s +not to be done,” and when I says “Why not?” the Major +says, “That is between us who are in the Railway Interest madam +and our friend the Right Honourable Vice-President of the Board of Trade” +and if you’ll believe me my dear the Major wrote to Jemmy at school +to consult him on the answer I should have before I could get even that +amount of unsatisfactoriness out of the man, the reason being that when +we first began with the little model and the working signals beautiful +and perfect (being in general as wrong as the real) and when I says +laughing “What appointment am I to hold in this undertaking gentlemen?” +Jemmy hugs me round the neck and tells me dancing, “You shall +be the Public Gran” and consequently they put upon me just as +much as ever they like and I sit a growling in my easy-chair.</p> +<p>My dear whether it is that a grown man as clever as the Major cannot +give half his heart and mind to anything—even a plaything—but +must get into right down earnest with it, whether it is so or whether +it is not so I do not undertake to say, but Jemmy is far out-done by +the serious and believing ways of the Major in the management of the +United Grand Junction Lirriper and Jackman Great Norfolk Parlour Line, +“For” says my Jemmy with the sparkling eyes when it was +christened, “we must have a whole mouthful of name Gran or our +dear old Public” and there the young rogue kissed me, “won’t +stump up.” So the Public took the shares—ten at ninepence, +and immediately when that was spent twelve Preference at one and sixpence—and +they were all signed by Jemmy and countersigned by the Major, and between +ourselves much better worth the money than some shares I have paid for +in my time. In the same holidays the line was made and worked +and opened and ran excursions and had collisions and burst its boilers +and all sorts of accidents and offences all most regular correct and +pretty. The sense of responsibility entertained by the Major as +a military style of station-master my dear starting the down train behind +time and ringing one of those little bells that you buy with the little +coal-scuttles off the tray round the man’s neck in the street +did him honour, but noticing the Major of a night when he is writing +out his monthly report to Jemmy at school of the state of the Rolling +Stock and the Permanent Way and all the rest of it (the whole kept upon +the Major’s sideboard and dusted with his own hands every morning +before varnishing his boots) I notice him as full of thought and care +as full can be and frowning in a fearful manner, but indeed the Major +does nothing by halves as witness his great delight in going out surveying +with Jemmy when he has Jemmy to go with, carrying a chain and a measuring-tape +and driving I don’t know what improvements right through Westminster +Abbey and fully believed in the streets to be knocking everything upside +down by Act of Parliament. As please Heaven will come to pass +when Jemmy takes to that as a profession!</p> +<p>Mentioning my poor Lirriper brings into my head his own youngest +brother the Doctor though Doctor of what I am sure it would be hard +to say unless Liquor, for neither Physic nor Music nor yet Law does +Joshua Lirriper know a morsel of except continually being summoned to +the County Court and having orders made upon him which he runs away +from, and once was taken in the passage of this very house with an umbrella +up and the Major’s hat on, giving his name with the door-mat round +him as Sir Johnson Jones, K.C.B. in spectacles residing at the Horse +Guards. On which occasion he had got into the house not a minute +before, through the girl letting him on the mat when he sent in a piece +of paper twisted more like one of those spills for lighting candles +than a note, offering me the choice between thirty shillings in hand +and his brains on the premises marked immediate and waiting for an answer. +My dear it gave me such a dreadful turn to think of the brains of my +poor dear Lirriper’s own flesh and blood flying about the new +oilcloth however unworthy to be so assisted, that I went out of my room +here to ask him what he would take once for all not to do it for life +when I found him in the custody of two gentlemen that I should have +judged to be in the feather-bed trade if they had not announced the +law, so fluffy were their personal appearance. “Bring your +chains, sir,” says Joshua to the littlest of the two in the biggest +hat, “rivet on my fetters!” Imagine my feelings when +I pictered him clanking up Norfolk Street in irons and Miss Wozenham +looking out of window! “Gentlemen,” I says all of +a tremble and ready to drop “please to bring him into Major Jackman’s +apartments.” So they brought him into the Parlours, and +when the Major spies his own curly-brimmed hat on him which Joshua Lirriper +had whipped off its peg in the passage for a military disguise he goes +into such a tearing passion that he tips it off his head with his hand +and kicks it up to the ceiling with his foot where it grazed long afterwards. +“Major” I says “be cool and advise me what to do with +Joshua my dead and gone Lirriper’s own youngest brother.” +“Madam” says the Major “my advice is that you board +and lodge him in a Powder Mill, with a handsome gratuity to the proprietor +when exploded.” “Major” I says “as a Christian +you cannot mean your words.” “Madam” says the +Major “by the Lord I do!” and indeed the Major besides being +with all his merits a very passionate man for his size had a bad opinion +of Joshua on account of former troubles even unattended by liberties +taken with his apparel. When Joshua Lirriper hears this conversation +betwixt us he turns upon the littlest one with the biggest hat and says +“Come sir! Remove me to my vile dungeon. Where is +my mouldy straw?” My dear at the picter of him rising in +my mind dressed almost entirely in padlocks like Baron Trenck in Jemmy’s +book I was so overcome that I burst into tears and I says to the Major, +“Major take my keys and settle with these gentlemen or I shall +never know a happy minute more,” which was done several times +both before and since, but still I must remember that Joshua Lirriper +has his good feelings and shows them in being always so troubled in +his mind when he cannot wear mourning for his brother. Many a +long year have I left off my widow’s mourning not being wishful +to intrude, but the tender point in Joshua that I cannot help a little +yielding to is when he writes “One single sovereign would enable +me to wear a decent suit of mourning for my much-loved brother. +I vowed at the time of his lamented death that I would ever wear sables +in memory of him but Alas how short-sighted is man, How keep that vow +when penniless!” It says a good deal for the strength of +his feelings that he couldn’t have been seven year old when my +poor Lirriper died and to have kept to it ever since is highly creditable. +But we know there’s good in all of us,—if we only knew where +it was in some of us,—and though it was far from delicate in Joshua +to work upon the dear child’s feelings when first sent to school +and write down into Lincolnshire for his pocket-money by return of post +and got it, still he is my poor Lirriper’s own youngest brother +and mightn’t have meant not paying his bill at the Salisbury Arms +when his affection took him down to stay a fortnight at Hatfield churchyard +and might have meant to keep sober but for bad company. Consequently +if the Major <i>had</i> played on him with the garden-engine which he +got privately into his room without my knowing of it, I think that much +as I should have regretted it there would have been words betwixt the +Major and me. Therefore my dear though he played on Mr. Buffle +by mistake being hot in his head, and though it might have been misrepresented +down at Wozenham’s into not being ready for Mr. Buffle in other +respects he being the Assessed Taxes, still I do not so much regret +it as perhaps I ought. And whether Joshua Lirriper will yet do +well in life I cannot say, but I did hear of his coming, out at a Private +Theatre in the character of a Bandit without receiving any offers afterwards +from the regular managers.