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diff --git a/39932.txt b/39932.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..430face --- /dev/null +++ b/39932.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5568 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Lure of Old London, by Sophie Cole + + +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: The Lure of Old London + + +Author: Sophie Cole + + + +Release Date: June 6, 2012 [eBook #39932] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LURE OF OLD LONDON*** + + +E-text prepared by Ian Deane and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team +(http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 39932-h.htm or 39932-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/39932/39932-h/39932-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/39932/39932-h.zip) + + +Transcriber's note: + + Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). + + Original spelling variations have not been changed. + + + + + +THE LURE OF OLD LONDON + +by + +SOPHIE COLE + +Author of "A London Posy," "The Loitering Highway," etc. + +With 8 Illustrations + + + + + + + +Mills & Boon, Limited +49 Rupert Street +London, W. 1 + +Published 1921 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + FACING PAGE + + + WAX EFFIGIES OF QUEEN ELIZABETH AND CHARLES THE SECOND 16 + From a photograph by D. Weller + + GREAT ST. HELEN'S 47 + From a photograph by the Autotype Company + + THE CHARTERHOUSE 50 + From a photograph by the Autotype Company + + A BIT OF OLD SMITHFIELD 57 + From a photograph by the Autotype Company + + DR. JOHNSON'S HOUSE IN GOUGH SQUARE 69 + + GREAT CHEYNE ROW AND CARLYLE'S HOUSE 89 + From a photograph by Hedderley, circa 1860 + + THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL 117 + From a photograph by the Autotype Company + + BERWICK MARKET 136 + From a photograph by the Autotype Company + + + + + TO THE FRIEND WHO WANDERED WITH ME + IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF GEORGE AND + MRS. DARLING + + + + +PREFACE + + +People who are kind enough to read my stories sometimes tell me they +like them on account of their London atmosphere. This is reassuring, +because London is, to me, what "King Charles' head" was to "Mr. Dick," +and when my publisher suggested that I should write this volume I +mounted my hobby-horse with glee. + +The objects of the journeys recorded were chosen haphazard. With a +myriad places clamouring for notice, and each place brimful of interest, +one takes the first that comes, reflecting that what one doesn't see +to-day can be seen to-morrow, regretful only that, no matter how many +to-morrows may remain, there will not be enough to exhaust the charms of +London. London has moods for each hour and surprises round every corner. +It may be the enchantress, or the "stony-hearted step-mother," but one +part it can never play--that of the bore. "Strange stories," says +Walter Thornbury, in his introduction to "Old and New London," "about +strange men grow like moss in every crevice of the bricks." To people +the streets with the shades of those "strange men" is a fascinating +pastime which I owe, in large measure, to the guidance of that wonderful +and inexhaustible book. + +If, in this humble little volume of my own, I dared aspire to do +anything more than please myself, it would be to share with some lovers +of London those moods of curious happiness which one finds in the haunts +of London's ghosts. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +When the Countess of Corbridge sent the quarterly cheque for fifty +pounds to her brother, the Hon. George Tallenach, she always addressed +the envelope to Carrington Mansions, Mayfair. As a matter of fact, the +Honourable George lived in Carrington Mews, Shepherd Market, and derived +a certain ironic pleasure from the contemplation of his sister's +snobbishness. But then the Honourable George had never acted up to the +traditions of his family. His Bohemianism, coupled with an inability to +settle down to any calling, had been the despair of that family ever +since he was ploughed at Oxford. And now, at the age of sixty-five, he +was a pensioner on the bounty of the Countess of Corbridge, living in a +workman's flat in Carrington Mews, an adept in the art of poetic +loafing, an inveterate gossip and roamer of the streets, a kindly old +vagabond with well-brushed shabby clothes, a clean collar and a spotless +pocket handkerchief, the love of London in his bones, and of his fellows +in his heart. + +Mrs. Darling, the pensioned widow of a night watchman, who lived in the +flat below, was in the habit of rendering the Honourable George small +services. It was she to whom he applied in any domestic emergency--she +mended his socks and kept his handkerchiefs a good colour, sewed on his +buttons, and inculcated a policy of thrift towards the end of the +quarter when funds were getting low. + +Such a period was imminent now, and when Mrs. Darling brought in a pile +of snowy handkerchiefs and deposited them on the table this warm +September morning, the Honourable George, faced with the prospect of +three lean weeks, propounded to her a scheme he had devised for a cheap +form of enjoyment. + +"Mrs. Darling," he began, "I have noticed with regret your lamentable +ignorance of the place in which you live." + +"Me ignorant of Shepherd Market. I don't think!" declared Mrs. Darling +indignantly. "I 'aven't lived in it for thirty-five years for nothink. +Why, there isn't a shop or a person I----" + +"Not so fast, Mrs. Darling. I was referring to London as a whole, of +which Shepherd Market is as a needle in a haystack. And your knowledge +even of the Market and its surroundings is purely superficial. I suppose +you are not aware that Shepherd Market is the place where the fair, +which gave Mayfair its name, was held up to the middle of the +eighteenth century, and that the Market itself is nearly two hundred +years old. No doubt you are also in ignorance of the fact that Kitty +Fisher lived in Carrington Street: Kitty, the celebrated courtesan who +married John Norris and gave herself up to repairing two dilapidated +fortunes, thus proving the inaccuracy of the statement that the leopard +cannot change its spots, and challenging the baseness and the scurvy +malevolence of those 'little scribblers' who accused her of having +'neither sense nor wit, but only impudence'." + +"Well, sir, I must admit I _didn't_ know all them things." + +"Of course you didn't; but cheer up, it isn't too late to learn. What +d'you say to our having some outings together? Suppose we make a start +this afternoon? London's at its best on these calm autumn days." + +"What, _me_ and _you_?" + +"Yes--why not?" + +"'Spose we met any of yer grand friends? Me, in my ole plush coat I've +'ad this ten years. It's true I got a new 'at, ten and eleven at +Selfridge's bargain basement, but a hat ain't everythink." + +"No, you certainly want more than that. But clothes, also, aren't +everything. It's your company I hanker after, Mrs. Darling. I seek a +virgin mind on which to make first impressions. I'm tired of people who +_know everything_. In seeing things through your eyes I shall----" + +But Mrs. Darling interrupted the speaker to remark with a scandalised +air that there wasn't much of the virgin about _her_, seeing she'd been +married thirty-three years, and a widow too, not to speak of being the +mother of four children. + +This drew forth from the Honourable George a charge of frivolity coupled +with a long-winded explanation of his newly conceived idea, and an +equally long-winded explanation of the benefit Mrs. Darling might derive +from it. The listener, who had been standing first on one leg, then on +the other, her mind racked by a suspicion that the potatoes would be +reduced to pulp, made a reckless promise at the first pause, and then +beat a precipitate retreat to her flat below. + +"'E gets worse and worse," she meditated, as she strained off the +potatoes--just in time. "Talk about balmy--if this don't take the bun! +But if it gives 'im any pleasure, it won't do me no 'arm. I'll go this +once, just to pacify 'im. I bet 'e won't ask me again!" and Mrs. +Darling's smile had a quality of grim humour. + +The Honourable George, always a favourite with the opposite sex, had had +many love affairs of a more or less light nature, loves of a day, a +week, or a month. But existing with, and surviving these ephemeral +distractions, was "Agatha," the woman he had always meant some day to +ask in marriage. Owing, however, to the Honourable George's thriftless +habits, that day had never arrived, and "Agatha," who had allowed all +her birds in the hand to escape in favour of that elusive bird in the +bush, was at the age of sixty still a spinster, finding her interests in +church work, dogs, and other people's babies. At regular intervals she +had letters from George. George, who was apt to ride rough-shod over her +well-bred susceptibilities with his racy comments on people and things. +George, who shocked her and saved her from old maidishness, whose +letters came into the prim little country house with a refreshing breath +of Bohemianism, providing an antidote to dry rot, and a healthy interest +in men and things outside her narrow circle. The following letters are +those particular ones which gave the account of his peregrinations with +Mrs. Darling. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + + CARRINGTON MEWS, + SHEPHERD MARKET, + _13th September_. + +Dear Agatha,--I've got a new pal! Her name may have appeared in my +letters before, in connection with the histories of my neighbours in the +other flats, the mending of my vests and pants, and cheap lunches at +home when she provides me with a portion of her beef-steak pie for +ninepence. Her name is Darling, which necessitates the painstaking use +of the "Mrs." for fear of a misunderstanding. She is a widow, and a +person of kindly sympathies but limited intelligence outside the domain +of domestic affairs. She is Cockney to the finger tips, yet London, to +her, is as unexplored and as unknown as one of the stars. The +temptation, when one day I realised this, was irresistible. Obviously, +it was meant that _I_ was destined to take the work of her education in +hand, and to-day we made a start with our immediate surroundings. + +It seems hardly credible that Mrs. Darling never went out to buy a pound +of potatoes that she did not pass "Ducking Pond Mews" in Shepherd +Street, yet it had never occurred to her to wonder how it got its title, +much less to make any effort to find out. She said she supposed there +had been a pond there, some time, and when I told her it was what, in +contemporary papers, was described as "an extensive basin of water," she +said, "A penny plain and tuppence coloured". Mrs. D. is very averse to +anything of the nature of "side" in conversation, and so I did not go on +to quote the article which spoke of a "commodious house and a good +disposure of walks". I thought, though, it would interest her to know +that, by payment of the small sum of twopence, lovers of a certain +polite and humane sport could in those old days witness the torture of +the duck when it was put in the pond and hunted by dogs who were driven +in after it. Also that Charles II and some of his nobility were in the +habit of frequenting those sports. + +She said she wasn't a bit surprised. She never had thought much of +royalty; all the same, it didn't do to believe everything you were told. + +This was a trifle discouraging, and we walked on in silence for a few +minutes, pausing to glance down East Chapel Street, where is the +many-paned window of the "Serendipity" shop, with its old coloured +prints and the original editions of seventeenth-century poets, bound in +vellum; then on to the East Yard, which exists exactly as it was in the +old coaching days. + +Do you know, Agatha, that I live in one of the most unique spots in +London? We are hemmed in by an aristocracy of houses, places and people, +yet we are as far apart from it all as if the walls of Jericho came +between. There's no approaching by degrees. One steps through one of +those low arches in Curzon Street into this quaint little island of +loiterers in the twinkling of an eye. A world of cobbled-paved streets, +_culs de sac_, devious by-ways, and shops which in their meditative +unconcern seem to trust in Providence to send them customers. A world +from which one sometimes awakens in Piccadilly with a feeling of having +slept as long as Rip Van Winkle himself. + +I suggested the wax effigies at Westminster Abbey with diffidence. To my +relief, however, the old lady received the proposal favourably, and on +our way I imparted to her a dark intention which I had cherished for +years. It was to spend a night in the Abbey. I should choose the warmest +night in summer, and I should go provided with a packet of sandwiches +and a flask of whisky. Imagine the thrill on a moonlight night, when +the figures on the tombs in the long aisles would be like creatures on a +stage frozen into stone at some moment of dramatic intensity. Pointing, +beckoning, warning, praying, weeping and exhorting. "The dust of the +dead"--a fine phrase that. One would see it rise like incense in the +moonbeams, and the vast silences would be thick with whispered thoughts. +Perhaps now and again there would come a sound which had nothing to do +with the dead--the footfall of a watchman. + +Mrs. Darling asked if it had occurred to me that the watchman might give +me in charge. I assured her that I had not left such a contingency out +of my calculations. I should well tip the watchman, and a drink out of +my flask on top of the tip would make a friend of him for life. No doubt +he would be glad of a talk to relieve the monotony of his job, and the +talk of a night watchman in Westminster Abbey would be worth listening +to. He could tell me something of those suspected secret places which +are not shown to visitors. He might even let me see them for myself. He +would know the Abbey as it is impossible for the ordinary public to know +it. The ordinary public no more knows the Abbey than does a person, who +stands on the kerb to watch the King pass on his way to some State +function, know the man inside the King. The Abbey should be seen when +the voices of glib guides, and the shuffling footsteps of visitors bored +with sight-seeing, have ceased. Then, when the echoes of the last +footsteps have died away, when the last door has banged, and the last +key been turned in the last lock, _then_ the Abbey puts aside its mask +and communes with its dead. What a strange silence that must be, when +the thoughts of kings and queens, statesmen and warriors, poets and +priests, fill every corner of the ancient building with their noiseless +vigilance! + +Mrs. Darling said that, even if I escaped being taken to the police +station, I should certainly get an attack of rheumatism, but I explained +that sensations invariably have their price, and that I shouldn't grudge +paying for this particular one. + +We left the daylight of the Broad Sanctuary for the gloom of the vast +interior, and I suggested that we should explore the chapels before +doing the wax effigies in the Islip Chamber. + +As we walked down the north transept the old lady asked me if it was +true that "Old Parr" was buried in the Abbey, and I took her to read the +inscription on the stone in Poet's Corner. "Old Parr's" qualification +for hob-nobbing with the elite in art and literature lies in the fact +that he died at the age of 152, and lived in the reigns of ten +sovereigns, an achievement great enough, it was considered, to earn him +the right to such distinguished burial. How came it, I wonder, that this +solitary human being was endowed with such powers of resistance to +natural decay? There must have been something weird about that old man. +Taylor, the poet, in his description of him, says:-- + + "From head to heel, his body hath all over + A quick set, thick set, natural, hairy cover." + +Was Old Parr a throw-back to our ancestor the ape? + +Mrs. Darling said he must have outlived all his relations and been very +lonely, and to reassure her I mentioned that if he outlived old ties he +also made new ones, marrying his second wife (only his second) at the +age of 120, and having by her one child. + +Mrs. D. retorted that he ought to have been ashamed of himself, which +struck me as inconsistent. Parr's first wife had no doubt been dead a +great many years, and all those years he had presumably been waiting for +the end which never came. When, at the age of 120, he found himself +still alive, and still hale and hearty, he would begin to think it was +about time to accept things as they were and start life all over again. +That my thoughts in Poet's Corner, by the way, concerned themselves with +"Old Parr" to the exclusion of Garrick, Johnson, Thackeray, Dickens, +Coleridge, and Spenser, the "Prince of Poets," must have been Mrs. D.'s +fault. + +I prefer Monday for a visit to the chapels, not because one saves +sixpence, but because I never follow in the footsteps of a guide without +a humiliating sense of being one of a hungry mob of chickens round the +man with the bag of grain. It is much more exciting to go pecking about +on your own, and on Mondays you can loiter unmolested where you will, +and for as long as you will. + +The north aisle of Henry VII's Chapel, where Queen Elizabeth is buried, +invariably draws me, and I led the way there, first. Strangely enough, +it is often empty, and always quiet. One's thoughts of Elizabeth mingle +curiously with those of her hated half-sister, "Bloody Queen Mary," who +is buried below Elizabeth, and who was, according to Sandford, "interred +without any monument or other remembrance". + +It is strange to note the unequal distribution of favours in the matter +of burial. Charles II, for instance, has nothing more than his name and +the dates of his birth and death recorded in small letters on the +pavement of the chapel in the south aisle. Pepys says of Charles, "He +was very obscurely buried at night without any manner of pomp, and soon +forgotten after all his vanity". + +Addison is near Queen Elizabeth, and close to his friend Charles +Montague, first Earl of Halifax. Reference to the fact is quaintly made +in the two concluding lines of the Addison's epitaph:-- + + "Oh for ever gone; take this last adieu, + And sleep in peace next thy lov'd Montague." + +The place is narrow and rather dark. It would have been more befitting +Elizabeth's magnificence had she been laid amidst the colour and pomp of +the chapel of Henry VII. One would think, too, that she had a restless +neighbour in "Bloody Queen Mary". The words of the Latin inscription +perhaps make a mute appeal for charity for the latter when they say, +"Consorts both in throne and grave, in the hope of one resurrection". + +Against the east wall is a sarcophagus containing bones found at the +foot of a staircase in the Bloody Tower, and supposed to be those of the +two princes who were murdered in the Tower by their uncle. Yes, +Elizabeth has eerie company, and somehow, in the cold grey light of this +dim corner of the Abbey, it is not the Elizabeth described by Green, the +historian, as that "brilliant, fanciful, unscrupulous child of earth, +and the Renaissance," of whom we think, but the dying, lonely woman who, +her mind unchanged, her old courage gone, "called for a sword to be +constantly beside her, and thrust it from time to time through the +arras as if she heard murderers stirring there". What a subject for a +picture! + +The quarters were struck by the chiming of the Abbey clock inside, and +the booming of Big Ben outside, and as we wandered from chapel to chapel +I was wooing those lurking beauties of the building which wait patiently +for the day, the hour, and the man who is to find out their loveliness. +The ordinary visitor is mostly too engaged in picking up crumbs of +information to have leisure to lift his eyes to the sculptured figures +which stand aloft in the blue haze of encroaching twilight. Neither does +he catch the secret flame of some obscure window which suddenly shines +out like a sinking sun through the forest of pillars and arches, nor +notice the jealous little doors to which only the privileged have the +key. I found one such this afternoon in the Chapel of Edward the +Confessor, but when I put my eye to the keyhole, nothing but darkness +rewarded my curiosity. Mrs. Darling asked me if I'd ever had any luck +with keyholes, and I was obliged to admit that I hadn't--still, one +never knows. + +There was no need to peer through the keyhole of the door leading to the +Islip Chamber, because for the moderate sum of threepence we were +admitted without parley. + +The guide pushed back a door into darkness, touched a button, and +behold a flight of steps leading up to the strange lodging of the +life-sized dolls. + +Charles the Second was the first to confront us, his bold black eyes +meeting Mrs. Darling's inquisitive glance with a sinister challenge. + + "Of a tall stature and of sable hue, + Much like the son of Kish that lofty grew." + +"I wouldn't trust 'im a inch further than I could see 'im," was Mrs. +Darling's comment on the "Merry Monarch". + +I complimented her on being a good judge of character. The guide had +turned on the electric lights, which were fixed to shine on the silent +company standing in their glass cases. William III and Mary in their +purple velvet and brocades, their real point de rose and imitation +jewels. The Duke of Buckingham, who died at the age of nineteen, lies on +a bier in the centre of the room. The effigy lay in state at his +mother's house, and one reads that she invited all her friends to see +it, stating that "she could carry them in conveniently by a back door". +Plain Queen Anne and "La Belle Stuart," the Duchess of Richmond, loved, +in vain, by Charles II, and jealous for the posthumous reputation of her +beauty. She left orders that her effigy, "as well done as could be," +should be placed "under clear crown glass and none other". She should +have been content to go down to posterity as the figure of Britannia on +the coins. + +Mrs. Darling thought the Duchess would "'ave a bit of a shock if she +could see 'erself now," and, indeed, I have rarely seen a more cynical +comment on the glory that passes than is to be found in these weird +figures in their dingy finery. Yet they have a dignity, and an exciting +interest. One can approach unmolested and share the privilege of the cat +who may look at a king. One may try to pierce the secrets hidden or +betrayed by those waxen masks. There is Queen Elizabeth, for instance +(to my mind the most arresting figure in the collection); the face is +taken from a death mask, and there is something disquieting in the eyes, +awful with the horror of death. A strange face, possessing in its +smallness the curiously repellant qualities of great age: a face to +which the kindly homeliness of Nelson's in the next case made reassuring +contrast. + +[Illustration: WAX EFFIGIES OF QUEEN ELIZABETH AND CHARLES THE SECOND.] + +Mrs. Darling said "Elizabeth didn't look 'uman," and I suppose one +touches on the tragedy of her life when one says that it is always as a +queen, rather than as a woman, one regards her. Yet she had her feminine +vanities. I have always been impressed by the account of her travelling +from Richmond to Chelsea by night because the torchlight was more +kind to her wrinkles than was the daylight. + +The bell was tolling for afternoon service, the voice of a guide could +be heard echoing in the chapels below, and we had the place to +ourselves. Mrs. Darling returned and had another look at Charles II, +just, as she expressed it, to "wonder what any woman could see in him," +and, for the moment, I was alone with those waxen men and women who +stared at me across the ages. There is something oddly intimate about a +wax figure, and I was making strides in the acquaintance of Queen +Elizabeth and Nelson when the verger returned with the intimation that +sight-seers must depart, as Evensong was about to begin. Remorselessly +he switched off the lights and we clattered down the wooden stairway, +leaving the little company of strangely assorted ghosts to their dreams, +and maybe an interchange of thoughts as the outcome of their long +broodings. + +It occurred to me as we came into the sunlight again, that while we were +about it we would go and see the older figures which have been placed in +the Norman Undercroft. And so we turned into Dean's Yard, and from +thence to the cloisters, pausing now and again to read the inscriptions +on the tombstones over which we walked. The lettering on some of them +had been freshly chiselled, and the names stood out, giving, it seemed, +new life to the memories of those who lay beneath. + +Mrs. Darling complained that I might have taken her to a more cheerful +place, giving it as her opinion that Westminster Abbey was "nothink more +than a bloomin' churchyard". I had to remind her that it is we who, in +that place, are the ghosts, and the ghosts who are the real people. The +present no longer exists for us. We left it, half an hour ago, to +adventure into the dim old ages. + +"Speak for yourself, sir," said she. "The present's good enough for me. +You got a white mark on yer coat leaning up against the wall, and +there's the old chap waiting what you asked to take us underground." + +The verger approached with a bunch of keys, leading the way through the +"dark cloister" to a door above which was an iron grating. At its +opening, a gloomy dungeon-like interior was disclosed, but he put up his +hand, and in a moment the Undercroft was flooded with electric light. It +is of spacious proportions and of Norman architecture, having a +clean-swept empty appearance. On the floor are some glass cases +containing the oldest of the effigies, the actual figures which were +carried at the funerals. Here is Katherine of Valois. I never hear her +name without remembering a passage in Pepys' Diary, where he says: "To +Westminster Abbey and there did see all the tombs very finely, having +one with us alone ... and here we did see, by particular favour, the +body of Queen Katherine of Valois, and I had the upper part of her body +in my hands, and I did kiss her mouth, reflecting upon it that I did +kiss a queen, and that this was my birthday, thirty-six years old." + +"Well, who'd er thought they'd come to this!" exclaimed Mrs. Darling, as +she gazed at the "ragged regiment". "_Wot_ a show up! Why, _this_ one +ain't decent," pointing to the nude figure of Prince Henry of Wales. + +The verger explained that these historic dolls had been discovered lying +in the cellars under the Dean's house, and how I envied the finder! If +only I could get free permission to roam the Abbey and its precincts +night and day, open every door I came to, go down every cellar, explore +every passage, mount every stairway, I should want to live for ever. I +said as much to Mrs. Darling, and she remarked that it wouldn't surprise +her to hear that, when I got to heaven, I'd been given "some nosey job". + +Quite an inspiring idea! and I warned her that next time she came to the +Abbey she might see my ghost peeping through a keyhole. + +She shook her head. "You ain't ever likely to meet _me_ 'ere," she +said, "for if I _must_ speak the truth, sir, I think it's very dry." + +I told her that was because she didn't realise the living, human side of +the people in whose likeness the effigies had been made, and I captured +her attention with gossip about Henry VII, whose mother was not quite +fourteen when she gave birth to him, and whose usurious disposition led +him to think first of marrying his own daughter-in-law, then a lady who +was insane. The information that on his death-bed he had discharged the +debts of all prisoners in London who owed no more than forty shillings, +roused a cynical comment from the old lady to the effect that Henry VII +did his devil-dodging at the expense of his heirs. + +We left the dark cloister as we talked and turned into the vaulted +passage leading to the corner which I have sometimes heard described as +"The Monk's Garden". Surely there is no more peaceful spot in all +London. The little fountain in the enclosure bubbles all day long to the +silence, the huge plane tree above it spreads wide arms to the old +arcade, and ferns unfold their green fronds to the sunshine. It is a +place in which to meditate kindly on the weaknesses of poor human +nature, and to dwell with reverence on its greatness. + +I felt impelled to set Henry VII right with Mrs. Darling, and suggested +we should return to visit his chapel, but the words fell on stony soil. +Mrs. D.'s face assumed the expression with which I associated "dryness," +and I proposed instead an adjournment to one of the neighbouring +tea-shops. The old lady at once became alert, and taking the lead, towed +me reluctantly through Dean's Yard into the roar of Victoria Street. + +But I could not so easily shake the dust of the Abbey from my feet. I +felt as one of those wax effigies would feel could he come to life, and +stepping from out of his glass case, take a walk to Charing Cross. Then +a strange idea occurred. Suppose I _was_ one of them? It was possible, +if the theory of a former existence holds water. I might be a Charles +II, a Henry VII, a Nelson! On second thoughts, though, I am more +inclined to class myself with the artistic fraternity--a Garrick, a +Beaumont, or a Ben Jonson--"O, rare Ben Jonson!" Yes, I find in myself +traits distinctly reminiscent of the poet who used his pen as Hogarth +used his brush---- + +"That's the second time you done it, sir." Mrs. Darling's voice brought +me back to the twentieth century with an unpleasant jar. + +"Done what?" I asked. + +"Run into somebody through not lookin' where yer goin'. That telegraph +boy didn't 'arf size you up. I shouldn't like to repeat wot 'e said." + +"I wouldn't ask it of you," I hastened to assure her. + +She had come to a halt before the window of an A.B.C. shop. "Look!" she +exclaimed, "_Crumpets!_ 'Ow funny!" + +I told her I didn't see the joke, and she said that came of my not +keeping my ears open--the telegraph boy had referred to a certain person +being "balmy on the crumpet!" + +I feigned unconsciousness of the deduction. There are occasions when +Mrs. D.'s perverted sense of humour needs keeping in check, and to quote +"Charley's Aunt," it was "such a damned silly joke". + +I am sorry to have to end my yarn on this prosaic note, but that is the +way of things in an existence where the necessity to blow your nose or +change your socks breaks in on the most exalted moments. + +Believe me, dear Agatha, + + Your devoted, + GEORGE. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + + CARRINGTON MEWS, + SHEPHERD MARKET, + _24th September._ + +Dear Agatha,--I was glad to hear, by the way, that you had been incited +to unearth Pepys from a neglected corner of your bookcase. The old +chap's vitality is infectious. One can scarcely turn a leaf anywhere but +one is interested, amused, or receives the benefit of a shock to one's +sense of the proprieties. This morning I opened him haphazard and read, +"So over the fields to Southwark. I spent half an hour in St. Mary +Overy's Church, where are fine monuments of great antiquity". I took it +as a leading, and this afternoon Mrs. Darling and I paid a visit to +Southwark Cathedral. + +The building lies in a hollow, and as one goes down the steps to the +churchyard one leaves behind the rumble of traffic on its way to London +Bridge over the cobbles. Inside we found the length of the long narrow +nave dim and grey, but in the neighbourhood of the clerestory a golden +light diffused itself, falling in patches on the groined roof. At the +tomb of John Gower, the poet, who died in 1408, we paused. It occurred +to me that it might interest Mrs. D. to hear that it was not till his +old age, when his hair was grey, that wearying of his solitary state, +John Gower took a wife. + +The old lady stared at the stone effigy with the long hair bound by a +chaplet of red roses, the short curled beard, the clasped hands, and +stiff-buttoned habit falling in straight prim lines to the feet. "They +do say," she remarked parenthetically, that "it's a pore 'eart wot never +rejoices; but perhaps 'e couldn't get anyone to 'ave 'im." + +Conscious of a possible application to my own celibate state, I left +John Gower and drew Mrs. D.'s attention to the tomb of John Trehearn, +gentleman servant to Queen Elizabeth and James I. On a table is recorded +the king's testimony to the worth of his servant:-- + + Had kings power to lend their subjects breath, + Trehearn, thou shoulds't not be cast down by death. + +John's wife stands by his side, her head reaching but to his shoulder. +John has an apprehensive expression, and his little wife's prim pursed +mouth argues badly for John's happiness and peace of mind. Mrs. Darling, +who, as you will have discovered by this time, is a good judge of +character, said that perhaps, after all, there were worse things than +bachelorhood. I was not in a position to argue the point, and we walked +on into the retro-choir, where lies a curious skeleton effigy, which +represents the ferryman, father of St. Mary Overie, the patron saint of +the church. + +The ferryman, it seems, was a penurious old rascal who feigned death for +twenty-four hours, expecting his servants to fast till his funeral and +thus save him the cost of a day's food. The servants, however, who were +half starved, seized the opportunity to break open the larder and feast +instead of fast, and the old ferryman rose in his winding sheet, a +candle in each hand, bent on chastising the miscreants. One of them, +imagining it was the devil himself, picked up the butt end of an oar and +aimed with it a blow which brought the death his master had feigned. His +daughter, whose lover was killed in an accident following the homicide +of her father, entered a convent, and gave the money her father had +amassed to build a house of sisters on the ground where part of the +present church now stands. + +There are two windows in the retro-choir of sinister significance. They +represent six clergy of the sixteenth century, and at the base of one of +the windows are the names of Laurence Saunders, Rector of All Hallows, +Bread Street; Robert Ferrier, Bishop of St. David's; Robert Taylor, +Rector of Hadley, Suffolk; and after each name is the awful and laconic +statement, "Burnt". On the other windows the names and dates are almost +indecipherable, but below the central figure stands out one word of +awful import, "Smithfield". The windows have no artistic merit, and +there is nothing arresting in the presentment of those six men who +endured the tortures of the damned for their faith, yet somehow they +seemed from their dark corner at the east end of the retro-choir to +dominate the place. One saw those windows directly one entered--far-off +bits of colour at the base of long tunnels framed by the sharply-pointed +Gothic arches, and the remembrance of them remained, mingling strangely +with thoughts of poets and playwrights. Edmund, brother of William +Shakespeare, John Fletcher, and Philip Massinger are buried in the +choir. Of the two last named one doesn't know which had the more tragic +end. Fletcher, the friend of William Shakespeare, who, according to an +old record, had during the great plague been invited by a knight of +Norfolk or Suffolk into the country, and who "stayed in London but to +make himself a suit of clothes, and when it was making, fell sick and +died. This," continues John Aubrey, the writer of the record, "I heard +from the tailor, who is now a very old man, and clerk of St. Marie +Overie." + +Massinger, the poet and playwright, died in 1639. The register of that +year records, "Buried, Philip Massinger, a stranger". Poor Philip +Massinger, who, after writing forty popular plays, was buried, a pauper, +at the expense of the parish. Apparently he had been preaching that +which he had been unable to practise when he wrote his play entitled "A +New Way to Pay Old Debts". + +Edmund Shakespeare, described as "A Player," died before his brother +William, and perhaps Edmund was in William's thoughts when he wrote:-- + + To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; + For in that sleep of death what dreams may come. + +Whoever before, whoever again, will express with such heart-searching +simplicity the secret fear which besets us all, that "dread of something +after death, the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller +returns"? + +I have strange and uncanny suspicions about Shakespeare. One knows so +little about the _man_ himself, and at times I have wondered if he were +some supernatural being sent, perhaps, from another and more enlightened +world, to be the mouthpiece of poor dumb humanity in this. + +It is invariably reserved for Mrs. Darling to bring me up bump against +prosaic facts in the midst of such speculations. We were standing before +the monument erected to the memory of that incredible genius, and she +greeted the alabaster figure which reclines against a topographical +background as an old friend. She knew all about the ghost in "'Amblet" +and something about someone who committed a murder in "Macbeth". She +said, referring to the nude appearance of the poet's legs, that it was +hard on the men of those days who were knock-kneed, they must have felt +very cold with nothing more on their nether limbs than what she +described as a "pair 'er bathin' drawers". A supercilious young woman +standing near turned her lorgnette on the old lady, and fearing +recriminations on the part of Mrs. D., should she discover that she was +an object of derision, I drew her with me to examine some old bosses +which I had noticed, stacked like winter logs in a corner near. + +A verger explained that they were removed from the roof of the old nave +when the church was restored. He said they were all of religious +significance. A gross countenance in the act of swallowing a +problematical morsel represented, for instance, the devil consuming +Judas, whilst a hideous face with a lolling, twisted tongue, signified +the liar. There were subjects of beauty, too, and as the man proceeded +with his glib interpretation of those child-like specimens of mediaeval +art, I pictured the wood carvers, high up in vaulted roofs, giving the +reins to their varied imaginations--beautiful, devout, ugly, or +grotesque; at times even bestial. What matter! No one of the worshippers +below would see the result of those patient hours of work--only the +sunbeams, finding entrance as they travelled from east to west, or the +light of the moon, stealing like a thief in the night into the darkness +and silence, touching here a rafter, there a bit of carving. And so the +artist could please himself and weave his own fancies, devout or +profane, beautiful or monstrous, up there all alone in the roof, and if +the demons and devils he created leered at the congregations beneath, +the angels smiled at them too, and meanwhile no one was the wiser or any +the worse. + +And now here were the old bosses which had lived solitary and unknown in +the dizzy altitudes above the nave, brought down to earth to be stared +at and talked about. Did they appreciate the change? And would their +creators, could they have foreseen such an anti-climax, have made them +different? + +I suggested to Mrs. Darling that we should go and have a look at "The +George Inn" while we were in the neighbourhood of the Borough High +Street. A policeman of whom I inquired said he had a sort of notion he +had heard of it. "Down one of those side streets that look as if there's +nothing in them," he volunteered. "About the third or fourth turning." + +We found the place easily, owing to the forethought of the proprietor, +who had placed a notice at the entrance of the yard warning passers-by +not to be misled by the appearance of its leading to nothing. The George +Hotel (I was sorry he had adopted that pretentious title in place of the +old word "inn") was there, the notice stated, and with thoughts of stage +coaches, Sam Weller, and Mr. Pickwick I turned into the yard. + +Yes, there it was, tucked away in its funny little corner, conscious, it +seemed, of being left behind and forgotten in the present-day rush of +life. There were the old wooden galleries, one above another, running +the length of its long, flat-windowed front, the sloping, red-tiled roof +with its garret windows, the coffee-room with its faded red curtains, +and the entrance by a low door down a step. A waggon, with some porters +in attendance, stood in front of the Great Northern Goods Depot at the +farther end of the yard, but no signs of life about "The George," save a +charwoman with a pail in the lower of the two galleries. This was +probably owing to the fact that it was closing time: surely an +opportunity for the ghosts to put in an appearance! Perhaps, though, +they preferred the bustle of customers and clink of glasses. For myself, +I must confess that the sight of a closed "pub" has an effect as +depressing as that which attends a walk in the City streets between +three and four o'clock on a Christmas afternoon. + +I apologised to Mrs. Darling for not being able to offer her a drink at +"The George," and we retraced our steps towards London Bridge. Some day, +Agatha, I will take you to London Bridge about 4.30 on a November +afternoon, when there is just the right kind of sunset to fit the +picture. It was the right kind this afternoon--one of those skies +suffused with rose-coloured clouds which come on like the reinforcements +of a vast army under the smoke of artillery, sullenly beautiful with a +mood which found its response in the river glazed with a reflection of +colour over its black oily depths. Of all the sights of London this, to +myself, is the most inspiring, and judging by the row of loiterers one +invariably finds leaning over the parapet, there are others who fall +under its spell. London Bridge says to the big ships which the Tower +Bridge has opened its arms to receive, "Thus far and no farther," and +there they lie in the Pool, whilst the cranes, like giant fishing-rods, +angle for their booty. Villainous-looking little tugs, with sinister +green lights, belch black smoke which mingles with the white steam and +yellow smoke from the funnels of the large boats. Amidst coils of rope, +bales of goods, and a smutty mirk, the wharf workers and sailors move +like ants to the accompaniment of clanking chains and the hooting of +sirens. On the sides of the ships are painted strange-looking foreign +names, Dutch, Norwegian, and Greek, and Mrs. Darling awoke with surprise +to the knowledge that tea from India was deposited almost on her +doorstep. + +Whilst we stood there a big boat moved out into mid-stream, making a +stately course through the smoke-veiled sunset towards where the Tower +Bridge was opening its portals with a welcome to the high seas beyond. +As the vessel neared the bridge, it was as if the artist who was +painting the picture had touched it here and there with the point of a +luminous pencil. The pencil travelled along the blackened wharves, +dotting them with pin-pricks of light, and the men on the barges and +boats below began to hang out their lanthorns. It was an epic, this +passing of the ship through the gates of Old Father Thames. The lights +shone out to give it good speed, and the smouldering fires of sunset +followed in its wake. The majesty of the scene filled one with a sense +of elation, and I said to myself, "It is not for nothing that London is +called 'the Heart of the Empire'". + +Mrs. Darling asked me if it was true that houses were built on old +London Bridge, and I quoted the description of the place by a +contemporary writer: "The _street_," he says, "was dark, narrow, and +dangerous, the houses overhanging the road so as to almost shut out the +daylight," adding the information that "arches of timber crossed the +street to keep the shaky old tenements from falling on each other." +"London Bridge," declared an old proverb, "was made for wise men to go +over and fools to go under," but when one reads such statements as "in +1401 another house on the bridge fell down, drowning five of its +inhabitants," it occurs to one that there was almost as much danger +overhead as below, where fifty watermen were computed to be drowned +every year. + +What a picture those old records paint! There can be no pictures like it +in the London of to-day. Add the ghastly touch of a row of rotting heads +spiked on the battlements, and you are set wondering anew at the weird +psychology of the dark ages. + +I told Mrs. D. the story of Sir Thomas More's head, which his daughter +bribed a man to remove from the spike on the bridge and drop into a boat +below where she sat, and the old lady said, "It must 'ave bin a good +shot". The person responsible for Mrs. D.'s anatomy left out the bump of +reverence; sentiment is also foreign to her composition, whilst her +scepticism of anything she cannot actually see and touch is a deeply +ingrained quality. Sir Thomas More, Henry VIII, Charles II, the +Christian martyrs, are, in her estimation, to be taken with a grain of +salt. She makes no distinction between them and "'Amblet" or the +creations of Bunyan's brain. Tradition is a dead letter to her, and +although she takes a marked interest in the Plague and the Great Fire, I +have a suspicion if she were asked to "have a bit" on the actuality of +those happenings, she would lay odds for, with a sensation of risk. + +Another story of a head, instinct with the fee-faw-fum spirit of the +times, is that about good old John Fisher, who would not recognise the +spiritual claims of Henry VIII. Fisher's head was parboiled before being +spiked, and, according to Walter Thornbury, in his "Old and New London," +"the face for a fortnight remained so ruddy and lifelike and such crowds +collected to see the so-called miracle, that the king, in a rage, at +last ordered the head to be thrown down into the river". + +But, dear lady, I am burning the midnight oil and must to bed. Do I +dream, or does the old watchman pass my window crying:-- + + Maids in your smocks, + Look to your locks, + Your fire and your light, + And give you good night? + +Anyhow, it is a relief to turn from those ghastly trophies on the +battlements of the Bridge to this kindly warning with its concluding +benediction. + +I echo the latter, and am ever yours, + + GEORGE. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + + CARRINGTON MEWS, + _7th October._ + +Dear Agatha,--I'm glad you were interested in the account of my outing +with Mrs. Darling. Your reference to Verdant Green was apposite but not +quite kind. I bear no malice, however: witness the continuation of the +history of my wanderings. + +I have been reading "Pepys' Diary" for what Mrs. Darling would call the +"umpteenth" time. Strangely enough, I had never visited his tomb, and it +occurred to me that Mrs. Darling and I might make a day of it, starting +with Bankside and working round to Hart Street, Seething Lane, by way of +Upper Thames Street. We got off our 'bus at Southwark Street because I +wanted to see some ancient alms-houses I had been told were tucked away +in a side turning near. Alms-houses have an atmosphere of their own +which I always find congenial to my age and aspirations--a roof to cover +one, food and light, and time to idle: what more could one want! Mrs. +Darling didn't agree with me. She is not the kind of woman to grow old +gracefully. She runs across roads, and would no more dream of sitting +over the fire doing nothing for half an hour than she would contemplate +wearing caps--I refer to old ladies' caps, not the cloth variety which +is the approved head-dress for ladies of her class when doing the +morning's shopping. + +We found Hopton's Alms-house in Holland Street almost by chance. It is +so easy to pass along the end of the street without discovering anything +unusual. One sees nothing but an iron railing and a hint of green, and +had I not been on the look out, I should have gone my way unconscious of +Hopton and the little oasis he had created for his old men and women in +this corner of the busy city. + +We found that the iron railing shut off a little world of "God's +Houses," as they call them in Belgium, from the squalid road and the +tall ugly buildings opposite. On a tablet was inscribed the laconic +statement, "Chas. Hopton, Esq.: Sole founder of this charity. Anno +1752," and when the winter's gales roar down the chimneys at nights, or +the rain beats against the casements, I hope the pensioners sometimes +give Charles a grateful thought. + +The houses are built in blocks round three sides of a green which is +traversed by paved paths and set with trees, one tree in each section. +The grass was very green, and pigeons were assembled on the tiled roofs. +There were wooden benches placed at intervals, and a sleek cat sat on +one of them, whilst some caged birds sang unconcernedly over its head. + +I spoke to an old man who stood at the door of one of the houses, and he +took us to the back of his dwelling to show us his little garden, in +which a few chrysanthemums were making a brave struggle against the city +smoke. Each house, he pointed out, had its allotment, but the +overshadowing warehouses and factories made gardening a rather thankless +task. + +Continuing our way we turned into a side street of mean houses, at the +end of which the vicinity of the river was disclosed by the rattle and +clank of huge cranes as they made their lazy circular movements against +the sky. + +We were in Shakespeare's world, and Bear Garden's Alley must have been +named after the Bear Garden, which was almost next door to the Globe +Theatre, where Shakespeare acted. Rose Alley, too, was reminiscent of +the Rose Theatre, where Ben Jonson's plays were performed. But what has +this dingy wharf to do with the rural scene amidst which those old +theatres were placed? Surely there never could have been fields and +country lanes in this neighbourhood of slums, factories, and +warehouses! Fields and lanes which would be sweet with the scents of +summer evenings, and which Shakespeare must have walked, thinking +perhaps of "a bank where wild thyme grows, quite over-canopied with +luscious woodbine". + +It was low tide, and the river flowing oilily between its banks was of +the same hue as the mud. A fog haze lurked in the background all round, +and on the opposite side a red-painted barge stood out as if having +caught the warmth of a hidden sun. A few moments ago there had been no +St. Paul's, but now there grew the vague outline of a vast circumference +suspended in the air high above the warehouses opposite. Minute by +minute, as the veil-thinned details were born, the sun found the gold +cross, and the dome washed with purple rose as at the touch of an +enchanter's wand into the sun-rayed vista. + +"_That's_ a place I never bin to," observed Mrs. Darling with an air of +conscious virtue. I did not suggest that she should make good the +omission. To tell the truth, the outside of St. Paul's makes me happier +than the inside. To see its purple dome float in majesty above the sea +of house-tops, as unsubstantial as an opium-eater's dream, or to meet +its august presence face to face half-way up Ludgate Hill, when the +pigeons are wheeling round it like bits of tinder blown from an unseen +fire, is to find that "thing of beauty" which is a "joy for ever". But +to go inside is to lose one's identity in a homeless immensity and a +wilderness of echoes. + +I was reluctant to leave the river-side. It is an ideal spot for +"loafing". The men employed on wharves and barges are a class apart from +the ordinary workman, it always seems to me. They may not be conscious +of it, but the meditative spirit of the lazy tide, the slow-moving +barges, and those silent activities of the river's life have instilled +in them a poetical and contemplative outlook on existence which no other +calling can inspire. + +We crossed the river by the temporary bridge, and turning to the right +made our way along Upper Thames Street. As we went I meditated on +"What's in a name?" the question being suggested by the quaint +nomenclature of the courts and alleys of the city. From the stores of my +memory I could produce Hanging Sword Alley, Dark House Lane, Passing +Alley, Pudding Lane, Hen and Chicken's Court, World's End Passage, Fig +Tree Court, Green-Arbour Court, Boss Alley, Maypole Alley, Crucifix +Lane, Sugar Loaf Court. And last week I came across a book dated 1732 in +which was an alphabetical table of all the streets, courts, lanes, +alleys, yards, rows, within the bills of mortality. Some day I'm going +to take that old book with me and go on a voyage of discovery. Are Dirty +Lane and Deadman's Place still to be found in the parish of Southwark? +Is Coffin Alley still in St. Sepulchre's? I'm afraid not, and I'm quite +sure that Damnation Alley no longer graces St. Martin's in the Fields. + +By way of Fish Street Hill, Eastcheap, Great Tower Street, and Mark Lane +we approached St. Olave's in Hart Street. As, however, I wanted to look +through the railings at the old churchyard, we turned the corner into +Seething Lane, where, on top of the iron gate, is a sinister memento of +the Plague. They were weird times, those old days, with their childish +spirit of fee-faw-fum, and the skulls and crossbones on top of the gate +bring a breath from the dark ages into some moment of to-day. Probably +not one person in a hundred notices the skulls or pauses to look through +the iron railings and reflect that Pepys himself must have walked down +that very pathway between the gravestones on that occasion of which he +wrote. "This is the first time I have been in the church since I left +London for the Plague," he says, "and it frighted me indeed to go +through the church, more than I thought it could have done, to see so +many graves lie so high upon the churchyard. I was much troubled at it, +and do not think to go through it again a good while." Later he records +the reassurance he had experienced in seeing those same graves mantled +in snow. + +I believe it was the custom when making the entry to add the letter P +after the names of those who had perished by the Black Death, but I have +never had the privilege of seeing the registers. Mary Ramsey, who is +supposed to have brought the Plague into London, is buried in the +churchyard. + +The church is square, with a columned nave, and the old glass in the +large east window sheds a mellow light on some painted figures on a tomb +near. The building does not wear its history on its sleeve, but Samuel +Pepys (the only man who ever told the unromantic truth about himself) +could, if he would, paint pictures of some of the scenes those old walls +have witnessed. His body lies beneath the altar, and high above it, on +the north-east wall, is the monument to his wife. She has a girl-like, +engaging face, the head bent slightly forward as if in the act of +listening for some message from her lord and master who lies so silent +below. + +It is certain that when Pepys was so frank with himself about his +weaknesses, he never imagined he was going to have an audience which +would last through the centuries. I wondered as I looked at the +sculptured face with its expression a little wistful, and a little +supercilious, which of us would care to purchase notoriety at such a +price? + +Mrs. Darling inquired curiously about the nature of those +self-revelations, and as we consumed our chops and baked potatoes, and +drank our ale at a little restaurant near, I told her of a certain Cock +Tavern opposite the Temple, where Pepys in his diary mentions bringing +Mrs. Knipp (an actress of whom his wife was jealous), and where they +"drank, eat a lobster and sang and mighty merry till almost midnight". +And how these meetings went on until Mrs. Pepys came to the bedside of +her husband one night and threatened to pinch him with red-hot tongs.... +Whereupon Mrs. Darling found a resemblance between the Essayist and +"that other old gentleman in the waxworks". "Saucy kippers," she called +them both, bracketing King Charles with the roving Samuel. + +In justice to poor Samuel, however, I told the old lady how he had said, +"My wife seemed very pretty to-day, it being for the first time I had +given her leave to wear a black patch". How on another occasion he +records, "Talking with my wife, in whom I never had greater content, +blessed be God!" How he had given her five pounds to buy a petticoat, +and how he states that he is "as happy a man as any in the world.... +And all do impute almost wholly to my late temperance, since my making +of my vows against wine and play." + +Mrs. Darling, who had finished her second glass of ale and felt +cheerful, pulled on her woollen gloves and set her ten-and-elevenpenny +hat at a more jaunty angle. Men, she declared, were "rovin' by nature," +and if a woman wanted to be happy there were "some things she got to +shut her eyes to". Half the women who grumbled about their husbands had +in _her_ opinion got nobody but themselves to thank for it. The theme is +a favourite one of the old lady's, and she continued her discourse as we +made our way to Houndsditch--a "melancholy" spot, according to +Shakespeare, taking its name from the old city ditch full of dead dogs. +A region of small wholesale shops in the drapery line which made no +pretentions at setting out the wares to advantage, everything being +conducted on strict business principles which left no room for trifling. +One came across such announcements as "Grand Order of Israel Friendly +Society," and names of such Biblical association as Abraham Lazarus, +Isaac Levi, and Simon Solomon. You might by favour purchase a solitary +blouse or a dozen of buttons, but it was not with such casual purchasers +the little shops wished to trade. + +We happened on a gateway over which was inscribed, "Phil's Buildings, +Clothes and General Market". A man who had been sitting unnoticed in a +pay-box thrust his head out of the little window. "Want anyone in there, +sir?" he asked. + +"No, I want to see the place." + +"Penny, please." + +I produced two, and we found ourselves in a yard on each side of which +were empty houses, apparently used as warehouses for second-hand +clothes. Beyond was a little market-place where men were ranging their +goods on long forms under a zinc roof. All round lay huge bundles of +wearing apparel--one bundle would contain men's underwear, another +trousers, another coats, not to mention piles of old boots, hats, and +indiscriminate rubbish. + +Through the unglazed windows of the empty houses could be seen a +salesman fitting a customer with an overcoat, and a ticket hanging from +the window-sill gave the information that paper and string cost 2d. + +Mrs. Darling said there might be bargains to be had if the buyer was "in +the know," the prices placed upon the garments having no relation to +what the seller expected to get (unless "a mug" came along). Bargaining +was the very spirit of the place, and a good Jew would feel defrauded +of his sport if a customer made no attempt to beat him down. + +There was a market every day at two o'clock, the Jew in the pay-box told +us, and on being questioned he was quite ready to talk about the slums +near. A neighbourhood where you wanted a protector after dark--a person +like himself, for instance, who knew every man and woman in the place, +and who, _for a consideration_, would take the gentleman round and show +him such things as he had never dreamed of. There was the house which +had been raided by the police and three of them shot--he could show the +bullet marks in the wall. Then there was Mitre Court, where "Jack the +Ripper" had followed on the very heels of the policeman on his beat and +murdered a poor creature within ear-shot and almost eye-shot of the man +in blue, and never a sound of the horrible outrage to break the silence +of the night. + +There are other sinister associations connected with the spot, and as I +listened I remembered the houses near which were built on one of the +plague pits. When the workmen were digging foundations they came upon +hundreds of bodies, being able to distinguish the women by their long +hair. There was an outcry about the fear of contagion, and the bodies +were removed and buried all together in a deep hole dug for the +purpose at the upper end of Rose Alley. I should not like to live in a +house built on a plague pit. + +[Illustration: GREAT ST. HELEN'S.] + +"Great St. Helen's" in Bishopgate Street was a pleasant change from the +horrors to which we had just been listening. The churchyard was carpeted +with dead leaves and the church inside was vague with a coloured dusk. +The glowing windows shut out the light, but through one of plain glass +the sun entered, making a rainbow bridge high up across the nave towards +the Figure of the Good Shepherd on the opposite window. + +As we walked round, trying in the semi-darkness to read the inscriptions +on the tombs of Sir John Crosby, grocer and woolstapler, who built +Crosby Hall; Thomas Gresham, founder of the Royal Exchange; and Julius +Caesar, Privy Counsellor to James I, the sunbeams which had penetrated +here and there through cracks and crevices were crossing swords in the +gloom of the old building, finding out a crimson cushion, a sculptured +face or hands folded in prayer, and lighting, as it were, candles in odd +corners. + +Not a vestige remains of the old priory of St. Helen's, and the nuns' +gratings on the north side, which communicated with the old crypt, have +now nothing but darkness to reveal to the curious who peer through them. +On the same side of the church is a walled-up door, and a little +circular stone staircase which invites ascent, then confronts the +explorer with impenetrable gloom and "no thoroughfare". The old building +has lost a limb, and "Finis" is, it seems, writ suddenly in the middle +of an exciting chapter. + +Mrs. Darling suffers from an infirmity which she describes as "bad +feet," so instead of going on to the Charterhouse, as we had intended, +we had tea, then home by 'bus. + +Mrs. Darling, over her third cup, became expansive, and addressed me as +"Old sport". I must certainly give a little time to the study of Cockney +slang. I have arrived at the conclusion that it very effectively fills +gaps left by the vocabulary of the more cultured and colourless classes. + +"Old sport." Not half a bad term. There are moods in which I could apply +it to yourself, and occasions on which I really think you might accept +it as a compliment. + +Yours with the best of intentions, + + GEORGE. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + + CARRINGTON MEWS, + _1st November._ + +Dear Agatha,--Yes, I am sure you would find the study of Pepys a +profitable one. Why not read him to the Mothers' Meeting instead of "The +Parent's Friend" or "How to Keep your Husband out of the 'Pub'"? The old +chap can be as smug and moral as Sandford and Merton, and his +instructiveness is always involuntary. + +But to the continuation of the story of my wanderings. + +Smithfield, apart from its terrible associations with the Christian +martyrs, is not a pleasant place to visit. On every side one is +confronted by corpses sewn up in muslin shrouds, whilst ghoulish men in +greasy overalls, their hands smeared with blood, superintend the packing +of dead flesh into huge vans. A vegetarian could not find a happier spot +in which to point the moral of his message. Mrs. Darling said it made +her feel as if she could never look a bullock or a sheep in the face +again, and the mutton chop I had had for lunch haunted my digestion. + +It was a relief to leave these horrors for Charterhouse Square, a sad +enclosure behind iron railings where the yellow leaves lay thick on the +grass and the benches stood empty under the avenue of limes. + +The sparrows and starlings were as vociferous as they only can be on a +November afternoon when dusk is approaching. Their notes made a volume +of soft whistling sound which flowed like a tide in the still, cold air. +It followed us through the gateway and into the courtyard, becoming +muffled as we went, then giving place to the perfect peace and quiet of +the old buildings and their surroundings. + +Charterhouse has experienced three phases--first, the Carthusian +monastery, then the residence of members of the nobility, lastly, the +alms-house for old gentlemen; and it is in this latter capacity that its +appeal has always lain for myself, or rather, perhaps, I should say it +is the alms-house grafted on that background of ancient history which +stirs the imagination. + +[Illustration: THE CHARTERHOUSE.] + +In 1611, at the close of the occupation of the Duke of Norfolk and Lord +Thomas Howard, it was bought and endowed as a hospital and school by Mr. +Thomas Sutton. The school was removed in 1872, and the number of +pensioners ("bachelors or widowers over sixty, gentlemen by descent +and in poverty") has been reduced from eighty to fifty. + +Mrs. Darling, who has a kindly feeling for "old chaps" (witness her good +offices to the writer), was very particular in her enquiries as to what +was done for the comfort of these particular old gentlemen, and, judged +by the answers of the guide, they have a quite enviable time. I +shouldn't mind being one myself. + +A comfortable bed-sitting-room, with a fire to go to bed by (each +pensioner is allowed two tons and a quarter of coal a year), good food, +and forty pounds a year pocket money: what more could one want in those +later years when desires become fewer with the growing restfulness of +old age! Mrs. Darling was of the opinion that the banning of her sex was +to be traced to the monkish associations of the place, and considered it +a thing to be deprecated. Men, left to themselves, she declared, got +"very narrer-minded and dull". They needed a woman to sharpen their wits +"jest the same as a cat needs somethink to sharpen 'is claws on". + +We went through a paved passage where are the memorial tablets to some +of the old school boys since become famous--Thackeray, Wesley, Sir Henry +Havelock, Addison, and Steele--and the guide opening a door at the end, +we caught a glimpse of stained glass windows and the dark heavy +interior of the Jacobean chapel. In the silence we could hear the +tick-tock of the chapel clock, that same old clock which seems the +familiar spirit of such places. + +I suppose, Agatha, the Charterhouse chapel spells to you, as it does to +me, Colonel Newcome, and in the raw dusk of the November afternoon I +seemed, in the words of Thackeray, to hear "the old reverend blackgowns +coughing feebly in the twilight----" + +There were candles in those days; now, the guide touches a button and +the place is illumined by electric lights--not too many, however--just +enough to throw shadows across the aisles and burnish the carvings on +the pensioners' seats. As we stared at the founder's tomb, and heard of +the customs appertaining to the 12th of December, fiction became merged +in fact, and Colonel Newcome grew from out the shadows of the past, a +figure as convincing as any of those buried beneath the old flagstones. + +"His dear old head was bent down over his prayer-book; there was no +mistaking him. He wore the black gown of the pensioners of the Hospital +of Grey Friars. His Order of the Bath was on his breast. He stood there +amongst the poor brethren, uttering the responses to the psalm. The +steps of this good man had been ordered thither by Heaven's decree: to +this alms-house! Here it was ordained that a life all love, and +kindness, and honour should end!" + +The guide stood back for us to leave, switched off the lights, and +closed the door on the vision of those "reverend blackgowns coughing +feebly in the twilight". But carrying the remembrance of them with us, +we followed him to Norfolk House. The bare boards of the great oak +staircase have a well-scrubbed appearance, and everywhere was silence, a +dead magnificence, and chill austerity. One can imagine the brothers' +rooms, homelike in the cheerful blaze of their fires, but Norfolk House, +with its great staircase, its library and tapestry room, its tiny +picture gallery and terrace, possesses the tragic aloofness of things +which, having survived their uses, remain to be stared at as relics. The +guide switched on the lights as he went, and there sprang to view the +library with its book-lined walk--old books of Jesuit travel and +divinity which are never opened from one year's end to another. In their +dim bindings they make a scholarly background for the Chippendale +furniture, and the portrait of the man who had bequeathed them to the +institution presides wistfully over the neglected feast of letters. From +thence into the governor's room, with its painted Florentine +mantelpiece, its faded tapestries, leaden-paned diamond windows, and the +arms of the Norfolk family emblazoning the ceiling. + +All came to view with the switching on of the lights, then faded into +the dusk again at the touch of a button. Our footsteps echoed hollow +down the great dim staircase, and we entered the dining-hall, the most +ancient of the buildings of pre-Reformation date. Here was the warmth of +human contact again: the embers of a fire glowed on the wide hearth +under the carved stone chimney piece, and Mrs. Darling said she could +smell stewed rabbit and apple tart. She seemed quite pleased with this +unofficial testimony to the kind of fare provided for the brothers, and +when the guide told her that ale was allowed to all, and whisky to some, +her opinion of the administration of the charity went up by leaps and +bounds. + +Mrs. Darling has no sympathy with the Pussyfoot movement. The late Mr. +Darling, it seems, was, like Peggotty's husband, "a little near" when he +was sober, and but for his habit of now and again taking too much his +wife would never have got a new hat or frock. "Why this very ole plush +jacket he bought me the day after 'e'd got drunk and give me a black +eye!" she stated triumphantly, "an' it wasn't on'y wot 'e _give_ me +neither. It wos wot I used ter pinch when I turned out 'is pockets! I +got as much as ten bob at a time, an' he daren't say 'e'd lost anythink, +because _I'd_ 'ave said 'e'd kep' bad company and bin robbed!" + +Mrs. Darling has an ironic sense of humour you will observe. + +I think, of all the pictures provided by the Charterhouse, the one which +gave me the greatest enjoyment was that which met our eyes when the +guide opened the door of the "brothers'" library. He had first taken the +precaution to see that the room was unoccupied, so I imagine it is not +exactly on the list of those parts of the buildings free to the public. +The place is a long, low-ceiled apartment (originally the monks' +refectory), pillared and wainscotted, with square lozenge-paned windows +through which the light of the fading afternoon entered reluctantly. It +must, at any time, be a dark room, the outstanding bookcases dividing it +into aisles, at the end of which were the dusty old windows. + +But in the twilight, with a ruby fire glowing on the hearth, a large +crimson Turkey rug before it, and a semi-circle of empty wooden chairs +ranged round, it struck a note of comfort and homeliness very welcome +after our wanderings through rooms given over to ghosts. Not that those +same ghosts did not lurk here too. The empty wooden chairs with their +stiff, outstretched arms, had a suggestion of waiting for a company +other than the black-robed pensioners who, apparently, were fonder of +their own bed-sitting-rooms than this ancient apartment with its monkish +associations. + +But the guide was waiting for us: there is no time allowed for dreaming +in these places. One must do that afterwards at home, and I sometimes +think, Agatha, that more even than my enjoyment in the actual visits to +these old scenes, is the pleasure of talking to you about them in these +letters. + +A solitary gas lamp was flickering here and there in the cloisters when +we came outside, and we found the sparrows and starlings still +continuing their concert with indefatigable energy. As they flew round +and round the trees it was difficult to distinguish between birds and +falling leaves. The dusk was peopled with both. + +The proximity to St. Bartholomew's suggested a visit, and we walked a +few yards down Aldersgate Street and from thence into Cloth Fair. Of the +original Cloth Fair there is very little left now. On every side you see +empty spaces where, not many years ago, had been tortuous streets and +courts of ancient houses that must have witnessed the reign of many a +king and queen--houses that stood there long before the Christian +martyrs were burnt at Smithfield, and first plague, then fire, ravaged +the city. Could they have told their terrible secrets those ancient +dwellings might have recounted stories as terrorising as the most +blood-curdling of nightmares. + +[Illustration: A BIT OF OLD SMITHFIELD] + +Of the particular row of houses which had always appealed to me by +reason of their contiguity to the churchyard, part of one only remains. +Many a time have I stood and stared at the dingy backs of those +unwholesome dwellings, wondering what it must feel like to live in a +room with a discoloured tombstone peeping in at the window. Familiarity, +one imagines, would breed contempt, but there would be times during +sleepless nights, or in some hour of depression, when the horrid +nearness of that sooty churchyard, with its mouldering bodies under the +rank grass and refuse, would foster the evil imaginations of madness. + +However, the houses, and many of their like, have gone now, and Cloth +Fair and Little Britain, with the exception of little bits here and +there such as in East Passage, make space for business premises and +warehouses. In the midst of it all stands St. Bartholomew the Great, a +thing of mutilated limbs--witness the scars on portions of its walls +where its members have been dissevered, and where in their place +mundane buildings have crowded up to within a few yards of it. Yet there +it stands, in dignified aloofness from the intrusive neighbours who +nudge its elbows with irreverent and familiar touch. They may rub +shoulders with it at every point, but between them and it is no more +intimacy than there is between Rahere, its founder, and the sight-seer +who, gazing at his tomb, learns the story of his conversion from jester +to monk. The strange story of a vision of St. Bartholomew, in which the +Saint, with a practical regard to detail, ordered Rahere to build a +church in Smithfield, a