</p> +<p>Mentioning Mr. Baffle gives an instance of there being good in persons +where good is not expected, for it cannot be denied that Mr. Buffle’s +manners when engaged in his business were not agreeable. To collect +is one thing, and to look about as if suspicious of the goods being +gradually removing in the dead of the night by a back door is another, +over taxing you have no control but suspecting is voluntary. Allowances +too must ever be made for a gentleman of the Major’s warmth not +relishing being spoke to with a pen in the mouth, and while I do not +know that it is more irritable to my own feelings to have a low-crowned +hat with a broad brim kept on in doors than any other hat still I can +appreciate the Major’s, besides which without bearing malice or +vengeance the Major is a man that scores up arrears as his habit always +was with Joshua Lirriper. So at last my dear the Major lay in +wait for Mr. Buffle, and it worrited me a good deal. Mr. Buffle +gives his rap of two sharp knocks one day and the Major bounces to the +door. “Collector has called for two quarters’ Assessed +Taxes” says Mr. Buffle. “They are ready for him” +says the Major and brings him in here. But on the way Mr. Buffle +looks about him in his usual suspicious manner and the Major fires and +asks him “Do you see a Ghost sir?” “No sir” +says Mr. Buffle. “Because I have before noticed you” +says the Major “apparently looking for a spectre very hard beneath +the roof of my respected friend. When you find that supernatural +agent, be so good as point him out sir.” Mr. Buffle stares +at the Major and then nods at me. “Mrs. Lirriper sir” +says the Major going off into a perfect steam and introducing me with +his hand. “Pleasure of knowing her” says Mr. Buffle. +“A—hum!—Jemmy Jackman sir!” says the Major introducing +himself. “Honour of knowing you by sight” says Mr. +Buffle. “Jemmy Jackman sir” says the Major wagging +his head sideways in a sort of obstinate fury “presents to you +his esteemed friend that lady Mrs. Emma Lirriper of Eighty-one Norfolk +Street Strand London in the County of Middlesex in the United Kingdom +of Great Britain and Ireland. Upon which occasion sir,” +says the Major, “Jemmy Jackman takes your hat off.” +Mr. Buffle looks at his hat where the Major drops it on the floor, and +he picks it up and puts it on again. “Sir” says the +Major very red and looking him full in the face “there are two +quarters of the Gallantry Taxes due and the Collector has called.” +Upon which if you can believe my words my dear the Major drops Mr. Buffle’s +hat off again. “This—” Mr. Buffle begins very +angry with his pen in his mouth, when the Major steaming more and more +says “Take your bit out sir! Or by the whole infernal system +of Taxation of this country and every individual figure in the National +Debt, I’ll get upon your back and ride you like a horse!” +which it’s my belief he would have done and even actually jerking +his neat little legs ready for a spring as it was. “This,” +says Mr. Buffle without his pen “is an assault and I’ll +have the law of you.” “Sir” replies the Major +“if you are a man of honour, your Collector of whatever may be +due on the Honourable Assessment by applying to Major Jackman at the +Parlours Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings, may obtain what he wants in +full at any moment.”</p> +<p>When the Major glared at Mr. Buffle with those meaning words my dear +I literally gasped for a teaspoonful of salvolatile in a wine-glass +of water, and I says “Pray let it go no farther gentlemen I beg +and beseech of you!” But the Major could be got to do nothing +else but snort long after Mr. Buffle was gone, and the effect it had +upon my whole mass of blood when on the next day of Mr. Buffle’s +rounds the Major spruced himself up and went humming a tune up and down +the street with one eye almost obliterated by his hat there are not +expressions in Johnson’s Dictionary to state. But I safely +put the street door on the jar and got behind the Major’s blinds +with my shawl on and my mind made up the moment I saw danger to rush +out screeching till my voice failed me and catch the Major round the +neck till my strength went and have all parties bound. I had not +been behind the blinds a quarter of an hour when I saw Mr. Buffle approaching +with his Collecting-books in his hand. The Major likewise saw +him approaching and hummed louder and himself approached. They +met before the Airy railings. The Major takes off his hat at arm’s +length and says “Mr. Buffle I believe?” Mr. Buffle +takes off <i>his</i> hat at arm’s length and says “That +is my name sir.” Says the Major “Have you any commands +for me, Mr. Buffle?” Says Mr. Buffle “Not any sir.” +Then my dear both of ’em bowed very low and haughty and parted, +and whenever Mr. Buffle made his rounds in future him and the Major +always met and bowed before the Airy railings, putting me much in mind +of Hamlet and the other gentleman in mourning before killing one another, +though I could have wished the other gentleman had done it fairer and +even if less polite no poison.</p> +<p>Mr. Buffle’s family were not liked in this neighbourhood, for +when you are a householder my dear you’ll find it does not come +by nature to like the Assessed, and it was considered besides that a +one-horse pheayton ought not to have elevated Mrs. Buffle to that height +especially when purloined from the Taxes which I myself did consider +uncharitable. But they were <i>not</i> liked and there was that +domestic unhappiness in the family in consequence of their both being +very hard with Miss Buffle and one another on account of Miss Buffle’s +favouring Mr. Buffle’s articled young gentleman, that it <i>was</i> +whispered that Miss Buffle would go either into a consumption or a convent +she being so very thin and off her appetite and two close-shaved gentlemen +with white bands round their necks peeping round the corner whenever +she went out in waistcoats resembling black pinafores. So things +stood towards Mr. Buffle when one night I was woke by a frightful noise +and a smell of burning, and going to my bedroom window saw the whole +street in a glow. Fortunately we had two sets empty just then +and before I could hurry on some clothes I heard the Major hammering +at the attics’ doors and calling out “Dress yourselves!—Fire! +Don’t be frightened!—Fire! Collect your presence of +mind!—Fire! All right—Fire!” most tremenjously. +As I opened my bedroom door the Major came tumbling in over himself +and me, and caught me in his arms. “Major” I says +breathless “where is it?” “I don’t know +dearest madam” says the Major—“Fire! Jemmy Jackman +will defend you to the last drop of his blood—Fire! If the +dear boy was at home what a treat this would be for him—Fire!” +and altogether very collected and bold except that he couldn’t +say a single sentence without shaking me to the very centre with roaring +Fire. We ran down to the drawing-room and put our heads out of +window, and the Major calls to an unfeeling young monkey, scampering +by be joyful and ready to split “Where is it?—Fire!” +The monkey answers without stopping “O here’s a lark! +Old Buffle’s been setting his house alight to prevent its being +found out that he boned the Taxes. Hurrah! Fire!” +And then the sparks came flying up and the smoke came pouring down and +the crackling of flames and spatting of water and banging of engines +and hacking of axes and breaking of glass and knocking at doors and +the shouting and crying and hurrying and the heat and altogether gave +me a dreadful palpitation. “Don’t be frightened dearest +madam,” says the Major, “—Fire! There’s +nothing to be alarmed at—Fire! Don’t open the street +door till I come back—Fire! I’ll go and see if I can +be of any service—Fire! You’re quite composed and +comfortable ain’t you?—Fire, Fire, Fire!” It +was in vain for me to hold the man and tell him he’d be galloped +to death by the engines—pumped to death by his over-exertions—wet-feeted +to death by the slop and mess—flattened to death when the roofs +fell in—his spirit was up and he went scampering off after the +young monkey with all the breath he had and none to spare, and me and +the girls huddled together at the parlour windows looking at the dreadful +flames above the houses over the way, Mr. Buffle’s being round +the corner. Presently what should we see but some people running +down the street straight to our door, and then the Major directing operations +in the busiest way, and then some more people and then—carried +in a chair similar to Guy Fawkes—Mr. Buffle in a blanket!</p> +<p>My dear the Major has Mr. Buffle brought up our steps and whisked +into the parlour and carted out on the sofy, and then he and all the +rest of them without so much as a word burst away again full speed leaving +the impression of a vision except for Mr. Buffle awful in his blanket +with his eyes a rolling. In a twinkling they all burst back again +with Mrs. Buffle in another blanket, which whisked in and carted out +on the sofy they all burst off again and all burst back again with Miss +Buffle in another blanket, which again whisked in and carted out they +all burst off again and all burst back again with Mr. Buffle’s +articled young gentleman in another blanket—him a holding round +the necks of two men carrying him by the legs, similar to the picter +of the disgraceful creetur who has lost the fight (but where the chair +I do not know) and his hair having the appearance of newly played upon. +When all four of a row, the Major rubs his hands and whispers me with +what little hoarseness he can get together, “If our dear remarkable +boy was only at home what a delightful treat this would be for him!”</p> +<p>My dear we made them some hot tea and toast and some hot brandy-and-water +with a little comfortable nutmeg in it, and at first they were scared +and low in their spirits but being fully insured got sociable. +And the first use Mr. Buffle made of his tongue was to call the Major +his Preserver and his best of friends and to say “My for ever +dearest sir let me make you known to Mrs. Buffle” which also addressed +him as her Preserver and her best of friends and was fully as cordial +as the blanket would admit of. Also Miss Buffle. The articled +young gentleman’s head was a little light and he sat a moaning +“Robina is reduced to cinders, Robina is reduced to cinders!” +Which went more to the heart on account of his having got wrapped in +his blanket as if he was looking out of a violinceller case, until Mr. +Buffle says “Robina speak to him!” Miss Buffle says +“Dear George!” and but for the Major’s pouring down +brandy-and-water on the instant which caused a catching in his throat +owing to the nutmeg and a violent fit of coughing it might have proved +too much for his strength. When the articled young gentleman got +the better of it Mr. Buffle leaned up against Mrs. Buffle being two +bundles, a little while in confidence, and then says with tears in his +eyes which the Major noticing wiped, “We have not been an united +family, let us after this danger become so, take her George.” +The young gentleman could not put his arm out far to do it, but his +spoken expressions were very beautiful though of a wandering class. +And I do not know that I ever had a much pleasanter meal than the breakfast +we took together after we had all dozed, when Miss Buffle made tea very +sweetly in quite the Roman style as depicted formerly at Covent Garden +Theatre and when the whole family was most agreeable, as they have ever +proved since that night when the Major stood at the foot of the Fire-Escape +and claimed them as they came down—the young gentleman head-foremost, +which accounts. And though I do not say that we should be less +liable to think ill of one another if strictly limited to blankets, +still I do say that we might most of us come to a better understanding +if we kept one another less at a distance.</p> +<p>Why there’s Wozenham’s lower down on the other side of +the street. I had a feeling of much soreness several years respecting +what I must still ever call Miss Wozenham’s systematic underbidding +and the likeness of the house in Bradshaw having far too many windows +and a most umbrageous and outrageous Oak which never yet was seen in +Norfolk Street nor yet a carriage and four at Wozenham’s door, +which it would have been far more to Bradshaw’s credit to have +drawn a cab. This frame of mind continued bitter down to the very +afternoon in January last when one of my girls, Sally Rairyganoo which +I still suspect of Irish extraction though family represented Cambridge, +else why abscond with a bricklayer of the Limerick persuasion and be +married in pattens not waiting till his black eye was decently got round +with all the company fourteen in number and one horse fighting outside +on the roof of the vehicle,—I repeat my dear my ill-regulated +state of mind towards Miss Wozenham continued down to the very afternoon +of January last past when Sally Rairyganoo came banging (I can use no +milder expression) into my room with a jump which may be Cambridge and +may not, and said “Hurroo Missis! Miss Wozenham’s +sold up!” My dear when I had it thrown in my face and conscience +that the girl Sally had reason to think I could be glad of the ruin +of a fellow-creeter, I burst into tears and dropped back in my chair +and I says “I am ashamed of myself!”</p> +<p>Well! I tried to settle to my tea but I could not do it what +with thinking of Miss Wozenham and her distresses. It was a wretched +night and I went up to a front window and looked over at Wozenham’s +and as well as I could make it out down the street in the fog it was +the dismallest of the dismal and not a light to be seen. So at +last I save to myself “This will not do,” and I puts on +my oldest bonnet and shawl not wishing Miss Wozenham to be reminded +of my best at such a time, and lo and behold you I goes over to Wozenham’s +and knocks. “Miss Wozenham at home?” I says turning +my head when I heard the door go. And then I saw it was Miss Wozenham +herself who had opened it and sadly worn she was poor thing and her +eyes all swelled and swelled with crying. “Miss Wozenham” +I says “it is several years since there was a little unpleasantness +betwixt us on the subject of my grandson’s cap being down your +Airy. I have overlooked it and I hope you have done the same.” +“Yes Mrs. Lirriper” she says in a surprise, “I have.” +“Then my dear” I says “I should be glad to come in +and speak a word to you.” Upon my calling her my dear Miss +Wozenham breaks out a crying most pitiful, and a not unfeeling elderly +person that might have been better shaved in a nightcap with a hat over +it offering a polite apology for the mumps having worked themselves +into his constitution, and also for sending home to his wife on the +bellows which was in his hand as a writing-desk, looks out of the back +parlour and says “The lady wants a word of comfort” and +goes in again. So I was able to say quite natural “Wants +a word of comfort does she sir? Then please the pigs she shall +have it!” And Miss Wozenham and me we go into the front +room with a wretched light that seemed to have been crying too and was +sputtering out, and I says “Now my dear, tell me all,” and +she wrings her hands and says “O Mrs. Lirriper that man is in +possession here, and I have not a friend in the world who is able to +help me with a shilling.”