behest the noble fulfilment of which is made +evident in the old walls that have weathered so many centuries, and the +Hospital next door. + +St. Bartholomew's is one of those buildings which has, like some people, +to be known to be loved. At first one is almost repelled by its austere +and dignified beauty. It is unapproachable with the unapproachableness +of the great. It is dim, too, with the pathetic dimness of a lonely old +age, and one's sense of reverence is violated when one learns that the +Lady Chapel was at one time tenanted by a fringe manufacturer, and the +north transept used as a blacksmith's forge. + +But the age of vandalism is past, and within the old walls law and +order are restored. The ring of the blacksmith's hammer has given place +to the solemn notes of the organ, the blaze of the forge fire to the +soft light of altar candles. The fret and hurry of life no more cross +the threshold, and you can meditate undisturbed. + +Mrs. Darling was obviously bored. Historical details and dates leave her +cold. She does not belong to the class of sight-seers who, hungry for +information, follow sheep-like in the wake of the guide. She wanders off +on her own and has a curious faculty for seizing on some unimportant +detail which makes a personal appeal to her. Charterhouse will always +mean for her the figure of one of the old pensioners we saw in the +cloisters. A funny old chap in a large slouch felt hat, a dirty trench +coat, and with his trousers sagging about his ankles--that and the smell +of stewed rabbit and apple tart, together with rumours of nips of whisky +and glasses of ale, will stand out in her memory from an undigested mass +of "dry" facts and a background of empty echoing rooms and old grey +walls, which latter, as she expressed it, "give her the pip". The +history of The Priory of St. Bartholomew made her tired, and I suggested +an adjournment. + +As we passed St. Bartholomew's Hospital I pointed out to her the brass +plate in the wall on which was inscribed the names of some who, within +a few feet of the spot, had suffered for their faith at the stake in +1556-1557. Smithfield will always be a place of shuddering associations, +and even the prosaic market front and the cold-storage premises, with +their rows of lighted windows starring the blue dusk, seemed in some +strange fashion implicated in its awful memories. As late as March, +1849, when excavations were being made for a new sewer, there were +discovered, three feet below the surface, immediately opposite the +entrance to the church, charred human bones and the remains of some oak +posts partially consumed by fire. From whence did the courage of those +heroic citizens of old come? Life has no greater mystery than the +undaunted spirit with which they faced the hellish tortures of fire and +the rack. + +At the top of Giltspur Street I paused with a sudden recollection of +having heard that there still existed the quaint statue of the Fat Boy +who used to stand at Pie Corner, where the Great Fire ceased. The +incident appealed to Mrs. Darling's curious faculty for selection. She +said she would like to see that fat boy, and we promptly went in search +of him. + +There were no signs of Pie Corner, the spot where it should have been +being occupied by the shop of a foot specialist. It was Mrs. Darling who +discovered the Fat Boy standing in a little brick alcove, over the +door, which had apparently been made for his reception. + +He was not a model of symmetry or beauty, but Mrs. Darling promptly +annexed him as she had annexed the old pensioner of the sagging trousers +and slouched hat, and somewhere in the lumber-room of the old lady's +memory the Fat Boy took his place with Charles II, the aforesaid old +pensioner, and Samuel Pepys, to whom she invariably refers as "that +saucy ole man with the curls". + +The fact that the Great Fire broke out at the king's baker's in Pudding +Lane and ended at Pie Corner struck her as something more than a +coincidence. It was all very well for people to talk about "chance," +_she_ didn't believe in chance. The very fact of the coincidence of +names suggested, to _her_ mind, a well-thought-out plan. She would have +sympathised with the Rev. Samuel Vincent, who, writing at the time, +said, "This doth smell of a Popish design, hatcht in the same place +where the Gunpowder Plot was contrived". + +By the way, I never think of the Great Fire without remembering the +description of an eyewitness of the burning of Guild Hall: "And amongst +other things that night, the sight of Guildhall was a fearful spectacle, +which stood, the whole body of it together, in view for several hours +together, after the fire had taken it, without flames (I suppose because +the timber was such solid oak), like a bright shining coal, as if it had +been a palace of gold, or a great building of burnished brass". You +won't beat that for a bit of word painting. + +We walked on through the Old Bailey and into Fleet Street, where Shoe +Lane reminded me of the fact that the man who was responsible for the +phrase, "Before you could say Jack Robinson," was a tobacconist named +Herdom, who lived at 98 Shoe Lane some hundred years ago. + +The following verse is ascribed to him:-- + + Says the lady, says she, "I've changed my state." + "Why, you don't mean," says Jack, "that you've got a mate? + You know you promised me". Says she, "I couldn't wait, + For no tidings could I gain of you, Jack Robinson, + And somebody one day came to me and said + That somebody else had somewhere read, + In some newspaper, that you were somewhere dead". + "I've not been dead at all," says Jack Robinson, + +the pathetic naivete of which statement marks the simple sailorman. + +Richard Lovelace, the Cavalier poet, who lives in the lines-- + + I could not love thee, dear, so much, + Lov'd I not honour more, + +together with-- + + Stone walls do not a prison make, + Nor iron bars a cage, + +died in Gunpowder Alley, Shoe Lane, and I wondered whether the Alley +still existed under that name. + +It did not take many minutes to find out. Yes, there it was, just at the +top on the left-hand side, but no trace of poor Lovelace--nothing but +new offices, one or two dingy little shops, and the patient thump, +thump, of printing presses. + +We went by way of New Street through Nevill's Court, where, behind an +old wall and sooty front gardens, stand a row of ancient red brick +houses. I like to go through Nevill's Court on one of those mild days in +February when Spring lurks behind the grey stillness and there are buds +on the lilac bush which looks over the top of that same old wall. The +little greengrocer's at the end, too, always strikes a welcome note of +colour with its flaming oranges and rosy-cheeked apples. + +Nevill's Court leads to Fetter Lane, which Mrs. D. at once associated +with Newgate. In order to mitigate her disappointment on hearing that +"Fetter" was a corruption of Fewterers (otherwise the beggars and +disorderly persons who used to frequent the place), I told her the +story of Elizabeth Brownrigge, the celebrated murderess who was +executed at Tyburn, September 14th, 1767, for beating her apprentice to +death. The house where the infamous deed was done was in Fetter Lane, +looking into Fleur-de-lys Court, and the cellar in which the child was +confined, together with the iron grating through which her cries were +heard, used, according to a London historian, to be shown. After the +execution, the corpse was put into a hackney coach and taken to +Surgeons' Hall for dissection, and somewhere in a London collection the +skeleton is still preserved. A hoarding covered with advertisements +stood on the spot, marking the demolition of some old premises. Mrs. +Darling, however, must needs explore Fleur-de-lys Court, and we +discovered an old shut-up house with a cellar grating, which Mrs. +Darling was quite satisfied was the scene of the sinister crime. So +pleasantly excited was she that she forgot her bad feet and walked on +with a swing down Fetter Lane, past "The Record" Office and the entrance +to the Moravian Chapel, that drab little building where Baxter preached +in 1672 and Wesley and Whitfield thundered of the wrath to come, giving +sinners bad nights, and cheating the devil of his due. + +I did not remind Mrs. Darling of these things. She was, I knew, looking +forward to tea and toasted scones, over which she would demand a fuller +account of the murder committed by Elizabeth Brownrigge, and speculate +on how the Charterhouse pensioners spent their pocket-money, and what +would happen if they fell in love. + +I pass on the solution of the second of these conundrums to you, and +remain, + + Your old friend, + GEORGE. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + + CARRINGTON MEWS, + _13th November._ + +Dear Agatha,--I quite agree with you that it isn't altogether a kind +thing to drag these poor old ghosts out of their hiding-places and talk +scandal about them. One pictures them blinking their dust-dimmed eyes in +the strong light of to-day and resenting the conduct of Paul Prys like +myself. But one must take the bad with the good, and if with stories of +heroism, human kindness, and tenderness one unearths a good deal that is +unworthy, one cannot do better than adopt Mrs. Darling's attitude. _She_ +is neither depressed nor demoralised by learning of the frailties and +passions of those who have had their little day, and, going out into the +great unknown, become creatures of Romance and Mystery. That may be +because death has not invested them, for _her_, with any dignity which +can suffer from these familiarities, and her charity, always large for +the living, is just as large, and no larger, for the dead. Mrs. Darling +is a philosopher, and finds in the human comedy her entertainment. She +is also, by the way, an optimist of the first water. "Never say die till +yer shin-bone cuts the blanket," is her advice when there's a yellow fog +and one has a cold in one's head. + +This afternoon the old lady and I have been playing a sort of game of +hide and seek in the courts and alleys on the northern side of Fleet +Street. Our ambition was to find Dr. Johnson's house in Gough Square, +always an elusive object, I had been told by those who had been there, +and I, unfortunately, was born without the bump of locality. This +afternoon the strange fact that man, left to himself, travels in a +circle, found startling corroboration. For one solid half-hour the pair +of us revolved round the Doctor's abode, sometimes within a few yards of +it, without finding it. As you may remember, I would always rather lose +a train than question a porter, and I have the same dislike for +confessing the ignorance of my whereabouts to strangers. Besides, I want +to cure myself of this ridiculous habit of rotating. Mrs. Darling, to +whom I explained the situation, had solutions to offer. Was it, she +said, that man was _not meant_ to extend his travels, or was it because +the world was round? Meanwhile it certainly seemed that Providence +didn't intend us to find No. 17 Gough Square. I blush to tell you, +Agatha, that I stared into its side windows without recognising it, and +that I passed entrances to Gough Square from three points of the compass +without being aware of them, but that may have been because I was +mentally employed in sorting out suitable anecdotes about the Doctor for +Mrs. Darling's entertainment when once we reached our goal. + +A little public-house called "The Red Lion," squeezed into a corner of +Red Lion Court (a most unsuitable spot, one would have thought, for a +"pub"), exercised an unholy attraction for us. Three times did we make +it our starting point, and three times did we come back to it with +feelings of surprise at finding an old friend from whom we thought we +had parted for good. I hope it isn't necessary to add _that we hadn't +been inside_. Getting clear of "The Red Lion" at last, we got entangled +with Bolt Court, Hind Court, and Wine-office Court on the other side, +only escaping their labyrinthine twists and turns to get mixed up in +Shoe Lane, East Harding Street, and Goldsmith's Street. At last we +emerged into Fleet Street once more to take breath and Mrs. Darling +triumphantly pointed to "Johnson's Court," which, by the way, has no +connection with the Doctor. I had no faith in the promise held out by +the august name, but in desperation I turned into it. This time, +however, it was impossible to go astray, because once inside +Johnson's Court we had no choice but to follow our noses. Up the court, +across a paved square, through a narrow passage, along by the backs of +some houses, round an abrupt turn to the left, and behold one was in +Gough Square, and the object of one's pilgrimage come into being, as it +were, by magic. In fact, so suddenly and unexpectedly did it break on us +that the wonder is we didn't pass it unnoticed and forge straight ahead +again for "The Red Lion". + +[Illustration: DR. JOHNSON'S HOUSE IN GOUGH SQUARE.] + +Mrs. Darling claimed acquaintance with the Doctor by virtue of an old +copy of the Dictionary which she told me she found lying on the kerb +near a bookstall in Farringdon Road. I suggested that she should have +made enquiries of the owner of the stall as to whether the book was his. +But she said that seeing she had at different times lost a watch which +didn't go, a purse containing two and sevenpence three farthings, a flat +iron, and a set of artificial teeth belonging to an old friend who died, +she thought it was time she _found_ something. + +There was a poetic sort of justice about this reasoning which I was loth +to question, and I evaded the issue by directing the old lady's +attention to the tablet on the wall of the house, which informs +passers-by that Dr. Johnson lived there from 1748 to 1758. + +She answered, "Well, I never," and in her turn drew my attention to the +fact that someone had opened the door and was waiting for us to enter. + +Mrs. Darling followed at my heels with an apologetic clearing of her +throat. I think she anticipated being introduced to some alarming social +function. This was not a museum nor a church. This was a house with +curtains at the windows, pictures on the walls, and even flowers in +vases, and Mrs. Darling had never heard of the idea of turning a house +into a shrine. I pointed out to her the portrait of the author of the +Dictionary, and she gave it as her opinion that he was trustworthy but +of a bilious disposition. + +There were no other visitors, at the moment, and we wandered unmolested +from room to room, finding everywhere a strange silence set in the +monotonous hum and clack of the printing presses outside--a sound which +fills the neighbouring courts and alleys with a ceaseless thump, thump, +as of the labouring heart of this backwater of Fleet Street. + +Mrs. Darling stared out of the windows and took an occasional rest in +one of the stiff rush-bottomed chairs, whilst I peered into the glass +cases containing yellow letters inscribed with faded brown characters, +thinking how surprised the writers would have been could they have +foreseen this day, nearly two hundred years ahead, when some chance +note, scribbled on the spur of the moment, was read by the curious eyes +of strangers, eager to put an eye to any hole in the curtain of the +past. + +The portraits, too, were eloquent. Boswell of the long ears, who did for +Johnson what Pepys did for himself. "Bozzy," who saw with the terrible +eyes of a child, and who, without any apparent realisation that each +word was a stroke of the chisel, patiently hewed his living portrait of +Dr. Johnson for posterity. I do not agree with the implications of +toadyism against "Bozzy". There was real humility in his attitude +towards the great man, and real love for the object of his hero worship. + +To myself, the history of "Bozzy's" patience under rebuff, his elation +at small victories, his hopes and fears, and the minuteness with which +he chronicles every detail of his intercourse with the object of his +adoration, is more thrilling than many a romance of the love of man for +woman. + +There was Garrick, too, of whom Goldsmith wrote, "He cast off his +friends as a huntsman his pack, for he knew when he pleased he could +whistle them back". Johnson, speaking of the actor's great wealth and +popularity, said, "If all this had happened to me I should have had a +couple of fellows with long poles walking before me, to knock down +everybody that stood in the way.... Yet Garrick speaks to _us_.... A +liberal man. He has given away more money than any man in England." To +which Boswell replies, "Yet Foote used to say of him that he walked out +with an intention to do a generous action, but, turning the corner of a +street, he met the ghost of a halfpenny, which frightened him". I've +been reading "Bozzy," you will see, and having my faith in the colossal +inconsistency of human nature strongly confirmed. + +The vivacious Mrs. Thrale, whom Macaulay describes as "one of those +clever, kind-hearted, engaging, vain, pert young women who are +perpetually saying or doing something that is not exactly right; but +who, do or say what they may, are always agreeable," wears a hat which +lends her an appearance of false solemnity. She has, though, an air of +elegance which makes it easy to believe that she was the lady "for whom" +the Doctor "bought silver buckles and new wigs, and by associating with +whom, his external appearance was much improved". + +There also was Goldsmith, with his ugly, bulging forehead, his +protruding, obstinate mouth and apprehensive eyes, the eyes of a man who +anticipates adverse criticism. To _him_ the Doctor accorded a protective +tenderness the more notable that, whilst recognising the genius of his +protege, Johnson could have but ill understood poor Goldy's +self-consciousness and foolish little weaknesses. + +The poet himself had a lively appreciation of this trait of chivalry in +the Doctor. Witness his words when speaking of a ne'er-do-well of his +acquaintance: "He is now become miserable," says Goldsmith, "and that +insures the protection of Johnson". + +Mrs. Darling was curious to know whether the Doctor had a wife, and I +told her the strange story of his wooing and winning a lady twice his +age--not a beauty, according to Garrick, who described her as "very fat, +with a bosom of more than ordinary protuberance, with swelled cheeks, of +a florid red, produced by thick painting, and increased by the liberal +use of cordials; flaring and fantastic in her dress, and affected both +in her speech and her general behaviour". Boswell's remark apropos of +the situation is very naive. Says "Bozzy" in his most pompous style, +referring to the Doctor and his wife, "He had a high opinion of her +understanding, and the impressions which her beauty, real or imaginary, +had originally made upon his fancy, being continued by habit, had not +been effaced, though she herself was doubtless much altered for the +worse". What a touching view this gives of the learned Doctor's +simplicity of heart! Mrs. Darling, on whom even such an ancient piece of +gossip as this had a cheering effect, remarked that the Doctor wasn't +everybody's money. For her part she wouldn't have taken him "if 'is 'air +'ad 'ung with dimonds". Not that she doubted the excellence of his +character, but, well--and really, Agatha, you must forgive me if I +appear vain in repeating the incident. "Give me a man," said Mrs. +Darling solemnly, with an unmistakable glance of admiration in _my_ +direction--"Give me a man that keeps 'imself _clean_ and 'olds 'imself +stright, even if 'e does put a bit of glass in 'is eye and pretend 'e +can see through it." Mrs. Darling, by the way, never misses an occasion +for airing her disapproval of my monocle. + +We climbed the winding staircase and stood in the garret where the +dictionary had been written, a long, low-ceiled room with small +curtained windows, one end of which was chill with the approach of dusk, +whilst the other was warmed by slant beams of a red sun shining amongst +the crowding chimney-pots and telephone wires. I pictured on some such +afternoon Johnson's six amanuenses busy at their part in the great work, +and wondered whether they knocked off at dusk. + +The Doctor, in his rusty brown suit and his "little old shrivelled +unpowdered wig, his black worsted stockings ill drawn up and his +unbuckled shoes," would probably be busy with them. Perhaps he would be, +as Boswell once found him, "covered with dust and buffeting his books," +whilst Mrs. Hannah Williams in the room downstairs waited at the tea +table. Presently the Doctor would go down and they would drink tea by +the light of the fire. What would they talk about? Boswell describes the +blind lady as "a woman of more than ordinary talents and literature," +and the two might have discussed some contribution Johnson had in his +mind for "The Literary Magazine"--"A Free Inquiry into the Nature and +Origin of Evil," perhaps, or his "Essay on Tea". + +"I suppose no person ever enjoyed with more relish the infusion of that +fragrant leaf than Johnson," says Boswell, and as Mrs. Darling shares +with myself the Doctor's weakness, I proposed an adjournment to Temple +Tea Rooms--if we could extricate ourselves from the maze surrounding +Gough Square. + +And so we left the tall, flat-fronted, eighteenth-century house as the +lights were coming out in the offices all round. At the printers' +windows compositors were busy setting up type, and the printing machines +had no peace from their treadmill labour. But no sound issued from +Number 17, and no face appeared at any one of the long narrow windows. + +"Even if you 'adn't told me, sir, I should 'ave known that wos a empty +house," announced Mrs. Darling, as she stared meditatively at the Queen +Anne front, and the roof line against the reddening sky. + +"Why?" I enquired. + +"Oh, I dunno 'ow I know, but I _do_ know." Mrs. Darling begins, you will +see, to display signs of imagination. It would not surprise me to learn +that she belongs to the class of "mute inglorious" Miltons. Hers may +be:-- + + "Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed, + Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre." + +I shared her feeling about the place, and as we stood taking a final +look it occurred to me that such houses are pathetic attempts to assuage +a wistful craving for things that have passed. Perhaps, though, it is in +their very failure that they score. If one could put back the centuries +and meet the real selves of all those people about whom one had been +dreaming one might lose something for which nothing gained could +compensate. + +No. 17 Gough Square, however, isn't _always_ forlorn. There are +afternoons when merry tea parties of twentieth-century men and women +gather in the garret, or in the "Pink" room sacred to those long ago +tea parties when Hannah Williams entertained the Doctor's friends. There +are, too, evenings when members of the Johnsonian Club, literary folk, +or societies given over to the study of London lore, meet for discussion +or conviviality. I hope the Doctor doesn't resent the intrusion: I don't +think he does, for hospitality was one of his distinguishing traits. + +Mrs. Darling suggested we should go back by the way we came. She feared +the magnetic power of The Red Lion, coupled with my propensity for +rotating. And so we turned to the right and followed our noses until +they brought us out into the bustle of Fleet Street and the sight of the +dark archway leading to Middle Temple Lane under the jutting windows of +Prince Henry's room. + +At the risk of inducing in Mrs. Darling a mood which she describes as +the "bloomin' 'ump," I suggested over the tea-cups that, being on the +spot, it would only be seemly to visit poor "Goldy's" grave in the +Temple. + +She said she was in "good sperets" this afternoon and thought she could +bear it. Poor Goldy! it seems from the accounts one reads of his end +that it was his humble friends who grieved most for him. Neither Johnson +nor Reynolds nor Burke nor Garrick followed him to the grave, and +Boswell, writing to Johnson on June 24th (Goldsmith died on April 4th), +says, "You have said nothing to me about poor Goldsmith," to which +Johnson replied, "Of poor dear Dr. Goldsmith there is little to be told, +more than the papers have made public. He died of a fever, made, I am +afraid, more violent by uneasiness of mind. His debts began to be heavy, +and all his resources were exhausted." + +Darkness had fallen when we left the tearooms, and people were hurrying +through the Temple on their way home from work. The gas lamps shone on +the windows of the circular end of the Temple Church, giving them a +frosty sort of glitter, and no one but ourselves heeded the turning +which leads to the poet's tomb. The little corner where he lies was +deserted and silent, and the inscription on the tombstone could be +deciphered easily by the light of the gas lamp near. There is so little +of it to read:-- + + "Here lies Oliver Goldsmith. Born November 10th, 1728, died April + 4th, 1774." + +As I read it I thought of his own words: "Innocently to amuse the +imagination in this dream of life is wisdom." + +"This dream of life." Is he _awake_ now? An idea occurs to me, Agatha: +the idea that these ghosts enjoy a visit to their old haunts in the +same fashion that we enjoy trying to reconstruct their past, but they +are only allowed to return during those moments when someone in this +life thinks of them. If this is so, _I_ must be much sought after on the +other side, and my obsession with the past is accounted for. + +I showed Mrs. Darling the chambers in Brick Court where Goldsmith died, +and we looked in through the open door at the crooked, narrow staircase +where those poor creatures he had befriended wept for his loss on the +morning after his death. No doubt he had given them sympathy as well as +alms. _He_ knew the meaning of poverty from the day when, as a humble +physician, he hid the holes in the front of his coat with his hat when +paying visits, to the hour when, dying a debtor to the extent of two +thousand pounds, he earned Johnson's exclamation, "Was ever poet so +trusted before!" + +Returning to Temple Bar, we exchanged confidences about our early +recollections of the old gate, and I wondered at the barbarity of those +times, not much more than a hundred and fifty years ago, when the heads +of traitors were spiked over the gate and allowed to rot under the eyes +of those who passed to and fro beneath. There's a lot of "frightfulness" +in old London. It reads at times very much like a penny dreadful. The +kings and queens, saints and warriors, the men of letters and gentle +poets are limned against a tenebrous background of narrow ill-lit +streets, of plague and fire, persecution and deeds of violence. There is +something of the crudeness of cheap melodrama about it all, but at the +same time a virility which satisfies. + +But it grows late as I write this, and to quote Goldsmith once more, +"Let me no longer waste the night over the page of antiquity ... the +dying lamp emits a yellow gleam; no sound is heard but of the chiming +clock...." + +Meanwhile, dear Agatha, + + I am, yours as ever, + GEORGE. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + + CARRINGTON MEWS, + SHEPHERD MARKET, + _November 25th._ + +Dear Agatha,--I anticipated your wish that I should make Chelsea the +object of my next pilgrimage. Mrs. D. and I went there yesterday. + +The gulls were very busy about nothing over the river, and they +harmonised with the colour scheme of the afternoon. Pale sunshine, a sky +of washed-out blue, a silver river, wharves, and leafless trees in +Battersea Park veiled by a curtain which was part autumn mist and part +smoke from the factory chimneys on the south side. + +The square brick tower of the old parish church makes a landmark to the +barges and steamboats on their silent passing, and at night its clock +shines out like a full moon above the plane trees which line the +Embankment. + +A quaint old place it is inside, with a great west gallery that +encroaches almost to the chancel. Where the pews leave off the crowding +large tombs begin, and where the tombs end the discoloured walls are +covered with coats of arms. All this, seen by the homely light of day, +which falls through the windows of plain glass, has an intimate and +pleasant appearance. Even the ancient tombs in their proximity to the +worshippers seem friendly. + +In Sir Thomas More's chapel a certain Arthur Georges, who died in 1660, +lies under the feet of the person who happens to occupy the chair which +partly hides the inscription on his tomb:-- + + "Here lies interred the body of that generous and worthy Gent, + Arthur Georges, Esq. Here sleepes and feeles noe pressure of ye + stone. He that had all the Georges Soules in One. Here the + ingenious Arthur lies to be bewailed by marble and our eyes...." + +"The ingenious Arthur!" One pictures him. A man who had "a way with +women". Apt to get into scrapes, irresponsible, but with a knack of +getting out of a tight corner. Kind-hearted, given to take what life +offers in the way of pleasure, and always ready to pass on good things, +and do a good turn to the under-dog. The inscription goes on to say, +"When all the Georges rise he'll rise again," which pious belief set me +speculating as to whether I might some day meet the "ingenious Arthur". +I'm sure I should like him. + +Mrs. Darling was visibly impressed when I told her that the body of Sir +Thomas More (whose head had been thrown from London Bridge into his +daughter's arms below) was in all probability buried under the church. +His tomb in the chancel consists of a ledge and a tablet of black marble +surmounted by a flat Gothic arch. On the ledge was a bunch of tawny +chrysanthemums and a cross of scarlet immortelles, so the old man who +went to the scaffold rather than be a party to the chicanery and +concupiscence of Henry VIII is not yet forgotten. Sir Thomas More, it +has always seemed to me, carried his asceticism to extreme limits in the +matter of his marriage. "Having determined," so says the historian, "by +the advice of his ghostly father to be a married man, he was offered the +choice of the two daughters of a friend, and although his affection most +served him to the second, for that he thought her the fairest and best +favoured, yet when he thought within himself that it would be a grief +and some blemish to the eldest to have the youngest sister preferred +before her, he, out of a kind of compassion, settled his fancy on the +eldest, and soon afterwards married her." + +More's first marriage, curiously arranged as it was, seemed to have +proved happier than his second, and one is driven to the conclusion that +the great man lacked discrimination in affairs of the heart. Hear his +second wife's tirade when visiting in the Tower. "I marvel," says she, +"that you, who have been hitherto always taken for a wise man, will now +so play the fool as to lie here in this close-fitting prison, and be +content to be shut up thus with mice, and rats, when you might be abroad +at your liberty, with the favour and goodwill of the King and his +council, if you would but do as the bishops and best learned of his +realm have done." + +Mrs. Darling said that was what _she_ called "a sensible woman," but +when I explained the marital complications of Henry VIII, and the +particular offence with which the Lord Chancellor was charged, the old +lady changed her front, saying she was glad some one had had the "spunk +to stand up to that ole rapscallion in the 'tammy'!" Mrs. D. is +evidently familiar with pictures of the amorous monarch. + +We found our way to that corner of the church where are the chained +books. Mrs. D., whose knowledge of literature included, by hearsay, +"Foxe's Book of Martyrs," accorded a glance of fearful curiosity at the +brown back of the dread old volume. The books, the verger told us, were +taken out of the case and dusted once a month, and I envied the person +to whom the task was allotted. + +I think, though, I'd choose a bright early morning when morbid fancies +do not find easy foothold. "Foxe's Book of Martyrs," in the old church +at dusk, might raise ugly phantoms which no bell or candle could lay. + +In these ancient buildings, which are so jealous of the admission of +light, the sunbeams play impish pranks once they gain entrance. They are +as elusive as ghosts, and as nimble as fairies. They throw ruddy gleams +on discoloured walls, setting old brasses afire, and giving a semblance +of warmth to the sculptured features of the dead. The venerable walls +are the target for their elfish tricks and wanton caresses, their +fugitive withdrawals and stealthy returns. The soundless game was in +progress as we left the church, and I shall always picture the quaint +homely old building touched to beauty by the tender flitting of these +noiseless visitors. + +Crosby Hall, that fragment of antiquity, is within a stone's throw of +the church, and to anyone not knowing the story of its presence there, +it must appear a strange erection standing in the centre of a piece of +waste ground surrounded by a hoarding. It was a daring and ingenious +idea to uproot it from its native soil in Bishopsgate Street, and if the +horrid crime had to be done, no better spot than Chelsea, on the site +of Sir Thomas More's garden, could be found for its transplanting. + +We walked all round the hoarding seeking entrance, and at last found a +hitherto unnoticed door. The caretaker said the Hall was not open to +visitors, except by appointment, but that if we liked we could go in. We +went and found the place like a huge, cold barn, its fine oak flooring +chalked out for Badminton, whilst into the cavernous old fireplace, +decorated with Sir John Crosby's crest--a ram, armed and hoofed--had +been put a hideous iron stove. The magnificent timber roof, forty feet +above, looked down on these innovations sadly, and the glorious oriel +window, with the old glass emblazoned with coats of arms, was eloquent +of the times when Richard, Duke of Gloucester, entertained there in +1470, and of such occasions as the visit of Princess Katherine of Aragon +to Sir Bartholomew Bird, or the masque performed by the students of +Gray's Inn before Queen Elizabeth. What changes of fortune have visited +it since! amongst which it has figured in turn as a Presbyterian Chapel +and a restaurant! The caretaker's voice echoed hollow in that husk of a +building from which the kernel is gone. It had borne its transplanting +ill, and even the ghosts, I felt, had deserted it. + +Outside, we found the world transfigured by the setting sun, and I left +Crosby Hall behind with a sensation of relief. For once in my delvings +into the past I had missed the thrill, but the blood-red sun over the +river provided a compensation, and I thought of the little house where +J. M. W. Turner died close at hand. If ever he haunts the spot it would +be at such an hour, when the wizardry of the sinking sun casts its spell +of romance and mystery over the most commonplace objects. All too short +are such moments, but Turner, that mad genius who lived with his visions +of splendour in the midst of dirt and squalor, "the wizened, meagre old +man," has snatched and imprisoned for those who come after him the +fleeting miracle. + +Mrs. Darling, who is tolerant of what she considers my "balmy" +propensity for "staring at nothink," occupied herself with watching the +craft on the river whilst I meditated before the little green-shuttered +house. It lies below the level of the footpath and behind the frontage +line of its neighbours, seeking, it seems, as would the man who lived, +worked and died there, to evade notice. J. M. W. Turner's action in +suddenly and secretly leaving his "den" in Queen Anne's Street to take +refuge in Cheyne Walk was dictated by a mad impulse to go into hiding, +and one pictures the flight of the strange old man who wanted only to be +left alone with his tyrannical mistress, Art. The house is described as +being "next door to a ginger-beer shop close to Cremorne Pier". There is +no ginger-beer shop now, only "The Aquatic Stores," and Cremorne has +long disappeared. + +I looked up at the windows and wondered from which one it was that the +dying painter watched the gates of heaven open to let out the mystic +flood of colour and take in the departing sun. There was the iron +balcony on the roof, erected by Turner himself, so that he should not +fall off when busy there at his easel. How well he must have known the +limitless moods of the river! The silence of its inexorable tides, its +liquid fire under the flaming sun, its pale shiver under the silver +moon, and its black despair on a winter's night. + +Mrs. Darling interrupted my meditations to inform me that a policeman +was observing me with suspicion, and that she thought it would be +advisable to move on. She said she had noticed on former occasions that +my "ixcentrik 'abits" had attracted unwelcome notice, but that she +hadn't liked to mention the matter for fear of making me nervous. Pure +imagination on the old lady's part, of course, but she finds a certain +pleasurable excitement in such fancies, and so I humoured her by walking +on with an air of assumed indifference calculated to allay the +apprehensions of any "nosey" member of the force. + + * * * * * + + _4th December._ + +It was too late when we left Cheyne Walk to go to Carlyle's house, and +we have paid another visit to Chelsea to-day. The weather which, so far, +has been kind to our wanderings, turned the disagreeable side of its +face to us this afternoon. The wind was blowing a gale from the +north-east, and pieces of paper and dead leaves flew as high as the +topmost branches of the plane trees along the Embankment. Mrs. Darling +was quite cheerful. She said the cold weather "agreed" with her feet, +but, for myself, old age slapped me insultingly in the face with every +spiteful gust of the biting blast. + +[Illustration: GREAT CHEYNE ROW AND CARLYLE'S HOUSE.] + +No. 28 Cheyne Row, built in 1708, has a modest exterior which somewhat +belies its interior. I rang the bell, the sound prolonging itself in a +tinkle that seemed to take a journey to some remote corner of the house, +and almost before its warning voice had ceased the door was opened by a +girl whose glance set at rest my fears of intrusion. She ushered us into +a dim, drab room wainscotted from floor to ceiling, but before I go any +further, Agatha, I have a confession to make. It was not Carlyle whom I +had chiefly come to see. If the maid had answered my ring and said, +"Mr. Carlyle is out, but Mrs. Carlyle is at home," I should certainly +not have turned away; indeed, I'm afraid it would have been difficult to +disguise my satisfaction at the prospect of a _tete-a-tete_ with Jane +Welsh--Jane, who never sunk her individuality to the extent of becoming +"the wife of Thomas Carlyle". Jane, who has always been, and always will +be, "Jane Welsh" and not "Jane Carlyle" to her admirers. + +It was Jane who had lured me to the old house on this bleak afternoon +when I should have been sitting over the fire, forgetting my sixty-five +years in a novel of youth. Jane, who in her cheery way describes the +house as "an excellent lodgement, and most antique physiognomy, quite to +our humour; roomy, substantial, commodious, with closets to satisfy any +Bluebeard, ..." and who, in an earlier letter on the same subject, says, +"I have a great liking to the massive old concern with the broad +staircase and abundant accommodation for crockery. But is it not too +near the river? And another idea presents itself along with that +wainscot--if bugs have been in the house! Must they not have found there +as well as the inmates room without end?" I hope, by the way, that the +dear lady's fears were unfounded, but judging from her later letters, I +have my doubts. + +How shall I describe to you the effect of that chill, prim room, seen in +the light of the bleak winter afternoon! One thing of living beauty +alone made a link with the present--a great bunch of tawny yellow and +white chrysanthemums which a worshipper had brought to the shrine on +this, the birthday, of the great man. We had chosen an auspicious date +for our visit, and inspired by the coincidence, I sought to animate the +dry bones with life. Over the fireplace hangs a picture in which Jane is +represented sitting by the fire in this very apartment, whilst her +spouse, attired in a plaid dressing-gown, stands with his back against +the mantel. Here is the identical room, the identical tables and chairs, +the horsehair sofa and pictures, but the room no more resembles the +home-like one in the picture than do dried rose leaves placed between +the leaves of a book resemble the scented freshness of freshly plucked +velvety petals. Ah, well! the dead cannot live again in _this_ world, +and those of us who visit ghosts' houses must leave our more material +selves on the doorstep. + +Everywhere are portraits of the sad, brooding face of Thomas Carlyle. +Mrs. D. said the late Mr. D. used to look like that "when 'e'd lost a +bit on a 'orse," and I was moved to explain that identical results may +be obtained by widely different causes. Who would choose to be a genius +if he realised that loneliness was the price? Loneliness, with Jane by +the fireside! Strange problem! I looked at her portrait in youth, the +heart-shaped face with the parted lips and frank eyes, the dark curls +and beautiful throat, and as I looked sentences in her letters came to +mind. Referring to her choice of a husband, she says, "Indeed, I +continue quite content with my bargain; I could wish him a little _less +yellow_ and a little more _peaceable_, but that is all." And again, when +writing to him, she says, "Try all that ever you can to be patient and +good-natured with your povera piccola Gooda, and then she loves you, and +is ready to do anything on earth that you wish.... But when the signor +della casa has neither kind look nor word for me, what can I do but grow +desperate and fret myself to fiddlestrings." + +Referring to a birthday present from him, she says, "Only think of my +husband, too, having given me a little present! He who never attends to +such nonsense as birthdays, and who dislikes nothing in the world so +much as going into a shop to buy anything.... Well, he actually risked +himself in a jeweller's shop and bought me a very nice smelling bottle!" + +Poor little wife! Poor husband, too, when after her death he has so +often to say, "Ah me! too late, too late". Yet they loved each other +well, and when Thomas Carlyle wrote on her tombstone, "For forty years +she was the true and ever-loving helpmate of her husband," and added +that she was "suddenly snatched away from him, and the light of his life +as if gone out," no one doubts that the words came from the deepest +depths of his heart. + +In the china closet a glass case contains some pathetic mementoes--a +yellowed old lace cap worn by Mrs. Carlyle, a brooch with the portrait +of her dog Nero, given by the mistress to "little Charlotte," a sock of +Carlyle's with his initials neatly marked in red thread, and two small +cardboard boxes, each containing locks of the hair of Thomas Carlyle and +his wife. Trivial things, which yet in their haunting intimacy are too +sacred, it seems, to be stared at by the curious sightseers. + +In a corner hangs an etching that deserves a more prominent place, the +desolate picture of a funereal _cortege_ wending its slow way against a +bleak background of snow and leaden sky.... Thomas Carlyle is being +carried to his last rest, and surely the Great Scene Shifter had well +chosen the setting. The simple dignity of the procession approaching +over the white countryside, the little group of humble folk awaiting its +arrival at the gate of the churchyard, the frozen silence of the dead +day--what could be more touching or impressive! + +As we mounted the stairs on our way to the upper rooms, Mrs. D., who had +said nothing for quite five minutes, remarked that, for _her_ part, she +couldn't see why people weren't allowed to rest in their graves. Even +Mrs. D.'s scepticism and want of imagination was not proof against those +little mementoes in the glass case, and I think she resented her +inability on this occasion to take refuge behind the usual, "'Ow d'yer +know it's all true?" The old lady was visibly depressed, and, to cheer +her up, I asked her if she had ever worn a "bustle," quoting a letter of +Jane Welsh's, in which she wrote, "The diameter of the fashionable +ladies at present is about three yards; their bustles (false bottoms) +are the size of an ordinary sheep's fleece. Eliza Miles told me a maid +of theirs went out one Sunday with three kitchen dusters pinned-on as a +substitute." + +Whereupon Mrs. D., between laughter and breathlessness, had to pause on +the top stair whilst she adjusted her hat at a still more rakish angle, +and ejaculated, "Oh, saucy!" + +It is well nigh impossible, in the later portraits of Mrs. Carlyle, to +recognise the girl in the miniature. The dark brooding face is almost +forbidding, and one is forced to the conclusion that the portraits have +little real likeness to the original. Jane, with a vitality that upheld +her through years of bodily and mental suffering, with a gaiety and wit +which won her the admiration and homage of those celebrated men who went +to see her husband, and stayed to make friends with her, Jane could +never have looked _like that_! No doubt the coal-scuttle bonnet and +severe style of hair dressing had a great deal to do with it. The +fashions in those days were not kind to the middle-aged woman. All the +same, when I looked at a portrait of Lady Ashburton, Carlyle's friend +and patron, I found there a woman whose beauty could triumph over such +handicaps. Jane thought Lady Ashburton a "cat," and the insolent eyes +and disdainful curve of "Harriet's" mouth incline me to think Jane was +right. Comparisons are unkind, but one is forced to the conclusion that +whilst Lady Ashburton's face might well be her fortune, Jane Welsh would +have to draw on her wit and intellect. + +The cold wind outside roared round the cold house, and a piano-organ in +the street ground out a hymn. Down below the bell tinkled. More visitors +were arriving, and wishing to keep in advance of them, we left the +drawing-room for Mrs. Carlyle's bedroom. + +"Red bed," says Carlyle in a letter to his wife, "will stand behind the +drawing-room"--and here it is! A four-poster with bare laths hung with +faded red curtains and flounce. There is nothing more intimate than a +bed, but this bed, standing so many years unwarmed by human contact, has +outlived all such associations. It was not always a kind bed, either, +judging from the tragic account in her letters of Jane's sleepless +nights. "Oh!" she writes, "if there was any sleep to be got in that bed +wherever it stands!" (alluding to a change in the position of her bed at +Chelsea). "But it looks to my excited imagination, that bed I was born +in, like a sort of instrument of red-hot torture; after all those nights +I lay meditating on self-destruction as my only escape from insanity." A +woman who could express her sufferings in such vivid language would be +spared no iota of misery. Pin-pricks, which a stupid person might +ignore, would to Jane be sword-thrusts. + +As one thinks of her one remembers those words written by her husband: +"Rest? Rest? Shall I not have all Eternity to rest in?" and there, on +the wall close at hand, hangs the photograph of her grave in Haddington +Church. + +But, dear me, Agatha, this won't do! I don't want (to quote my pal, Mrs. +D.) to give you the "bloomin' 'ump". One must remember that Jane was not +always ill or unhappy. Jane had her bright days and her friends, +"dandering individuals dropping in," Charles Dickens, Thackeray, Alfred +Tennyson. Note this little vignette of the latter: "Passing through a +long, dim passage" (she was at the theatre) "I came on a tall man leant +to the wall, with his head touching the ceiling like a caryatid, to all +appearances asleep, or resolutely trying it under most unfavourable +circumstances. 'Alfred Tennyson,' I exclaimed in joyful surprise. +'Well,' said he, taking the hand I held out to him and forgetting to let +it go again, 'I should like to know who you are. I know that I know you, +but I cannot tell your name.'" + +Then, too, there was Macready, D'Orsay, Lord Houghton, and Mazzini. Of +the latter she says, "He told me there was nothing worth recording +except that he had received the other day a declaration of love. Of +course, I asked the particulars. Why not?--and I got them fully." And +again, "He had had two other declarations of love! 'What, more of them?' +'Ah, yes!