</p> +<p>It doesn’t signify a bit what a talkative old body like me +said to Miss Wozenham when she said that, and so I’ll tell you +instead my dear that I’d have given thirty shillings to have taken +her over to tea, only I durstn’t on account of the Major. +Not you see but what I knew I could draw the Major out like thread and +wind him round my finger on most subjects and perhaps even on that if +I was to set myself to it, but him and me had so often belied Miss Wozenham +to one another that I was shamefaced, and I knew she had offended his +pride and never mine, and likewise I felt timid that that Rairyganoo +girl might make things awkward. So I says “My dear if you +could give me a cup of tea to clear my muddle of a head I should better +understand your affairs.” And we had the tea and the affairs +too and after all it was but forty pound, and—There! she’s +as industrious and straight a creeter as ever lived and has paid back +half of it already, and where’s the use of saying more, particularly +when it ain’t the point? For the point is that when she +was a kissing my hands and holding them in hers and kissing them again +and blessing blessing blessing, I cheered up at last and I says “Why +what a waddling old goose I have been my dear to take you for something +so very different!” “Ah but I too” says she +“how have <i>I</i> mistaken <i>you</i>!” “Come +for goodness’ sake tell me” I says “what you thought +of me?” “O” says she “I thought you had +no feeling for such a hard hand-to-mouth life as mine, and were rolling +in affluence.” I says shaking my sides (and very glad to +do it for I had been a choking quite long enough) “Only look at +my figure my dear and give me your opinion whether if I was in affluence +I should be likely to roll in it?” That did it? We +got as merry as grigs (whatever <i>they</i> are, if you happen to know +my dear—<i>I</i> don’t) and I went home to my blessed home +as happy and as thankful as could be. But before I make an end +of it, think even of my having misunderstood the Major! Yes! +For next forenoon the Major came into my little room with his brushed +hat in his hand and he begins “My dearest madam—” +and then put his face in his hat as if he had just come into church. +As I sat all in a maze he came out of his hat and began again. +“My esteemed and beloved friend—” and then went into +his hat again. “Major,” I cries out frightened “has +anything happened to our darling boy?” “No, no, no” +says the Major “but Miss Wozenham has been here this morning to +make her excuses to me, and by the Lord I can’t get over what +she told me.” “Hoity toity, Major,” I says “you +don’t know yet that I was afraid of you last night and didn’t +think half as well of you as I ought! So come out of church Major +and forgive me like a dear old friend and I’ll never do so any +more.” And I leave you to judge my dear whether I ever did +or will. And how affecting to think of Miss Wozenham out of her +small income and her losses doing so much for her poor old father, and +keeping a brother that had had the misfortune to soften his brain against +the hard mathematics as neat as a new pin in the three back represented +to lodgers as a lumber-room and consuming a whole shoulder of mutton +whenever provided!</p> +<p>And now my dear I really am a going to tell you about my Legacy if +you’re inclined to favour me with your attention, and I did fully +intend to have come straight to it only one thing does so bring up another. +It was the month of June and the day before Midsummer Day when my girl +Winifred Madgers—she was what is termed a Plymouth Sister, and +the Plymouth Brother that made away with her was quite right, for a +tidier young woman for a wife never came into a house and afterwards +called with the beautifullest Plymouth Twins—it was the day before +Midsummer Day when Winifred Madgers comes and says to me “A gentleman +from the Consul’s wishes particular to speak to Mrs. Lirriper.” +If you’ll believe me my dear the Consols at the bank where I have +a little matter for Jemmy got into my head, and I says “Good gracious +I hope he ain’t had any dreadful fall!” Says Winifred +“He don’t look as if he had ma’am.” And +I says “Show him in.”</p> +<p>The gentleman came in dark and with his hair cropped what I should +consider too close, and he says very polite “Madame Lirrwiper!” +I says, “Yes sir. Take a chair.” “I come,” +says he “frrwom the Frrwench Consul’s.” So I +saw at once that it wasn’t the Bank of England. “We +have rrweceived,” says the gentleman turning his r’s very +curious and skilful, “frrwom the Mairrwie at Sens, a communication +which I will have the honour to rrwead. Madame Lirrwiper understands +Frrwench?” “O dear no sir!” says I. “Madame +Lirriper don’t understand anything of the sort.” “It +matters not,” says the gentleman, “I will trrwanslate.”</p> +<p>With that my dear the gentleman after reading something about a Department +and a Marie (which Lord forgive me I supposed till the Major came home +was Mary, and never was I more puzzled than to think how that young +woman came to have so much to do with it) translated a lot with the +most obliging pains, and it came to this:—That in the town of +Sons in France an unknown Englishman lay a dying. That he was +speechless and without motion. That in his lodging there was a +gold watch and a purse containing such and such money and a trunk containing +such and such clothes, but no passport and no papers, except that on +his table was a pack of cards and that he had written in pencil on the +back of the ace of hearts: “To the authorities. When I am +dead, pray send what is left, as a last Legacy, to Mrs. Lirriper Eighty-one +Norfolk Street Strand London.” When the gentleman had explained +all this, which seemed to be drawn up much more methodical than I should +have given the French credit for, not at that time knowing the nation, +he put the document into my hand. And much the wiser I was for +that you may be sure, except that it had the look of being made out +upon grocery paper and was stamped all over with eagles.</p> +<p>“Does Madame Lirrwiper” says the gentleman “believe +she rrwecognises her unfortunate compatrrwiot?”</p> +<p>You may imagine the flurry it put me into my dear to be talked to +about my compatriots.</p> +<p>I says “Excuse me. Would you have the kindness sir to +make your language as simple as you can?”</p> +<p>“This Englishman unhappy, at the point of death. This +compatrrwiot afflicted,” says the gentleman.</p> +<p>“Thank you sir” I says “I understand you now. +No sir I have not the least idea who this can be.”</p> +<p>“Has Madame Lirrwiper no son, no nephew, no godson, no frrwiend, +no acquaintance of any kind in Frrwance?”</p> +<p>“To my certain knowledge” says I “no relation or +friend, and to the best of my belief no acquaintance.”</p> +<p>“Pardon me. You take Locataires?” says the gentleman.</p> +<p>My dear fully believing he was offering me something with his obliging +foreign manners,—snuff for anything I knew,—I gave a little +bend of my head and I says if you’ll credit it, “No I thank +you. I have not contracted the habit.”</p> +<p>The gentleman looks perplexed and says “Lodgers!”</p> +<p>“Oh!” says I laughing. “Bless the man! +Why yes to be sure!”</p> +<p>“May it not be a former lodger?” says the gentleman. +“Some lodger that you pardoned some rrwent? You have pardoned +lodgers some rrwent?”</p> +<p>“Hem! It has happened sir” says I, “but I +assure you I can call to mind no gentleman of that description that +this is at all likely to be.”</p> +<p>In short my dear, we could make nothing of it, and the gentleman +noted down what I said and went away. But he left me the paper +of which he had two with him, and when the Major came in I says to the +Major as I put it in his hand “Major here’s Old Moore’s +Almanac with the hieroglyphic complete, for your opinion.”</p> +<p>It took the Major a little longer to read than I should have thought, +judging from the copious flow with which he seemed to be gifted when +attacking the organ-men, but at last he got through it, and stood a +gazing at me in amazement.</p> +<p>“Major” I says “you’re paralysed.”</p> +<p>“Madam” says the Major, “Jemmy Jackman is doubled +up.”</p> +<p>Now it did so happen that the Major had been out to get a little +information about railroads and steamboats, as our boy was coming home +for his Midsummer holidays next day and we were going to take him somewhere +for a treat and a change. So while the Major stood a gazing it +came into my head to say to him “Major I wish you’d go and +look at some of your books and maps, and see whereabouts this same town +of Sens is in France.”</p> +<p>The Major he roused himself and he went into the Parlours and he +poked about a little, and he came back to me and he says, “Sens +my dearest madam is seventy-odd miles south of Paris.”</p> +<p>With what I may truly call a desperate effort “Major,” +I says “we’ll go there with our blessed boy.”</p> +<p>If ever the Major was beside himself it was at the thoughts of that +journey. All day long he was like the wild man of the woods after +meeting with an advertisement in the papers telling him something to +his advantage, and early next morning hours before Jemmy could possibly +come home he was outside in the street ready to call out to him that +we was all a going to France. Young Rosycheeks you may believe +was as wild as the Major, and they did carry on to that degree that +I says “If you two children ain’t more orderly I’ll +pack you both off to bed.” And then they fell to cleaning +up the Major’s telescope to see France with, and went out and +bought a leather bag with a snap to hang round Jemmy, and him to carry +the money like a little Fortunatus with his purse.</p> +<p>If I hadn’t passed my word and raised their hopes, I doubt +if I could have gone through with the undertaking but it was too late +to go back now. So on the second day after Midsummer Day we went +off by the morning mail. And when we came to the sea which I had +never seen but once in my life and that when my poor Lirriper was courting +me, the freshness of it and the deepness and the airiness and to think +that it had been rolling ever since and that it was always a rolling +and so few of us minding, made me feel quite serious. But I felt +happy too and so did Jemmy and the Major and not much motion on the +whole, though me with a swimming in the head and a sinking but able +to take notice that the foreign insides appear to be constructed hollower +than the English, leading to much more tremenjous noises when bad sailors.</p> +<p>But my dear the blueness and the lightness and the coloured look +of everything and the very sentry-boxes striped and the shining rattling +drums and the little soldiers with their waists and tidy gaiters, when +we got across to the Continent—it made me feel as if I don’t +know what—as if the atmosphere had been lifted off me. And +as to lunch why bless you if I kept a man-cook and two kitchen-maids +I couldn’t got it done for twice the money, and no injured young +woman a glaring at you and grudging you and acknowledging your patronage +by wishing that your food might choke you, but so civil and so hot and +attentive and every way comfortable except Jemmy pouring wine down his +throat by tumblers-full and me expecting to see him drop under the table.</p> +<p>And the way in which Jemmy spoke his French was a real charm. +It was often wanted of him, for whenever anybody spoke a syllable to +me I says “Non-comprenny, you’re very kind, but it’s +no use—Now Jemmy!” and then Jemmy he fires away at ’em +lovely, the only thing wanting in Jemmy’s French being as it appeared +to me that he hardly ever understood a word of what they said to him +which made it scarcely of the use it might have been though in other +respects a perfect Native, and regarding the Major’s fluency I +should have been of the opinion judging French by English that there +might have been a greater choice of words in the language though still +I must admit that if I hadn’t known him when he asked a military +gentleman in a gray cloak what o’clock it was I should have took +him for a Frenchman born.</p> +<p>Before going on to look after my Legacy we were to make one regular +day in Paris, and I leave you to judge my dear what a day <i>that</i> +was with Jemmy and the Major and the telescope and me and the prowling +young man at the inn door (but very civil too) that went along with +us to show the sights. All along the railway to Paris Jemmy and +the Major had been frightening me to death by stooping down on the platforms +at stations to inspect the engines underneath their mechanical stomachs, +and by creeping in and out I don’t know where all, to find improvements +for the United Grand Junction Parlour, but when we got out into the +brilliant streets on a bright morning they gave up all their London +improvements as a bad job and gave their minds to Paris. Says +the prowling young man to me “Will I speak Inglis No?” +So I says “If you can young man I shall take it as a favour,” +but after half-an-hour of it when I fully believed the man had gone +mad and me too I says “Be so good as fall back on your French +sir,” knowing that then I shouldn’t have the agonies of +trying to understand him, which was a happy release. Not that +I lost much more than the rest either, for I generally noticed that +when he had described something very long indeed and I says to Jemmy +“What does he say Jemmy?” Jemmy says looking with +vengeance in his eye “He is so jolly indistinct!” and that +when he had described it longer all over again and I says to Jemmy “Well +Jemmy what’s it all about?” Jemmy says “He says the +building was repaired in seventeen hundred and four, Gran.”</p> +<p>Wherever that prowling young man formed his prowling habits I cannot +be expected to know, but the way in which he went round the corner while +we had our breakfasts and was there again when we swallowed the last +crumb was most marvellous, and just the same at dinner and at night, +prowling equally at the theatre and the inn gateway and the shop doors +when we bought a trifle or two and everywhere else but troubled with +a tendency to spit. And of Paris I can tell you no more my dear +than that it’s town and country both in one, and carved stone +and long streets of high houses and gardens and fountains and statues +and trees and gold, and immensely big soldiers and immensely little +soldiers and the pleasantest nurses with the whitest caps a playing +at skipping-rope with the bunchiest babies in the flattest caps, and +clean table-cloths spread everywhere for dinner and people sitting out +of doors smoking and sipping all day long and little plays being acted +in the open air for little people and every shop a complete and elegant +room, and everybody seeming to play at everything in this world. +And as to the sparkling lights my dear after dark, glittering high up +and low down and on before and on behind and all round, and the crowd +of theatres and the crowd of people and the crowd of all sorts, it’s +pure enchantment. And pretty well the only thing that grated on +me was that whether you pay your fare at the railway or whether you +change your money at a money-dealer’s or whether you take your +ticket at the theatre, the lady or gentleman is caged up (I suppose +by government) behind the strongest iron bars having more of a Zoological +appearance than a free country.</p> +<p>Well to be sure when I did after all get my precious bones to bed +that night, and my Young Rogue came in to kiss me and asks “What +do you think of this lovely lovely Paris, Gran?” I says +“Jemmy I feel as if it was beautiful fireworks being let off in +my head.” And very cool and refreshing the pleasant country +was next day when we went on to look after my Legacy, and rested me +much and did me a deal of good.