--unhappily! They begin to rain on me like _sauterelles_!'" + +Mrs. Darling said there was "nothink in _that_!" _Her_ old man had had +six proposals before _she_ herself annexed him. I inquired how she had +succeeded in capturing such a shy bird, and she said it only needed a +bit of confidence and a lot of soft soap. _Any_ woman could marry _any_ +man if she properly set her mind to it. The news was rather disquieting; +also, it was not exactly flattering to one's vanity to reflect that, +apparently, no woman had been anxious enough to marry me to set her mind +properly to the task. + +When we mounted the last flight of stairs and entered the attic study we +seemed to leave Jane behind. Carlyle himself met us on the threshold of +this refuge, fondly planned with dreams of quiet in which he could work +unmolested. As a matter of fact, it did not repay him for the +discomforts endured whilst it was being built. "My room," he writes, "is +irremediably somewhat of a failure, and 'quiet' is far off me yet." + +The afternoon was beginning to draw in and a little fire glowed in the +old-fashioned grate. Perhaps that was why the attic study seemed the +most cheerful room in the house. It might not be "sound"-proof, but, at +least, the wail of the north-east wind, as it careered round the old +walls, was lost here, and through the ground glass window came a warm +light which suggested a fragment of sunset somewhere out in the +stormdriven sky. The apartment had a hermit-like atmosphere, although +there could have been but little peace for the man who travailed as +Carlyle did over his gigantic tasks. One recalls to mind such words as +"I was in the throes of the French Revolution at this time, heavy laden +in many ways and gloomy of mind...." "I, in dismal continual wrestle +with 'Friedrich,' the inexcusable book, the second of my twelve years +'wrestle' in that element." ... "Hades was not more laborious than that +book, too, now was to me." + +What must it have been to one, who so travailed in the birth of those +children of his brain, to lose as he did, through the "miserablest +accident" of his whole life, the first volume of the French Revolution? +And surely never man behaved so chivalrously to the friend who was the +innocent cause of the disaster as did Carlyle to the unfortunate Mill. +Poor John Stuart Mill! One imagines with a shudder his feelings when, +with the black consciousness of the awful news he had to impart, he +stood on the doorstep of No. 5 Cheyne Row waiting admittance! A visit to +the dentist would, in contrast, have been an occasion of happiness. The +thought of what that wretched man must have suffered diverts my mind +from the contemplation of the cruel blow to the victim. The picture of +Mill as, after having made his terrible disclosure, "he sat three hours +trying to talk of other subjects," passes the bounds of tragedy and +almost verges on the ludicrous. How he must have longed to go! and how +Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle must have ached to see the back of him! + +Dusk was gathering on the stairs and in the grey empty rooms as we left +the attic, and we had to go carefully round the corners. Was it the +whisper of a silken gown, or the swish of the wind through the branches +of the bare trees in the little garden which accompanied us? Who can +tell? Who _wants_ to tell? Leave us some room for speculation--some peg +on which to hang our hopes of things beyond which we can see and handle. + +We walked down the little street at the end of which is the Embankment +gardens, and there, in the blue twilight amidst the purple branches of +the bare trees, is a seated figure. A figure of which even the distant +view conveys a suggestion of profound and brooding melancholy. There +sits Carlyle, watching for ever the silent passing of the river. Silver +lights dotted the wharves opposite, and in the west, behind the four +tall chimneys of the power station, there was yet a smouldering red +amidst the almost extinct fires of sunset. + +Perhaps if the mute lips could speak they would echo the once written +words, "Yes, poor mortals, such of you as have gone so far, _shall_ be +permitted to go farther: hope, despair not". + +And on that note I close this long epistle. + + Ever your friend, + GEORGE. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + + CARRINGTON MEWS, + SHEPHERD MARKET, + _6th December._ + +Dear Agatha,--Mrs. Darling has announced that she doesn't want to go to +any more dead people's houses. She says they give her a "nasty, sleepy +feelin'". She is, moreover, of the opinion that, in these days, when +living people can't get homes, it's downright wicked to waste bricks and +mortar on ghosts. + +She said she wanted to go to St. Paul's Churchyard to see the shops, and +in a moment of weak amiability I consented to accompany her. If my good +nature had stopped at that point all would have been well, but putting +on the brakes halfway down hill is a thing I've never been able to +accomplish, and I was lured into a draper's to help the old lady choose +a blouse for Christmas. + +I had never in my most imaginative moments thought of Mrs. D. as a vain +woman, but her conduct over the purchase of that blouse was a +revelation! If she looked at one she looked at twenty; moreover, she +insisted on trying some of them on with disastrous results. Blouses that +looked quite attractive off, assumed a curious appearance of bodginess +when on. The little minx who served us could, I suspect, have explained +the reason. _I_ could only grope for it whilst I watched Mrs. D., with +the help of the little minx, push a fat arm clothed in a cloth sleeve +into another sleeve composed of gossamer fabric which the assistant +called "_Georgette_"! + +"It's too tight," said Mrs. D. "'Tisn't my colour neither. 'Aven't you +got somethink in a red silk, with a bit er lace on it?" + +At this moment I became conscious of a perfume with familiar +associations, and some one put a hand on my sleeve from behind. +"George!" Then a laugh--you know Katherine's laugh. It used to be one of +her assets, but there's a thin note in it now which betrays her age. +"You look so absurd," said she. "What _are_ you doing?" + +"Helping Mrs. Darling to choose a blouse," said I, with a nod in the +direction of Mrs. D., who at that moment was entangled in the georgette +creation which the little minx was removing from above. + +Now Katherine may be a cat, but she knows how to behave, and she didn't +turn a hair. + +"How sporting of you!" she exclaimed, with a sympathetic glance towards +Mrs. D., who emerged from the entanglements of the blouse like a diver +coming to the surface to take breath. + +"That'll be ninepence, and you can keep the change," remarked the old +lady, with a satirical glance towards the saleswoman. (I may add, in +parenthesis, that the offer was not intended to be taken seriously.) +"Talk about skinnin' a rabbit! I dunno who they make these blouses for!" +Then she caught sight of Katherine, and assumed what one might call her +"company smile" with a jerk of her facial machinery. + +"This is my sister, Mrs. Darling," said I, "the one who lives in Curzon +Street." + +There was a moment's pause whilst Mrs. D. adjusted herself to the +situation, then, getting on the stilts with much more ease than she had +got out of the blouse, she said, "Hindeed! I 'ope you're well and can +get wot you want, mam. Shoppin' ain't ixactly a dream in these days. +They don't seem to make anythink suitable for middle-aged people like +your ladyship and myself." + +"But don't you think that's very kind of them," argued Katherine with +undiminished amiability. "You see, they want to help us keep up the +illusion of youth." + +"Well, I got a few grains er common sense," announced the old lady, +"and ain't goin' to make a igiot er meself in one er them tom fool +blouses. I know what I want. I got in me mind's eye, but I ain't seen it +in this shop." + +"Why not take the advice offered with such dreary persistency in the +tube, 'Get it at Harrods'!'" suggested Katherine. + +"A good idea," said I to Mrs. D., "and we'll explore Kensington at the +same time. We haven't been there yet." + +Katherine glanced from Mrs. Darling to myself. I foresaw that the scene +would be reproduced for the benefit of her guests next time she gave a +dinner party. She had already grasped the situation and _got_ Mrs. D. +You know Katherine's powers of mimicry. Well, I don't grudge her the +fun. She's entitled to a little return for the two hundred a year she +allows me, and she has a pretty dull time with her eternal round of +so-called gaieties. + +"No, we _'aven't_ bin to Kensington," agreed Mrs. D., "and wot's more, +you know quite well, sir, we ain't goin'," with a warning glance in my +direction. "It's quite a haccident your ladyship finds me 'ere with your +brother," the old lady went on. "I little thought when I come out this +mornin' ter buy a blouse I should meet Mr. Tallenach in the shop." Oh, +Mrs. Darling, and I had imagined you a truthful woman! + +"Fate arranges such meetings for us," declared Katherine fervently, and +her self-congratulation was obviously genuine. I had provided her with +that most desirable thing in life, a _sensation_, and it is long since +she bestowed on me any invitation so genuine as the one she gave for +dinner that night. + +But I had no intention of satisfying her curiosity, and excused myself +on the plea that my dinner jacket had gone to the tailor's to be +pressed. She said there was no need to dress as she would be alone, and +Mrs. D. signalled frantically to me to accept. + +I, however, persisted in my refusal, and, with a growing feeling for the +dramatic possibilities of the situation, mentioned that, as a matter of +fact, Mrs. Darling and I usually went to the pictures on Wednesday +evening. There is no telling to what further lengths I might have gone +had not Mrs. D. began to display symptoms of apoplexy, whilst +Katherine's desire for my company became so urgent that, to get rid of +her at the moment, I promised to go to Curzon Street on the morrow. + +"I see _this_ comin' all along," remarked Mrs. D., with tragic emphasis, +as we made our way down Cheapside. "You bin and done it with a vengeance +now, sir. I drempt I 'ad a tooth out last night, and that's a bad sign. +I shouldn't wonder if the Countess didn't wash 'er 'ands of you after +_this_!" + +I reassured the old lady by telling her the Countess hadn't been so +gracious for years--not since the occasion on which she tried to +manoeuvre me into marriage with a rich woman old enough to be my mother. + +In Bishopsgate Street we came to a halt before the giant pair of +spectacles placed over the fronts of the two ancient shops which stand +in the porch of St. Ethelburga. There is no more gracious surprise in +the whole city than that bit of antiquity which breaks the long line of +new buildings in Bishopsgate. So unexpectedly does it occur, and so +unobtrusive are the quaint little shops in their unique situation, that +thousands of people must pass the place daily without noticing them, or +being aware that behind them is the smallest of the eight churches that +escaped the Great Fire. From the opposite side of the road one can see +the west front of the church rising behind the jutting first floor of +the shops, and an inscription that this is "The Church of St. +Ethelburga" invites the curious to cross the road and pass through the +gateway leading to the tunnel-like entrance. + +The charm of this hidden sanctuary will reward him for lingering by the +way. It has an atmosphere all its own, entirely unlike the atmosphere +of the typical City churches, with their chill air of having survived +the worship of long dead days. Tucked away so cosily and standing its +ground so sturdily amidst the pushing, elbowing crowd of new buildings +all round, St. Ethelburga's has ready for each person who enters a +glimpse of beauty to refresh the eyes, and a garment of peace in which +to enwrap the spirit. + +You pass under the low west gallery, and looking down the nave, with its +pointed arches and clustered columns, see through the fretted screen at +the east end, a red lamp burning dimly against the dull blue altar +hangings. The windows of the nave are almost entirely blocked up, and +pictures hang on the old grey walls. Through the clerestory a chill +light mingles with the yellow gleam of the electric burners below, and +the little building is full of soft shadows, picturesque vistas, and +mystery. + +The monuments are few and the names on them unknown. There are no ghosts +with claims for recollection on one's affection or homage. Those obscure +citizens who lie buried within the church or outside it, in what one +might call the church's little "back garden," are content to be +forgotten, but some of their names figure in the parish records, and in +the paper-covered book which one can buy in the church there are such +entries as:-- + +"John de Weston, called 'de St. Ives,' brewer of Colmanstrete, left 13s. +4d. for the repair of the belfry in 1374, and Matilda Balsham left 10s. +for the building of a porch over the entrance in the year before!" Ten +shillings for building a porch! Money must have gone farther then than +now! Witness the fact that in 1570 the "little shop" on the south side +of the porch was let at a rent of 5s. a year! + +Rents, however, went up, even in those days, and in 1577 a certain +George Clarke paid 6s. 8d. a year for the same premises, whilst in 1616 +a Mr. John Miller, the sexton, paid L1. Meanwhile the shop on the north +side had been built in 1615, and let at a rent of L4. One would like to +know the character of the business carried on by the numerous tenants +mentioned, but save for one reference to "the eye-man" (which looks as +if the present spectacle-makers are carrying on the traditions), another +to the "little shop," in 1832, as the "Gold Beater's House," and the +mention, 1592, of "Samuel Aylesworde, a glover," no light is thrown on +the subject. + +In this same paper-covered book there is recorded the loss of "a curious +sculptured figure of stone," which a few years ago was removed from the +tower to "serve as a guide to the modeller in the preparation of a +silver figure which now crowns the beadle's staff". Who could have +stolen the old figure? What was the motive? Where is it now? Huddled in +a dusty corner in the shop of some dealer in antiques perhaps. Or was it +seized by some zealous Roman Catholic as lawful booty? The ghosts maybe +themselves have appropriated it? I shall never think of St. Ethelburga's +without pausing to speculate, with a pleasant little thrill, on the fate +of "the curious sculptured figure of stone". To find it would be an +adventure after my own heart. One would take up such a quest as a hobby +and continue it until it became an obsession. Think of the hunt for +antique shops where such a thing would be likely to make a temporary +halt. The more obscure the shop, the more heterogeneous its contents, +the more likely to contain the treasure. "Imidges," as Mrs. D. calls +them, would haunt one's dreams by night and lure one to strange journeys +by day. The particular "imidge" which had bewitched you would take on +the attributes of the Philosopher's Stone, and the pursuit of it become +what the winning number in a lottery is to the gambler who hopes with +every fresh stake to retrieve his fortunes. Then, one day, perhaps, +success (which in your heart you had never expected, or, let me whisper +it, _really_ wanted) comes. The solution of the riddle was quite +ordinary, the---- + +In the middle of my meditations the old lady, who had been making a tour +of the church examining the pictures, tapped me on the back, announcing +she had seen all there was to be seen and that, judging from my looks, I +must have gone out that morning before I got up. The interruption was +not unwelcome, arriving as it did at the moment of disillusionment, and +I followed her out of the church. + +Being in the neighbourhood of St. Mary Axe, it occurred to me we might +go on to St. Andrew Undershaft to see Stow's monument. The church is +open from 12 to 2, and I asked Mrs. D. whether she would have lunch +before, or after, the visit. She said she thought "two churches running" +might be "rather dry," and, taking the hint, I came to a halt at the +nearest restaurant. + +The beefsteak was tough but the ale was good, and Mrs. D. declared, as +we rose from the table, that she felt quite equal to another church, but +she hoped it was not an underground one. She seemed to connect the word +"Undershaft" with coal mines, and I hastened to tell her the story of +the Maypole, which used, on May Day, to be set up hung with flowers +opposite the south door of St. Andrew's. It must have been a very tall +one, for Stow says of it that the "shaft when it was set on end and +fixed in the ground was higher than the church steeple". + +St. Andrew's is spacious, dignified, and rather chill. The windows are a +special feature, and some of them display the coats of arms of various +of the city guilds. I never, by the way, think of those guilds without +smelling in imagination that odour reminiscent of centuries of past +dinners, which hangs about their old halls, remembering, too, Hallam's +words, "The common banquet and the common purse". Here is the coat of +arms of the Merchant Tailors, the Haberdashers, Wool Staplers, and +Merchant Adventurers. (I should have liked to have been a "Merchant +Adventurer".) There you have the ideal mingling of Commerce with +Romance--Romance, with nothing behind it, is as evanescent as the +rainbow, a lopsided article which satisfies no one for long, but that +Romance which is an integral part of the business of living makes for a +solid happiness that wears well. + +I am afraid John Stow did not achieve it. _His_ work could not have been +of a lucrative nature seeing that, at the age of 78, he obtained from +James I a licence to beg! There, in the far corner at the east end of +the church, he sits at his writing table, the implement of his craft, a +quill pen, in his hand. A funny little squat figure with a ruff, framing +a small, delicate face, not the face of one able to battle successfully +with a hard world. I wondered how his widow, who erected the monument, +found the necessary cash. But Mrs. D. remarked that no matter how the +poor lived, they always contrived the means to pay respect to their dead +with the "insurance money". _Her_ husband had had three coaches, with a +pair of horses in each, to follow him to the grave, although, on account +of his long illness, she owed two months' rent at the time of his death, +and had pawned the parlour clock and the fire-irons. Such talk seemed to +savour of bad taste, under the circumstances, and I sent an apprehensive +glance in Stow's direction, but he was too absorbed with his task to +look up. How often must he have sat thus in his lifetime writing those +endless pages without which we should know so little of the intimate +history of the middle ages! In his love of detail he was, like Pepys, +chosen to preserve for future generations living documents made of small +homely details. The sculptured face gives testimony to the patience and +concentration of the historian who wrote "The Survey of London". It is +the face of one who, if he made up his mind to discover the difference +between two blades of grass, would pursue that study with the world +tumbling about his ears. It is consistent with the neglect with which he +was treated in life that in 1732 his body was removed from its resting +place "to make way for another". Who that "other" was I don't know, but +this much I am sure--he was a beastly interloper who had no more right +to usurp poor old Stow's last resting place than has the cat to turn me +out of my armchair. + +We left the painstaking worker at his task, the white feather of the +quill being the last thing I saw as I turned my head for a parting look. +Does the quill move sometimes in the silence and darkness of the long +nights in the old church? and could I, if I had the eyes, read what it +writes? + +On our way back we went into St. Peter's, Cornhill, where the dusk of +the sombre interior makes a rich setting for the lovely peacock blue of +the windows at the east end. As we pushed back the door we were greeted +with the solemn chant of Wagner's "Pilgrims' Chorus," a strange and +beautiful substitute for the roar of the traffic in Cornhill. Who shall +say the City churches are of no use when they provide such interludes of +rest and refreshment for men and women working in the offices at their +doors? + +St. Peter's lives in my memory not because it claims to be the first +Christian church founded in London, but by reason of a tablet which I +once discovered there in a dark corner. On it is described a story that +for pathos and terror stands alone in my experience of such things. At +the conclusion of the organ recital I took Mrs. Darling to that spot at +the south-east end of the church where the sinister record is to be +seen. Below the sculptured heads of seven cherubs is the following +inscription:-- + + "Jane, born 1773. May, 1774. Charles, 1776. Harriet, 1777. George, + 1778. John and Eliza, twins, 1779.... The whole offspring of James + and Mary Woodmason, in the same awful moment on the 18th January, + 1782, were translated by sudden and irresistible flames, in the + late mansion of their sorrowing parents, from the sleep of + innocence to eternal bliss. + + "Their remains, collected from the ruins, are here combined. A + sympathetic friend of the bereaved parents, their companion during + the night of the 18th January, in a scene of distress beyond the + powers of language, perhaps of imagination, devotes this + spontaneous tribute of the feelings of his mind to the memory of + innocence." + +We turned away in silence, and we had got the length of the church +before Mrs. D. said, "I wonder wot them parents 'ad done to be treated +_like that_ by the Almighty. 'Tisn't as if you paid yer money and took +yer choice about livin' in this ole world. They didn't ask to be born +neither, did them poor lambs that was burnt." + +I wondered too. Did those parents continue to live in an empty world? +Did they even live long enough to forget that night of surpassing +horror? + +There was no one to answer these questions, and catching sight of the +caretaker it occurred to me that I had another question to ask which +she would certainly be able to answer. + +I had heard there was a subterranean passage entered by a flight of +steps from the belfry, and I wanted to know if it was true. + +"Yes, it is quite true," she answered. The passage led "right across to +St. Helen's," but this may be only hearsay, as it has been bricked up a +number of years. Why brick up such relics of mediaevalism? They are of no +use, answers the practical person, so why keep them? and he might add, +just for the edification of a few Paul Prys like yourself. Subterranean +passages, secret drawers, sliding panels, concealed cupboards, all, +alas! have gone out of fashion. They belong to a childish age which we +have outgrown. + +Mrs. D. said she had no patience with people who were always putting +their noses into holes and corners, expressing her conviction that such +passages had dark histories in connection with "them monks," and after +this I had not the courage to name my desire to explore the flight of +steps leading from the belfry to the passage. + +I think some day, though, I must return, without Mrs. D., and see if I +can get round that caretaker to show me the spot. + +How infinitely poorer the city would be without these old landmarks +which have stood their ground so obstinately against the pushing, +vulgar spirit of progress. What would the streets be like without the +surprises they provide? An ancient wall in which there is a door leading +to silence and the company of those for whom the fight is over. A sooty +graveyard where the sparrows quarrel in the plane trees at dusk, and the +mouldering tombstones stir the imagination to dreams and reflection. A +spire or tower rising like a challenge above the roofs of offices and +warehouses. Those old churches--one never goes a walk in the city +without playing hide and seek with them. They lurk round corners and +materialise under one's very nose out of blank walls. They are as much a +part of this city of ours as are the men and women who in the dim ages +trod its streets and made its history. Yet those same sturdy old +churches are, to-day, as criminals awaiting their death sentence in the +dock. There are those who would treat many of them, as poor old Stow's +body was treated when it was moved, "to make room for another". + +May such an act of vandalism be delayed until I too have to go that +another man may take my place. Meanwhile, dear Agatha, + + I am ever your devoted, + GEORGE. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + + CARRINGTON MEWS, + SHEPHERD MARKET, + _19th December._ + +My Dear Agatha,--I am sorry you accuse me of levity. It wasn't in human +nature to resist the unique opportunity for mischief provided by the +meeting between Katherine and Mrs. D. I followed it up with lunch in +Curzon Street, during which I discovered in myself a quite new and +marked talent for fiction. I won't say more out of consideration for +your scruples, but I may mention it's a long while since I had such an +excellent lunch. It must be many days, too, since Katherine was provided +with so surprising a succession of thrills in the course of an hour and +a half. + +[Illustration: THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL.] + +This Sunday morning Mrs. D. and I have been to service at the Foundling +Hospital, a place I have never before visited, although I have often, in +passing, looked inquisitively through the iron railings at the immense +block of buildings at the top of Great Coram Street. + +Hogarth has painted the portrait of Thomas Coram, the old sailor who +endowed the hospital, and the picture hangs in the gallery there. A +kindly gentleman he looks, with ruddy smiling face which may well be the +index of a heart large enough to hold the big family he fathers. + +That family sits in the galleries of the church on each side of the +organ, the girls in their white caps and aprons to the right, to the +left the boys in their funny uniform of brown cloth, with red waistcoats +and twinkling brass buttons. "Love children!" It always seems to me, by +the way, that the term is an aspersion against the institution of +marriage. Why can't _all_ children be "love children"? + +It is a touching sight, and Mrs. D., who is very soft-hearted, was +visibly affected. The cherubic face of the smallest of the children +certainly finds out the chink in the armour of even an old bachelor like +myself. Mrs. D. said the boys looked like robin redbreasts in their +cut-away coats and red waistcoats, and there certainly is something of +the perkiness of that bird in the little round heads above the white +collars and black bows. I noticed that Mrs. D.'s attention was focussed +on the boys. The poor old lady lost two sons in the war, and I expect +she was seeing them again as small boys in some of those youngsters in +the red waistcoats. For myself, it was the girls who distracted my +attention from prayers and psalms. Those small maidens with their +burnished hair under the white caps, their rosy faces and primly clasped +hands! How well drilled they were, and how well behaved! No fidgeting or +giggling, not even any wandering glances in _my_ direction. One's eyes +travelled along the tiers of faces and figures, noting the variety of +types. No two children wore their uniform in quite the same way. The cap +and apron on some seemed a badge of servitude, on others the prettiest +of adornments, suggestive of musical comedy. + +Those same aprons play a quaint part in the ritual of the service when, +during prayers, the children raise the aprons and hide their small +countenances behind them. The demure gesture has a savour of bygone +times, and is no doubt as old as the institution. + +As we left our seat in the gallery we met, face to face, the brown-clad +boys clattering down the stairs opposite. They all wore trousers, big +and little, and one of the smallest of them took a joyous slide over the +tiled pavement of the ambulatory. No doubt he was glad to be out of +church, and was looking forward to his dinner. We shared his pleasant +anticipations. It was the prospect of seeing him and his companions feed +which had brought Mrs. D. and myself to the hospital that morning, and +the sight well rewarded us for the journey. + +The rooms are long, having a gallery-like effect, with rows of windows +on one side, and everywhere is cleanliness and light and space. There +was an appetising smell of potatoes baked in their jackets, and cold +roast mutton, and down the long tables were placed at intervals a knife +and fork, a mug, a piece of bread and a cake. The girls came trooping in +and stood each by her place behind the forms, then at a given signal +they stepped over the forms and stood to sing grace. At another signal +they seated themselves, and the nurses who were serving placed portions +of meat and potatoes on plates, which were handed from one to another +down the long length of the narrow tables. + +The children seemed quite unconscious of the spectators who had come to +stare at them whilst they ate their Sunday dinner, and as one watched +their contented faces and unconcerned manners one felt that, no matter +what tragedies had accompanied their advent into a world of dark +problems, _here_, at least, there was no tragedy. + +"An' to think," said Mrs. D., as we followed the attendant upstairs to +inspect the dormitories, "to think that there might 'ave bin some of the +_mothers_ in that very church this mornin'." + +"_And_ fathers," I reminded her. + +"I _don't think_," answered the old lady. "A father out er wedlock's a +very different thing to a mother out er wedlock. Nature never took much +account er the _fathers_. _They_ ony got a walkin'-on part, and some of +them's precious quick at _walkin' orf_ when it's a case er payin' the +piper." + +The long, long rows of little white-counterpaned beds in the dormitories +were an eloquent comment on the old lady's indictment of my sex, and I +am glad it was a _man_ who thought of making a home for the babies. If +Thomas Coram's ghost walks, it must sometimes pay a visit to the little +sleepers who have no mothers to tuck them up. Those long dormitories, +too, must often be haunted at nights by ghosts of the living women, who, +in their dreams, look for _one_ round face on its pillow--the one who is +_theirs_. To visit them in the flesh is not allowed. The surrender of +the babies is complete, no alternative being compatible with the working +of the scheme which is to save the child and at the same time to hide +the mother's shame. + +One hears stories of callous behaviour on the part of some of the +mothers. But such cases are rare, I should think, and that long pathway +leading from the hospital to the iron gates must have been a _via +dolorosa_ to many a woman who trod it on her way back home with empty +arms. + +No child is received after the age of twelve months, and they are put +out to nurse in country homes until the age of five, when they are +returned to the hospital. Would a woman who had parted from her child of +a year old know it again at five? Did such women ever go to that +prosaic-looking church and search the rows of small faces for the one +which belonged to her by rights of the flesh? If she did she must, +anyhow, have found comfort in the sight of that happy-looking crowd of +youngsters. + +Mrs. Darling asked me if I thought the children ever found their parents +when, at the age of fifteen and sixteen, they left the hospital? It was +a question which opened up all sorts of possibilities and situations. +There must be mothers who had died, mothers who, in the course of years, +had become reconciled to the loss of their children, but what of those +who had _not_ forgotten or died? + +In one of the yearly reports which I saw there is mention of _one_ child +only restored to its mother. I believe instances of this kind are rare, +very searching inquiry being made by the governors before they consent +to such an application. As a rule, once the institution takes the +children they belong to it practically for life. It does not wash its +hands of them when it sends them out to service or apprenticeship, but +gives them substantial assistance (when needed, and as far as the means +of the Institution permit) to the day of their death. + +The situation of these children is not only pathetic but strange in the +entire isolation from the ordinary ties and obligations of humanity. No +going home for holidays, no parcels from fond parents, no one particular +person to whom the small boy or girl _belongs_. They do not miss these +things because they have never known them, and, at least, they are not +burdened with objectionable or tiresome relatives. There must, though, +be moments when they feel lonely: moments when they could sympathise +with the little drudge I once saw in a play who wrote letters to +herself, and put a crape band on her arm for the death of a supposed +relative. + +The picture gallery, with its polished floor, its great expanse of +Turkey carpet, its richly carved plaster ceiling, is a room in which to +spend a winter afternoon with a book, watching the light fade through +the row of long windows, and finding fresh horrors in Rafaelle's "Murder +of the Innocents," an enormous cartoon which covers nearly the whole of +the wall at one end. The apartment is the Court Room as well as the +picture gallery, and it must have been the Calvary of many a woman who +parts from her child within its walls. + +The "tokens," used as a means of identification in those days when +children were received indiscriminately in a basket hung at the gate of +the hospital, have a dumb eloquence. In a glass case before the windows +are the old coins, pieces of ribbon worked in beads, metal hearts, +crosses, and buttons which were attached to the persons of the children +when they were left behind. On a mother of pearl shield, dated 1757, I +noticed inscribed, "James, son of James Concannon, gent.," the "gent." +being scratched in as an afterthought apparently. + +Those two Jameses have long ago passed away, but human nature is the +same, and there are still such James the firsts to father such James the +seconds. Probably many of the children we had been watching in the +chapel could write "gent." after their father's name. "Breed _will_ +out," said Mrs. D., and one could see it in the faces and figures of +some of the small boys and girls. + +There is an autograph of Queen Elizabeth in one of the cases, and if +character can be read by handwriting, this autograph should offer a +lifelong study. Mrs. D., who is interested in Elizabeth since she saw +her wax effigy, said, "No one but a queen could have the cheek to sign +her name _like that_!" The signature certainly has a regal significance +in its largeness and maze-like convolutions. The ink is faded and +brown, the flourishes have the shakiness of age. One would give a great +deal for an intimate knowledge of the occasion on which it was written. +The Earl of Leicester's autograph is close by, and it bears a marked +resemblance to Elizabeth's. Did he model it on that of his royal +mistress? Did Elizabeth love Leicester? and if she did, was it with a +tragic unconsciousness of his self-seeking? A woman as clever as +Elizabeth can lose her head and be strangely blind in matters of sex; +also, Elizabeth was vain. But no--I don't think Elizabeth was blind. On +the contrary, it was her clear-sightedness which prevented her marriage +with the man who appealed to the natural instincts of her sex. She was +woman enough to like to love and be loved, but shrewd enough to know +where to stop. + +Outside the birds were singing, and the light falling through the long +rows of windows had in it something of the quality of spring. I should +have liked to linger in the old rooms for a while--the Stone Hall, the +Picture Gallery, and the Secretary's Room--all of which have treasures +demanding a great deal more than a cursory glance. One has to _live_ +with such things to appreciate them, and these passing glimpses seem to +me in the nature of an insult. There is, behind those glimpses, a +haunted atmosphere made up of the echoes of laughter long since +silenced, of words spoken, and dreams dreamed, and to breathe it is to +capture romance. True, it is only a mirage, but actually to set foot in +a mirage and stay there awhile is an achievement for which to thank the +gods. + + * * * * * + +It occurred to me after lunch that, instead of sitting over the fire +with a novel I would go to the National Portrait Gallery. Sir Walter +Scott says that portraits of our ancestors enable us "to compare their +persons and countenances with their sentiments and actions," and I +wanted to see if the Earl of Leicester's countenance fitted the story of +his relations with Elizabeth, whether Nell Gwynne was as attractive as I +had been told, if Pepys resembled the bust on his tomb, also to renew +acquaintance with dear old Sir Thomas More and some other of those +"ancestors" whose haunts I had lately been exploring. + +Mrs. Darling excused herself. No power on earth will on a Sunday +afternoon draw her from the fireside, where she can, in comfort, study +humanity through the pages of "The News of the World". + +A visit to the National Portrait Gallery isn't exactly a restful +experience. Those long rows of faces, each making its appeal for +understanding, have an exhausting effect after a time. They promise so +much to Paul Pry, then baffle him with their underlying secretiveness. + +Sunday afternoon is not the best time to go. Early on a week-day morning +is better, when the gallery is almost deserted, and in the silence you +can hear the traffic in the street outside, and the echoes of an +attendant's voice in some far room where he gossips to a companion. The +rows upon rows of faces staring patiently from its walls give a +curiously crowded sense to its emptiness, and one pictures them at +closing time when the last visitor has gone, and the attendant has +switched off the lights. I think I should give the Duke of Monmouth, +painted after his execution, a wide berth _then_. There are others, too, +who would not be cheerful companions--some of those waxen mediaeval +countenances would glimmer unpleasantly in the dusk, and one would be +conscious of a stirring amongst the gathering of kings and queens, poets +and statesmen, courtesans and cardinals, at the approach of night. + +I found Leicester, next to Elizabeth--a haughty-looking gentleman +in his high collar and ruff. I don't like his eyes. They aren't +trustworthy--but perhaps that is because I _know_. Anyhow, he has an air +which would win favour with women, and he played a big part in the life +of his queen from her girlhood's days until his death. There have been +sinister stories told about Leicester. Ben Jonson said the Earl gave +his wife "a bottle of liquor which he willed her to use in any +faintness, which she, not knowing it was poison, gave him, and so he +died". According to the gossip of the times, the Queen's favourite seems +to have been accounted a veritable Bluebeard. Well, the secrets of his +life were buried with him three hundred years ago and more, and no +matter how deep we dig, we shall never discover them. + +I found Pepys, and he looks much more _material_ in paint than he does +in stone. There is, though, an expression of childlike speculation in +the eyes, and there one finds Samuel of the Diary. Bunyan hangs next to +him, a humorous looking old chap, a man one could trust. The same can be +said of Sir Thomas More, with his gentle, clean-cut face, and his kind, +intellectual brown eyes. + +Nell Gwynne is neighbour to her Charles. She is pert, with a look of the +gamin about her as she points a derisive finger in direction of her +royal lover. By the by, I didn't know Whitfield squinted! There is a +quaint picture of him preaching to an audience of four, and an admiring +female in the front row is making a vain effort to catch his eye. + +What a mixed company it is! and how do they pair off at nights when, in +the darkness and echoing silence of the long galleries, they step out +of their frames? Pepys might hob-nob with Bunyan very easily, Sir Thomas +More with Hannah More, and Charlotte Bronte with Dr. Johnson, but how +about Nell Gwynne with Charles's lawful consort. How about "Bloody Queen +Mary" with old John Foxe and Elizabeth with Mary Queen of Scots? +Meanwhile Horace Walpole would be quizzing the lot of them (I know it by +the bright busy-body expression in his eyes), and writing letters to +Madame du Deffand to tell her all about it. I have always been curious +about his friendship with the infatuated old Frenchwoman of sixty-nine, +and very disgusted with Walpole for causing his correspondence with her +to be destroyed. By the way, Madame du Deffand was blind. I wonder who +had the privilege of reading Horace's letters to her? + +I left the gallery pondering the odd situation, and was met by Mrs. D. +on my return with the announcement that she had got crumpets for +tea--would I like some? I said I would; moreover, I suggested that I +should eat them in her company and have a cup of tea out of her tea-pot. +I told her about Horace Walpole and Madame du Deffand as we sat over the +fire drinking our tea, and she remarked that there were "no fools like +old fools". This was a bit damping, and I said to myself, "George, you +must be a _very_ lonely man to seek the company of such an unsympathetic +woman!" Nevertheless, I was in no hurry to return to my solitary room, +but sat smoking and watching the old lady mend my socks until the bells +began to ring for evening service, and I bethought myself of this letter +I had in my mind to write to you. Here it is, with the affectionate +thought of + + Your old friend, + GEORGE. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + + CARRINGTON MEWS, + SHEPHERD MARKET, + _20th January._ + +Dear Agatha,--Mrs. D. and I have been exploring Soho this afternoon. I +started out with the intention of localising certain houses in certain +streets associated with men of letters, but, alas! it was a question of +"change" (_without_ decay) "in all around I see". Old landmarks gone, +and brand new buildings, mostly offices, in their place. Still, there is +enough left to make a visit well worth while, and the weather was +perfect. Frowsy old Soho was almond-scented from the great bunches of +mimosa in the costers' barrows, whilst the streets smiled under the +light of a January afternoon into which Spring had wandered. + +There are moods to fit different districts. A mood for the City, one for +Piccadilly, a Chelsea mood, one for the East End, and one for Soho. Soho +was the one spot in the world for me this afternoon, and Mrs. Darling, +who is not subject to moods, said it was "all the same to her where we +went so long as it wasn't a lunatic asylum or a prison". + +Soho has an atmosphere distinct from any other spot in London. +Blindfold, you would be aware of the fact directly you crossed its +borders. Its restaurants smell of savoury dishes and its narrow streets +echo gaily to the jangle of piano organs. Its language is cosmopolitan, +and its postcards and paper-covered novels have to be taken with a +tolerant shrug of the shoulders for the odd taste of "those foreigners". +Its shops are dingy, but they _get there_ all the same. There is an art +in their very carelessness. They invite search and have an air of being +at the mercy of the customer. + +Mrs. Darling was obviously hoodwinked by this stratagem, and remarked +that she supposed you could get "one er them necklaces" (referring to a +string of real amber beads in a jeweller's window) for about "'alf a +crown". I explained to her that the beads were probably worth L10, to +which she replied that perhaps the shopkeeper _didn't know it_! I got +her away from the window with difficulty, and I have no doubt she will +go to her grave thinking she might have bought that necklace for a song +but for my impatience. + +The unusual mildness of the afternoon was indicated in the number of +figures seated on the benches in St. Anne's Churchyard. Drink has +stamped its sinister hall-mark on most of them. Dirt and disease, the +companions of drink, are there too. Despair, which one might reasonably +look for, is absent. Despair argues sensibility, and these human wrecks +seem to have got beyond that stage. They exist in a comatose state, +feeling perhaps a momentary amelioration of their misery in this hour of +Spring, and not looking beyond it. + +They have a companion in adversity in the royal pauper, Theodore, King +of Corsica, who died in Soho, and who, as Edward Walford says in his +"Old and New London," was buried at the cost of a small tradesman who +had known him in the days of his prosperity. + +We found the tablet without difficulty at the base of the church tower, +close to that of William Hazlitt. The epitaph is by Horace Walpole, and +runs:-- + + "The grave, great teacher, to a level brings + Heroes and beggars, galley slaves and kings, + But Theodore this moral learn'd ere dead; + Fate pour'd its lesson on his living head-- + Bestow'd a kingdom and denied him bread." + +Unfortunate Theodore, who, on leaving the prison without a sixpence in +his pocket, took refuge with a tailor in Soho, where three days later +he died. Who out of those passing through the churchyard pause to give a +thought to Theodore or to ponder Walpole's reflections on "The grave, +great teacher". + +We found we should have to make a detour to get inside the church, which +lies at a level below the churchyard and is shut off by an iron railing. +So we retraced our steps along Shaftesbury Avenue and into Dean Street. +The church door was open and some one inside was practising on the +organ. The sound came faintly as we entered the porch, and rushed out to +meet us with a burst of melody as we pushed back the inner door. The +player was performing to an empty church, and I recognised the rhythm of +the tumbling notes as Bach's. How many times have I clambered the +gallery stairs of this same old church to listen to the music of John +Sebastian! Strangely enough, it was the recollection of those occasions +which had prompted my visit this afternoon. Good old John! who can sweep +away the cobwebs like a March wind with one of his fugues, set one +smiling at the tender grace of a pastorale, or thrill one with that +solemn and awful summons to Calvary in the dramatic opening of the +Passion Music. + +The fugue gave place to a quaint old dance, and Spring, which was paying +a premature visit to the Soho streets outside, stole with the sunshine +through the windows into the church. With it came a dream, and as I +listened to the music, ladies in silk petticoats, with patches and +powder, and gentlemen in wigs and knee breeches paced gravely through a +minuet in the aisle. It was irreverent, but John Sebastian was to blame, +and somehow the dancers seemed no more out of place than did the +sunbeams which found entrance through the dusty windows. + +Mrs. Darling had gone to read the "Roll of Honour" in a corner of the +church decorated by flags. She has sounded depths in life which are +outside my experience, and I do not like to obtrude my presence at such +moments. I could see her from where I sat wiping her eyes, yet I knew +that presently she would come back with a cheerful face and some +soul-destroying remark which would knock the bottom out of my dreams. +There is no pose with Mrs. Darling. + +It was as I expected. She wanted to know if the man was tuning the +organ? Oh, Mrs. D.! What is the tie which binds me to your prosaic, +plush-jacketed person? Why do I court your unappreciative companionship, +and sacrifice _you_ to my mania for imparting information? + +Perhaps the answer was supplied by the old lady herself when we issued +from the church. "I 'spose you'd 'ave stopped in that old church all the +afternoon if I 'adn't tipped you the wink to git out, sir," she said. +"No one could accuse you er bein' a rollin' stone. If it wasn't for _me_ +you'd be _choked up_ with moss." + +When I leave Shaftesbury Avenue for Berwick Market I always think of +Hogarth, which, by the way, reminds me that I saw a bronze bust of him +at the Portrait Gallery. A keen, small-featured, refined face, with a +penetrating, bad-tempered expression about the eyes--not the face one +would picture of the creator of "The Rake's Progress" or "Marriage a la +Mode". But when is the occasion on which one does not have to readjust +one's mental attitude towards the artist (known only through his works) +on first making acquaintance with his face and features? + +[Illustration: BERWICK MARKET.] + +Berwick Market, with a Spring sky above the costers' barrows of fruit +and flowers making splashes of colour amidst the motley crowd peopling +its narrow confines, might have stepped straight out of an Italian +canvas on this delectable afternoon. Busy sellers and loitering buyers +seemed to be making a pleasant pastime of it all. The stall-keepers, +with an artless intimacy and a reckless confidence in the weather, had +hung out on lines silk stockings, articles of lingerie, yards of ribbon +and laces. Everything here is open to the world, even the little shops +on either side of the gutter are windowless. What happens in Berwick +Market on wet days, I don't know. I always choose the time of my visits, +carefully avoiding it when there's a blizzard or a downpour. I want to +keep the memory of its cheeriness intact, undimmed. When I pine for a +continental trip, which my purse will not allow, I go to Berwick Market +and stare at the long French loaves in the bakers' shops, at the weird, +dirty-looking sausages enclosed in a network of string, the ropes of +garlic, the spaghetti and salad dressings in the Italian provision +dealers, listening meanwhile to the chatter of foreign tongues all +round. Berwick Market lives out of doors and it doesn't wear hats. It +takes the stranger into its confidence and is never dull. It thrusts fur +coats, frocks, and blouses under your nose as you walk. It will supply +you with butcher's meat, cabbages and potatoes, flowers and fruit, +ironware, books, music, toys, jewellery, leather goods and trinkets, all +within the space of a few hundred yards, and if you buy any of these +things you will go away under the pleasant but false impression that you +have taken advantage of an ingenuous huckster who didn't know the value +of his goods. + +Mrs. D. bought a flat-iron, two saucepan lids, and a hat shape. In view +of these articles having to accompany us on the