</p> +<p>So at length and at last my dear we come to Sens, a pretty little +town with a great two-towered cathedral and the rooks flying in and +out of the loopholes and another tower atop of one of the towers like +a sort of a stone pulpit. In which pulpit with the birds skimming +below him if you’ll believe me, I saw a speck while I was resting +at the inn before dinner which they made signs to me was Jemmy and which +really was. I had been a fancying as I sat in the balcony of the +hotel that an Angel might light there and call down to the people to +be good, but I little thought what Jemmy all unknown to himself was +a calling down from that high place to some one in the town.</p> +<p>The pleasantest-situated inn my dear! Right under the two towers, +with their shadows a changing upon it all day like a kind of a sundial, +and country people driving in and out of the courtyard in carts and +hooded cabriolets and such like, and a market outside in front of the +cathedral, and all so quaint and like a picter. The Major and +me agreed that whatever came of my Legacy this was the place to stay +in for our holiday, and we also agreed that our dear boy had best not +be checked in his joy that night by the sight of the Englishman if he +was still alive, but that we would go together and alone. For +you are to understand that the Major not feeling himself quite equal +in his wind to the height to which Jemmy had climbed, had come back +to me and left him with the Guide.</p> +<p>So after dinner when Jemmy had set off to see the river, the Major +went down to the Mairie, and presently came back with a military character +in a sword and spurs and a cocked hat and a yellow shoulder-belt and +long tags about him that he must have found inconvenient. And +the Major says “The Englishman still lies in the same state dearest +madam. This gentleman will conduct us to his lodging.” +Upon which the military character pulled off his cocked hat to me, and +I took notice that he had shaved his forehead in imitation of Napoleon +Bonaparte but not like.</p> +<p>We wont out at the courtyard gate and past the great doors of the +cathedral and down a narrow High Street where the people were sitting +chatting at their shop doors and the children were at play. The +military character went in front and he stopped at a pork-shop with +a little statue of a pig sitting up, in the window, and a private door +that a donkey was looking out of.</p> +<p>When the donkey saw the military character he came slipping out on +the pavement to turn round and then clattered along the passage into +a back yard. So the coast being clear, the Major and me were conducted +up the common stair and into the front room on the second, a bare room +with a red tiled floor and the outside lattice blinds pulled close to +darken it. As the military character opened the blinds I saw the +tower where I had seen Jemmy, darkening as the sun got low, and I turned +to the bed by the wall and saw the Englishman.</p> +<p>It was some kind of brain fever he had had, and his hair was all +gone, and some wetted folded linen lay upon his head. I looked +at him very attentive as he lay there all wasted away with his eyes +closed, and I says to the Major—</p> +<p>“<i>I</i> never saw this face before.”</p> +<p>The Major looked at him very attentive too, and he says “I +never saw this face before.”</p> +<p>When the Major explained our words to the military character, that +gentleman shrugged his shoulders and showed the Major the card on which +it was written about the Legacy for me. It had been written with +a weak and trembling hand in bed, and I knew no more of the writing +than of the face. Neither did the Major.</p> +<p>Though lying there alone, the poor creetur was as well taken care +of as could be hoped, and would have been quite unconscious of any one’s +sitting by him then. I got the Major to say that we were not going +away at present and that I would come back to-morrow and watch a bit +by the bedside. But I got him to add—and I shook my head +hard to make it stronger—“We agree that we never saw this +face before.”</p> +<p>Our boy was greatly surprised when we told him sitting out in the +balcony in the starlight, and he ran over some of those stories of former +Lodgers, of the Major’s putting down, and asked wasn’t it +possible that it might be this lodger or that lodger. It was not +possible, and we went to bed.</p> +<p>In the morning just at breakfast-time the military character came +jingling round, and said that the doctor thought from the signs he saw +there might be some rally before the end. So I says to the Major +and Jemmy, “You two boys go and enjoy yourselves, and I’ll +take my Prayer Book and go sit by the bed.” So I went, and +I sat there some hours, reading a prayer for him poor soul now and then, +and it was quite on in the day when he moved his hand.</p> +<p>He had been so still, that the moment he moved I knew of it, and +I pulled off my spectacles and laid down my book and rose and looked +at him. From moving one hand he began to move both, and then his +action was the action of a person groping in the dark. Long after +his eyes had opened, there was a film over them and he still felt for +his way out into light. But by slow degrees his sight cleared +and his hands stopped. He saw the ceiling, he saw the wall, he +saw me. As his sight cleared, mine cleared too, and when at last +we looked in one another’s faces, I started back, and I cries +passionately:</p> +<p>“O you wicked wicked man! Your sin has found you out!”</p> +<p>For I knew him, the moment life looked out of his eyes, to be Mr. +Edson, Jemmy’s father who had so cruelly deserted Jemmy’s +young unmarried mother who had died in my arms, poor tender creetur, +and left Jemmy to me.</p> +<p>“You cruel wicked man! You bad black traitor!”</p> +<p>With the little strength he had, he made an attempt to turn over +on his wretched face to hide it. His arm dropped out of the bed +and his head with it, and there he lay before me crushed in body and +in mind. Surely the miserablest sight under the summer sun!</p> +<p>“O blessed Heaven,” I says a crying, “teach me +what to say to this broken mortal! I am a poor sinful creetur, +and the Judgment is not mine.”</p> +<p>As I lifted my eyes up to the clear bright sky, I saw the high tower +where Jemmy had stood above the birds, seeing that very window; and +the last look of that poor pretty young mother when her soul brightened +and got free, seemed to shine down from it.</p> +<p>“O man, man, man!” I says, and I went on my knees beside +the bed; “if your heart is rent asunder and you are truly penitent +for what you did, Our Saviour will have mercy on you yet!”</p> +<p>As I leaned my face against the bed, his feeble hand could just move +itself enough to touch me. I hope the touch was penitent. +It tried to hold my dress and keep hold, but the fingers were too weak +to close.</p> +<p>I lifted him back upon the pillows and I says to him:</p> +<p>“Can you hear me?”</p> +<p>He looked yes.</p> +<p>“Do you know me?”</p> +<p>He looked yes, even yet more plainly.</p> +<p>“I am not here alone. The Major is with me. You +recollect the Major?”</p> +<p>Yes. That is to say he made out yes, in the same way as before.</p> +<p>“And even the Major and I are not alone. My grandson—his +godson—is with us. Do you hear? My grandson.”</p> +<p>The fingers made another trial to catch my sleeve, but could only +creep near it and fall.</p> +<p>“Do you know who my grandson is?”</p> +<p>Yes.</p> +<p>“I pitied and loved his lonely mother. When his mother +lay a dying I said to her, ‘My dear, this baby is sent to a childless +old woman.’ He has been my pride and joy ever since. +I love him as dearly as if he had drunk from my breast. Do you +ask to see my grandson before you die?”</p> +<p>Yes.</p> +<p>“Show me, when I leave off speaking, if you correctly understand +what I say. He has been kept unacquainted with the story of his +birth. He has no knowledge of it. No suspicion of it. +If I bring him here to the side of this bed, he will suppose you to +be a perfect stranger. It is more than I can do to keep from him +the knowledge that there is such wrong and misery in the world; but +that it was ever so near him in his innocent cradle I have kept from +him, and I do keep from him, and I ever will keep from him, for his +mother’s sake, and for his own.”</p> +<p>He showed me that he distinctly understood, and the tears fell from +his eyes.</p> +<p>“Now rest, and you shall see him.”</p> +<p>So I got him a little wine and some brandy, and I put things straight +about his bed. But I began to be troubled in my mind lest Jemmy +and the Major might be too long of coming back. What with this +occupation for my thoughts and hands, I didn’t hear a foot upon +the stairs, and was startled when I saw the Major stopped short in the +middle of the room by the eyes of the man upon the bed, and knowing +him then, as I had known him a little while ago.</p> +<p>There was anger in the Major’s face, and there was horror and +repugnance and I don’t know what. So I went up to him and +I led him to the bedside, and when I clasped my hands and lifted of +them up, the Major did the like.</p> +<p>“O Lord” I says “Thou knowest what we two saw together +of the sufferings and sorrows of that young creetur now with Thee. +If this dying man is truly penitent, we two together humbly pray Thee +to have mercy on him!”</p> +<p>The Major says “Amen!” and then after a little stop I +whispers him, “Dear old friend fetch our beloved boy.” +And the Major, so clever as to have got to understand it all without +being told a word, went away and brought him.</p> +<p>Never never never shall I forget the fair bright face of our boy +when he stood at the foot of the bed, looking at his unknown father. +And O so like his dear young mother then!</p> +<p>“Jemmy” I says, “I have found out all about this +poor gentleman who is so ill, and he did lodge in the old house once. +And as he wants to see all belonging to it, now that he is passing away, +I sent for you.”</p> +<p>“Ah poor man!” says Jemmy stepping forward and touching +one of his hands with great gentleness. “My heart melts +for him. Poor, poor man!”</p> +<p>The eyes that were so soon to close for ever turned to me, and I +was not that strong in the pride of my strength that I could resist +them.</p> +<p>“My darling boy, there is a reason in the secret history of +this fellow-creetur lying as the best and worst of us must all lie one +day, which I think would ease his spirit in his last hour if you would +lay your cheek against his forehead and say, ‘May God forgive +you!’”</p> +<p>“O Gran,” says Jemmy with a full heart, “I am not +worthy!” But he leaned down and did it. Then the faltering +fingers made out to catch hold of my sleeve at last, and I believe he +was a-trying to kiss me when he died.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>There my dear! There you have the story of my Legacy in full, +and it’s worth ten times the trouble I have spent upon it if you +are pleased to like it.</p> +<p>You might suppose that it set us against the little French town of +Sens, but no we didn’t find that. I found myself that I +never looked up at the high tower atop of the other tower, but the days +came back again when that fair young creetur with her pretty bright +hair trusted in me like a mother, and the recollection made the place +so peaceful to me as I can’t express. And every soul about +the hotel down to the pigeons in the courtyard made friends with Jemmy +and the Major, and went lumbering away with them on all sorts of expeditions +in all sorts of vehicles drawn by rampagious cart-horses,—with +heads and without,—mud for paint and ropes for harness,—and +every new friend dressed in blue like a butcher, and every new horse +standing on his hind legs wanting to devour and consume every other +horse, and every man that had a whip to crack crack-crack-crack-crack-cracking +it as if it was a schoolboy with his first. As to the Major my +dear that man lived the greater part of his time with a little tumbler +in one hand and a bottle of small wine in the other, and whenever he +saw anybody else with a little tumbler, no matter who it was,—the +military character with the tags, or the inn-servants at their supper +in the courtyard, or townspeople a chatting on a bench, or country people +a starting home after market,—down rushes the Major to clink his +glass against their glasses and cry,—Hola! Vive Somebody! +or Vive Something! as if he was beside himself. And though I could +not quite approve of the Major’s doing it, still the ways of the +world are the ways of the world varying according to the different parts +of it, and dancing at all in the open Square with a lady that kept a +barber’s shop my opinion is that the Major was right to dance +his best and to lead off with a power that I did not think was in him, +though I was a little uneasy at the Barricading sound of the cries that +were set up by the other dancers and the rest of the company, until +when I says “What are they ever calling out Jemmy?” Jemmy +says, “They’re calling out Gran, Bravo the Military English! +Bravo the Military English!” which was very gratifying to my feelings +as a Briton and became the name the Major was known by.</p> +<p>But every evening at a regular time we all three sat out in the balcony +of the hotel at the end of the courtyard, looking up at the golden and +rosy light as it changed on the great towers, and looking at the shadows +of the towers as they changed on all about us ourselves included, and +what do you think we did there? My dear, if Jemmy hadn’t +brought some other of those stories of the Major’s taking down +from the telling of former lodgers at Eighty-one Norfolk Street, and +if he didn’t bring ’em out with this speech:</p> +<p>“Here you are Gran! Here you are godfather! More +of ’em! I’ll read. And though you wrote ’em +for me, godfather, I know you won’t disapprove of my making ’em +over to Gran; will you?”</p> +<p>“No, my dear boy,” says the Major. “Everything +we have is hers, and we are hers.”</p> +<p>“Hers ever affectionately and devotedly J. Jackman, and J. +Jackman Lirriper,” cries the Young Rogue giving me a close hug. +“Very well then godfather. Look here. As Gran is in +the Legacy way just now, I shall make these stories a part of Gran’s +Legacy. I’ll leave ’em to her. What do you say +godfather?”</p> +<p>“Hip hip Hurrah!” says the Major.</p> +<p>“Very well then,” cries Jemmy all in a bustle. +“Vive the Military English! Vive the Lady Lirriper! +Vive the Jemmy Jackman Ditto! Vive the Legacy! Now, you +look out, Gran. And you look out, godfather. <i>I’ll</i> +read! And I’ll tell you what I’ll do besides. +On the last night of our holiday here when we are all packed and going +away, I’ll top up with something of my own.”</p> +<p>“Mind you do sir” says I.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER II—MRS. LIRRIPER RELATES HOW JEMMY TOPPED UP</h2> +<p>Well my dear and so the evening readings of those jottings of the +Major’s brought us round at last to the evening when we were all +packed and going away next day, and I do assure you that by that time +though it was deliciously comfortable to look forward to the dear old +house in Norfolk Street again, I had formed quite a high opinion of +the French nation and had noticed them to be much more homely and domestic +in their families and far more simple and amiable in their lives than +I had ever been led to expect, and it did strike me between ourselves +that in one particular they might be imitated to advantage by another +nation which I will not mention, and that is in the courage with which +they take their little enjoyments on little means and with little things +and don’t let solemn big-wigs stare them out of countenance or +speechify them dull, of which said solemn big-wigs I have ever had the +one opinion that I wish they were all made comfortable separately in +coppers with the lids on and never let out any more.</p> +<p>“Now young man,” I says to Jemmy when we brought our +chairs into the balcony that last evening, “you please to remember +who was to ‘top up.’”</p> +<p>“All right Gran” says Jemmy. “I am the illustrious +personage.”</p> +<p>But he looked so serious after he had made me that light answer, +that the Major raised his eyebrows at me and I raised mine at the Major.</p> +<p>“Gran and godfather,” says Jemmy, “you can hardly +think how much my mind has run on Mr. Edson’s death.”</p> +<p>It gave me a little check. “Ah! it was a sad scene my +love” I says, “and sad remembrances come back stronger than +merry. But this” I says after a little silence, to rouse +myself and the Major and Jemmy all together, “is not topping up. +Tell us your story my dear.”</p> +<p>“I will” says Jemmy.</p> +<p>“What is the date sir?” says I. “Once upon +a time when pigs drank wine?”</p> +<p>“No Gran,” says Jemmy, still serious; “once upon +a time when the French drank wine.”</p> +<p>Again I glanced at the Major, and the Major glanced at me.</p> +<p>“In short, Gran and godfather,” says Jemmy, looking up, +“the date is this time, and I’m going to tell you Mr. Edson’s +story.”</p> +<p>The flutter that it threw me into. The change of colour on +the part of the Major!</p> +<p>“That is to say, you understand,” our bright-eyed boy +says, “I am going to give you my version of it. I shall +not ask whether it’s right or not, firstly because you said you +knew very little about it, Gran, and secondly because what little you +did know was a secret.”</p> +<p>I folded my hands in my lap and I never took my eyes off Jemmy as +he went running on.</p> +<p>“The unfortunate gentleman” Jemmy commences, “who +is the subject of our present narrative was the son of Somebody, and +was born Somewhere, and chose a profession Somehow. It is not +with those parts of his career that we have to deal; but with his early +attachment to a young and beautiful lady.”</p> +<p>I thought I should have dropped. I durstn’t look at the +Major; but I know what his state was, without looking at him.</p> +<p>“The father of our ill-starred hero” says Jemmy, copying +as it seemed to me the style of some of his story-books, “was +a worldly man who entertained ambitious views for his only son and who +firmly set his face against the contemplated alliance with a virtuous +but penniless orphan. Indeed he went so far as roundly to assure +our hero that unless he weaned his thoughts from the object of his devoted +affection, he would disinherit him. At the same time, he proposed +as a suitable match the daughter of a neighbouring gentleman of a good +estate, who was neither ill-favoured nor unamiable, and whose eligibility +in a pecuniary point of view could not be disputed. But young +Mr. Edson, true to the first and only love that had inflamed his breast, +rejected all considerations of self-advancement, and, deprecating his +father’s anger in a respectful letter, ran away with her.”</p> +<p>My dear I had begun to take a turn for the better, but when it come +to running away I began to take another turn for the worse.</p> +<p>“The lovers” says Jemmy “fled to London and were +united at the altar of Saint Clement’s Danes. And it is +at this period of their simple but touching story that we find them +inmates of the dwelling of a highly-respected and beloved lady of the +name of Gran, residing within a hundred miles of Norfolk Street.”</p> +<p>I felt that we were almost safe now, I felt that the dear boy had +no suspicion of the bitter truth, and I looked at the Major for the +first time and drew a long breath. The Major gave me a nod.</p> +<p>“Our hero’s father” Jemmy goes on “proving +implacable and carrying his threat into unrelenting execution, the struggles +of the young couple in London were severe, and would have been far more +so, but for their good angel’s having conducted them to the abode +of Mrs. Gran; who, divining their poverty (in spite of their endeavours +to conceal it from her), by a thousand delicate arts smoothed their +rough way, and alleviated the sharpness of their first distress.”</p> +<p>Here Jemmy took one of my hands in one of his, and began a marking +the turns of his story by making me give a beat from time to time upon +his other hand.</p> +<p>“After a while, they left the house of Mrs. Gran, and pursued +their fortunes through a variety of successes and failures elsewhere. +But in all reverses, whether for good or evil, the words of Mr. Edson +to the fair young partner of his life were, ‘Unchanging Love and +Truth will carry us through all!’”</p> +<p>My hand trembled in the dear boy’s, those words were so wofully +unlike the fact.</p> +<p>“Unchanging Love and Truth” says Jemmy over again, as +if he had a proud kind of a noble pleasure in it, “will carry +us through all! Those were his words. And so they fought +their way, poor but gallant and happy, until Mrs. Edson gave birth to +a child.”</p> +<p>“A daughter,” I says.</p> +<p>“No,” says Jemmy, “a son. And the father +was so proud of it that he could hardly bear it out of his sight. +But a dark cloud overspread the scene. Mrs. Edson sickened, drooped, +and died.”</p> +<p>“Ah! Sickened, drooped, and died!” I says.</p> +<p>“And so Mr. Edson’s only comfort, only hope on earth, +and only stimulus to action, was his darling boy. As the child +grew older, he grew so like his mother that he was her living picture. +It used to make him wonder why his father cried when he kissed him. +But unhappily he was like his mother in constitution as well as in face, +and lo, died too before he had grown out of childhood. Then Mr. +Edson, who had good abilities, in his forlornness and despair, threw +them all to the winds. He became apathetic, reckless, lost. +Little by little he sank down, down, down, down, until at last he almost +lived (I think) by gaming. And so sickness overtook him in the +town of Sens in France, and he lay down to die. But now that he +laid him down when all was done, and looked back upon the green Past +beyond the time when he had covered it with ashes, he thought gratefully +of the good Mrs. Gran long lost sight of, who had been so kind to him +and his young wife in the early days of their marriage, and he left +the little that he had as a last Legacy to her. And she, being +brought to see him, at first no more knew him than she would know from +seeing the ruin of a Greek or Roman Temple, what it used to be before +it fell; but at length she remembered him. And then he told her, +with tears, of his regret for the misspent part of his life, and besought +her to think as mildly of it as she could, because it was the poor fallen +Angel of his unchanging Love and Constancy after all. And because +she had her grandson with her, and he fancied that his own boy, if he +had lived, might have grown to be something like him, he asked her to +let him touch his forehead with his cheek and say certain parting words.”</p> +<p>Jemmy’s voice sank low when it got to that, and tears filled +my eyes, and filled the Major’s.</p> +<p>“You little Conjurer” I says, “how did you ever +make it all out? Go in and write it every word down, for it’s +a wonder.”</p> +<p>Which Jemmy did, and I have repeated it to you my dear from his writing.</p> +<p>Then the Major took my hand and kissed it, and said, “Dearest +madam all has prospered with us.”</p> +<p>“Ah Major” I says drying my eyes, “we needn’t +have been afraid. We might have known it. Treachery don’t +come natural to beaming youth; but trust and pity, love and constancy,—they +do, thank God!”</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 1421-h.htm or 1421-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/2/1421 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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