remainder of our +journey, they seemed to me an unwise purchase, especially as it was +problematical whether the lids would fit the saucepans for which they +were intended. She was, however, so convinced that never again would the +opportunity occur for securing ironware at so low a price, or a hat of +such a becoming shape, that I shouldered my share of the burden (the +flat-iron and saucepan lids) and refrained from putting a damper on her +satisfaction. + +At the top of Greek Street is the house where De Quincey lived, and it +is always of De Quincey and poor Ann that I think when meditating in +Soho Square. The story of that poor child of the streets, who, out of +her penury, befriended her companion in misfortune and afterwards +disappeared so mysteriously, is one of undying interest and pathos. "For +weeks," says De Quincey, "I had walked with this poor friendless girl up +and down Oxford Street, or rested with her on steps under the shelter of +porticoes...." What a picture of the misery of these two children the +words call up! Speaking of that night in Soho Square when he fainted in +her arms, and she rose and fetched the glass of hot spiced wine which he +was convinced saved his life, he continues, "We sat down on the steps of +a house, which, to this hour, I never pass without a pang of grief and +an inner act of homage to the spirit of that unhappy girl, in memory of +the noble action which she there performed". + +I told Mrs. D. the story, and we speculated as to the particular +doorstep on which the outcasts sat. Mrs. D., who treats all facts more +than fifty years old as fiction, said it was "very touchin'," and that +she hoped the young man found Ann in the end and married her. I did not +insist on the truth of the story or the sadness of the end. There are +times when I envy Mrs. D.'s limitations, and this was one of them. I +would give a good deal to know that De Quincey found Ann again. I +picture him after his short absence from London, going at six o'clock to +the bottom of Great Titchfield Street (the appointed place of +rendezvous) in the sure expectation of meeting her. The minutes would +pass and he would watch for the familiar form, at first with confidence, +then with a disappointment which grew minute by minute, and was +accompanied by foreboding conjectures as to the cause of her absence. +When the last hope of her appearance had fled he would seek consolation +in the thought that she who had never failed him in the past must have +had some good reason for not keeping her tryst to-night. She would come +to-morrow. But to-morrow night and all other to-morrows came without +bringing Ann. "I sought her daily," he says, "and waited for her every +night so long as I staid in London, at the corner of Titchfield +Street.... But to this hour I have never heard a syllable about +her...." "Some feelings," he records in another passage, "though not +deeper or more passionate, are more tender than others, and often when I +walk in Oxford Street by dreamy lamplight and hear those airs played on +a barrel organ, which years ago solaced me and my dear companion, as I +must always call her, I shed tears and muse with myself at the +mysterious dispensation which so suddenly and so critically separated us +for ever." + +We went and looked at the house in Greek Street, on the front of which +is a tablet stating that De Quincey lived there. One has a feeling of +gratitude towards the Society of Arts which in such fashion strives to +keep green the memory of those men and women who trod the streets of the +great city, dreaming their dreams, and leaving for those who came after +them great deeds to inspire, romance to allure, thoughts of beauty to +refresh the mind, and visions of colour to delight the eyes. + +Frith Street was noisy with the play of children just released from +school, and there was a hint of the slackening of the day's activities. +We left Frith Street for Old Compton Street, and from thence into New +Compton Street, which has a dreary "end of the world" sort of +atmosphere. Cheery Soho loses heart at this point, where it is about to +take leave of you, and Church Passage, which terminates in a little +flight of stone steps, and an iron gateway leading into the churchyard +of St. Giles's in the Fields, has a Dickens'-like suggestion of "Joe" +and "Bleak House". + +When I told Mrs. D. that St. Giles was the patron saint of lepers, and +that the present church stood not very far from the site of a hospital +for lepers built by the wife of Henry I in 1118, she said she could well +believe it. She was also not surprised to hear that the plague broke out +in St. Giles's, and that the gallows named "Tyburn Tree" was set up near +the aforesaid leper hospital. + +I asked her if she had ever read the "Newgate Calendar". She replied +with regret that she hadn't, admitting that if there _was_ a book she +would enjoy it was this particular one. In her estimation there was +nothing like a good murder trial for taking you out of yourself. + +The "Newgate Calendar" had occurred to me in connection with "Tyburn +Tree" by reason of references in that gruesome volume to the "last +drink," a glass of ale which used to be presented to the criminals on +their way to the gallows when they passed the gate of the leper +hospital. Yes, there really _is_ some foundation for the eerie +atmosphere of the churchyard of St. Giles. I always remember coming upon +that gate at the end of Church Passage one autumn evening when twilight +was merging into dusk. I had no idea where it led, and I mounted the +steps and found myself in the old churchyard with something of the +sensation which characterises the initial stage of a nightmare. The +backs of squalid houses overlooked the place, and still figures, sunk in +abysmal meditation, sat about on the benches. In the window of a +studio-like building were some plaster casts of heads, and the white +glimmering faces stared into the glimmering shades of evening which were +stealing across the dingy burying-ground. I left the place without +identifying it, and did not see it again for years. Then one day I +stumbled on it unexpectedly, and discovered that my ghostly churchyard +was St. Giles's in the Fields. + +Even on this afternoon of sweet promise St. Giles's straggling graveyard +was not a cheerful spot. I have, by the by, never seen so many cats +congregated in any corner of London as I saw in St. Giles's Churchyard. +A villainous-looking old tom, with torn ears, the hero of many a fray, +was seated on a large tomb abutting on to the path, and the first line +of the epitaph chiselled on the stone arrested my attention. "Hold, +passenger!" it began peremptorily, and I barred Mrs. D.'s path whilst I +read:-- + + "Hold, passenger, here's shrouded in his hearse, + Unparallel'd Pendrill through the universe." + +"Pendrill," said I to myself--"who's he?" and, ashamed of my ignorance +of a person so eulogised, I inquired of Mrs. D. if she knew anyone of +that name. She said there was a man named Pennybill who used to sell +Ostend rabbits in Shepherd's Market, but he hadn't been dead long enough +for his tomb to have got so dirty. As she spoke, enlightenment came. +Ostend, Holland, the battle of Worcester, Charles II, and yes, on the +other side of the tomb was the inscription to Richard Pendrill, the +preserver of the life of Charles II. + +What an odd, unexpected link with the past that forgotten old tomb made, +standing solitary amidst the sooty shrubs in the cat-haunted churchyard! +The escape of Charles from Worcester to Shoreham, where he found a coal +boat that carried him over to Normandy, might well be a page out of some +romance for all one realises it, as a rule. There are times when I share +Mrs. D.'s scepticism about the past, and Charles, Cromwell, Queen +Elizabeth, Henry VIII and the Gunpowder Plot, wars, plagues, and fires +are just so many incidents in a story book. Then I stumble on an ancient +tombstone with such an inscription as this, almost obliterated by the +winds and rains, the frosts and heats of centuries, or I open Pepys and +read how, on 27th February, 1659, the old chap was "Up in the morning, +and had some red herrings to our breakfast, while my boot-heel was +a-mending, by the same token that the boy left the hole as it was +before," and I say to myself with the shock of coming up bump against +something solid where one had anticipated vacancy, "Then it _was_ all +true!" + +The church was closed, but we found the "Resurrection Gateway," where it +rears itself in dignified isolation above the iron railings on the +western side of the church. There is, over it, a curious carving in oak +of the "Last Judgment," depicting that day when long-dead citizens, +endowed with renewed strength, will throw off their earthen trammels, +and shouldering their tombstones with the ease of a Samson, rise to +disclose those secret thoughts and deeds which the kindly grave had +hidden for centuries. + +Mrs. Darling remarked that, for her part, she had no fear of death or +judgment. "If I wos to go to bed this night and never git up no more," +she stated, "there ain't a livin' soul can say I owe them a brass +farthin'. I never done one er my fellow creatures a hinjury, and there's +the things all ready to lay me out in the bottom drawer near the +washstand." + +She flourished the paper bag containing the hat shape with an air of +conscious virtue, but I could not emulate her action with the flat iron, +which weighed seven pounds! To tell the truth, I was looking out for a +friendly tombstone behind which that article, together with the saucepan +lids, could be conveniently lost, but some children playing in the +churchyard were watching me as if they suspected my designs, and I had +to abandon the idea. + +We took a 'bus down Shaftesbury Avenue to Piccadilly Circus, and had tea +in Jermyn Street at a little confectioner's for which we have an +affection. The cakes are home made and the tea and bread and butter are +good. There is an inner sanctuary with coloured prints of old London on +the walls where one can talk cosily, and is admitted to an amusing +intimacy with the workings of the establishment. Now and again a man in +a white jacket comes and delves into a corner cupboard, and we have +glimpses of pots of jam and groceries. Young men and women drop in from +neighbouring businesses for tea, and everybody knows everybody else. The +waitress has admitted Mrs. D. and me to the family circle, and with a +"Same as usual, sir?" goes to fetch our pot of tea and two plates of +bread and butter. This afternoon she did not even trouble to make the +formal inquiry, but appeared before us with the tea-tray almost as +quickly as we had seated ourselves. + +Piccadilly was like fairyland as we walked down it on our way back to +Shepherd Market, and I wished you were with me. The red lights in the +rear of the vehicles, and the silver ones in front, were dancing like +fireflies in one of the most wonderful gloamings I have ever witnessed. +The perfect day, drawing its garments of smoke and rose over the mauve +sky, was making its tender, reluctant farewell, whilst above the sadness +of its passing hung the evening star, companioned by the most slender of +new moons. We turned our money, and felt that Fortune was about to smile +on us. + +In the quiet of Half Moon Street, whom should I encounter but Katherine, +in her car? The first intimation I had of her neighbourhood was a +white-gloved hand waving a greeting from the window of the car, then a +face appeared eloquent of a satirical enjoyment of the picture presented +by Mrs. D. and myself with our respective parcels. The incident was over +in a flash and Mrs. D. none the wiser. I am reminded to mention it by +reason of an odd but peculiarly vivid impression I received of Katherine +having suddenly become an old woman. It may have been some trick of +light as the car shot by in the dusk, or a moment of prophetic insight +on my part. But whatever it was, it made me feel I wanted to take up the +cudgels for her and keep the enemy at bay. Blood, after all, is thicker +than water, and Katherine has no weapons with which to fight _that_ +spectre. + +Shepherd Market is almost deserted at this hour in the late afternoon. +The old coaching yard is full of black shadows, and there are no +customers in the shops. Lights are dim, and the echoes of footsteps in +neighbouring courts and passages can be heard a long way off. In +Carrington Mews some warmth of the fading sunset still lingered, and I +left it with reluctance to mount the dark staircase to my room. There +are days when one feels all is well--not only with _this_ world, but +with the next, which is presumably more important. Youth, on such days, +returns to whisper flatteries in the ears of Old Age. Is it wisdom or +foolishness on the part of Old Age to listen? I leave you with that +question on the thirty-fifth anniversary of our friendship. Do you +remember? + + GEORGE. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + + CARRINGTON MEWS, + SHEPHERD MARKET, + _17th February._ + +My Dear Agatha,--So you, too, remembered! Strange, after our having +overlooked the anniversary for so long! The violets you picked for me in +your garden _that_ afternoon scented my room for days. Thank you. + +Acting on your advice, I took Mrs. D. to the London Museum yesterday. +You are quite right, the place was made for children, and the old lady +thoroughly enjoyed herself. + +The basement, with its long stone-paved corridors, its gloom (dispelled, +I am forced to admit, by electric light), is the right place for the +models of ancient London, old doorways, knockers, horn lanthorns, oak +panelling, relics of Newgate, prison cells, and yellowed news sheets +containing the accounts of the execution of celebrated criminals. + +One catches the mood of the place when one gets to the bottom of the +stairs and sees the row of wooden figures each of which has weathered +many a storm from its post outside some shop in the London streets of a +hundred and fifty years or more ago. The grocers' Chinaman, the +tobacconists' Highlander, and the scale-makers' figure of Justice. Now +and again, at rare intervals, we may meet the Highlander outside a +tobacconist's, or the figure of Justice over the scale-maker's window, +but the Chinaman seems to have completely disappeared. + +To go into the basement of the London Museum is like opening the door of +some dim, dusty lumber-room and unearthing the forgotten toys of our +childhood. Things which we greet with an indulgent smile, and now and +again a sigh. The basement is a place to visit on that sort of idle +afternoon in early Spring when one is moved to turn out old letters, to +bring to mind the playmates of one's youth, and muse, while the light +wanes, on the changes the years have brought. + +Here is a shop-front of George III's time, and behind the small-paned +window a grotesque collection of ragged puppets, the property of some +long-defunct proprietor of a Punch and Judy show. Many a time must those +grimacing dolls have played in the immortal drama to an audience of our +great-great-great-grandfathers. + +The oak-panelled, seventeenth century parlour where a man sits drinking +by candle-light sets one speculating. There are his gloves on the table +and his pipe, which he has removed from his pocket. His wife has filled +his glass with wine, and stands telling him what has been happening +during his absence. He sits back in his chair, too intent on her news to +fill his pipe or lift the glass to his lips. The Great Fire, perhaps, is +raging at that very moment, and the wife may be telling her husband that +three hundred houses are already burnt, and how the churches were all +filled with goods and people. Or maybe it is of the outbreak of the +plague which the man learns, and the fear of which makes him forget his +pipe and the wine poured out at his elbow. Every time I go to the London +Museum I visit the pair, and always they are carrying on that same +conversation. The woman's dress gets dustier and dustier, and the wine +in the glass does not grow less. People come and stare and go away, +leaving the couple unmoved. Is it my fancy, that when _I_ come, the +conversation in that oak-panelled room becomes more tense, and if only I +stayed long enough I should discover what it was about? + +In the model of old London Bridge Mrs. D. found something with which she +is now familiar, and my character for veracity with her went up by +leaps and bounds. The spiked heads on the battlements might have +belonged to objectionable relatives, with such satisfaction did she +greet them. The model of the old bridge clothed the dry bones of the +past with flesh, and Mrs. D., as a student of history, got a move on. +One can sympathise with her scepticism when one looks across at Bankside +with its gabled houses sleeping in the sunlight, and the glimpse of a +white country road shaded by green trees. That, Bankside! Surely, never! +I did not voice the thought, not wishing to quench the flax of the old +lady's newly acquired faith. + +The fire of London next engaged her attention. To myself it is the least +successful of the models, although I confess to a childish pleasure in +watching old St. Paul's and its neighbourhood all aglow, like one of +those pictures one sees in the heart of a burning log. I thought, as I +looked at it, of the words of a writer of the times, quoted by Walter +Thornbury. "It was in the depth and the dead of the night," says the +Rev. Samuel Vincent, "when most doors and senses were lockt up in the +city, that the fire doth break forth and appear abroad." This is just +the thing one would expect of those "penny dreadful" days, and the +progress of the ghastly monster is described with a living terror as it +"rusheth down the hill (Fish Street Hill) towards the bridge, crosseth +Thames Street, invadeth Magnus Church at the bridge foot ... marcheth +back towards the city again, and runs along with great noise and +violence through Thames Street westward.... Rattle, rattle, rattle, was +the noise which the fire struck upon the ear round about, as if there +had been a thousand iron chariots beating upon the stones.... You might +see in some places whole streets at once in flames, that issued forth as +if they had been so many great forges from the opposite windows, which, +folding together, were united in one great flame throughout the whole +street; and then you might see the houses tumble, tumble, tumble from +one end of the street to the other with a great crash, leaving the +foundations open to the view of the heavens." + +There was nothing half-hearted in the thrills provided for Londoners in +_those_ days, and the quaint little toy behind the plate glass revives a +ghostly repetition of them to an imaginative spectator. Mrs. D. said she +hadn't seen "anythink so pretty for a long time," and I left her glued +to the spot while I looked at Frost Fair on the Thames, with the Globe +Theatre behind, and sought in vain to find any of to-day in the models +of old Cheapside and Charing Cross. + +I got Mrs. D. away from the Great Fire with a promise of prison cells +and relics of Newgate, and I must admit to a sensation myself when face +to face with the door of the condemned cell of Newgate Prison. This +particular corner of the Museum makes a bid for popularity with those +with a taste for horrors. The prison cells from Neptune Street, in which +debtors were confined for indefinite periods for small debts, are an +example of old London's cruelty to those of its unfortunate citizens who +couldn't pay their way. "Sly House," as the place was called, because of +the many who were seen to enter it and never seen to leave it, must have +been an object of terror to the impecunious. "Sly House" possessed a +subterranean passage to the Tower and the docks, and prisoners were +taken thence and embarked on the convict ship _Success_. The wooden +walls are scored with the names of some of those wretched human beings +who passed months and years in this living tomb. Apparently, they were +not all treated as is the man who lies chained from both wrists in the +outer cell. He could not have found temporary diversion from his misery +in such a task, but this other sitting at a table in the inner cell +might answer to one of those names. It is rather difficult to decipher +them in the dim light of the lantern which hangs in a corner of the +cell, and as I stooped forward my foot inadvertently came in contact +with the foot of the frowsy prisoner seated at the table. For an +instant I was conscious of an odd sensation of something like fear: not +fear of the poor lay figure, but fear of those dark days which, in some +curious fashion, the momentary contact had brought _quite close_. It was +as if I had stroked a stuffed tiger and it had suddenly snarled and +showed its teeth! Quite absurd, of course; a touch of Frankenstein, born +of my ambition to make the dry bones live. + +There is a portrait sketch of Jack Sheppard by Sir James Thornhill in +the adjoining room. The audacious young rascal has a curious face in +which there is intellect, even soul, and an animal sort of alertness, +and the account of his daring escape from Newgate, where he was loaded +with irons and chained to a staple in the floor, reads like a page from +Dumas. He had, too, the sort of luck that attends heroes in fiction when +he found that small nail with which he freed his chain from the floor +staple. This done he got up the chimney, broke into a room over the +chapel with the aid of another large nail, which was provided by +Providence for the purpose, and with the help of an iron spike from the +chapel door, hacked a hole in the wall, through which he climbed on to +the leads. One holds one's breath when, these obstacles surmounted and +liberty almost within his grasp, Jack is confronted with the need of a +rope, and goes back to his cell by the way he had come to fetch his +blanket! It is not only the courage, but the optimism of the act which +strikes one, an optimism which was justified. He got the blanket, made +the rope, and with its aid descended to the roof of a turner who lived +in a house adjoining the prison. One must bear in mind, too, that Jack +was still handicapped by his irons! Picture him, having effected an +entrance into the turner's house by means of a garret window, slinking +down the stairs, past closed doors which might open any moment to wreck +his project at the moment of consummation. + +According to that same account of his escape, a woman heard the chink of +his irons as he passed one of those doors, and thought it was the cat! +Maybe she was sitting by the fire nursing her baby, or reading some tale +of adventure, little dreaming that as exciting a story as any in fiction +was being enacted at her elbow. + +One hears with regret that Jack's liberty was short-lived. Not a week +had passed before he was at his old game of burglary, and being captured +whilst drunk was once more imprisoned in Newgate, only to leave it this +time to be hanged at Tyburn. + +Whilst I sought to read the riddle of the young reprobate's strange +physiognomy, Mrs. Darling was browsing with dark satisfaction amongst +the murder trials and executions. There she stood, spectacles on the +tip of her nose, hat perched at a jaunty angle, her lips forming the +words of the "Sorrowful Lamentation and last Farewell to the world of +four robbers," as she read:-- + + Four hopeless youth this day I tell + In Newgate dark and drear. + O, hear their last and sad farewell + To part this world of care. + On Tuesday next, that awful day + Which fast approaches nigh, + All in their prime of youthful years + They must prepare to die. + +"Ain't it 'eart renderin'!" she exclaimed, as I looked over her +shoulder. "I reckon the man who said, 'Wot's got over the devil's back +is spent under 'is belly,' wasn't very far wrong neither." + +Upstairs we came to a halt before the glass case in which Queen +Victoria's historic dresses are placed, beginning with the wedding +dress, and continuing with the gowns the Queen had worn at great +functions during those first years of her marriage. I invariably spend a +few meditative moments before the yellowed satin wedding dress and the +white silk which the bride had worn at dinner on that last day of +spinsterhood. + +The heart of just a girl beat beneath those stiff little bodices. She +had the world at her feet, and it was the day of her mating with her +hero. I must admit that, to myself, "Albert" has never appeared in a +romantic light. Perhaps it's the fault of the "Memorial". Where is the +man who could live down the Albert Memorial? The adoring queen did her +dead husband an ill turn when she sought to immortalise him in such +fashion. + +Ah, well! the adored and the adorer are both in their graves now, and +here, ironic fact, the bride's faded finery, after being laid away in +lavender for years, has emerged from seclusion to enact the new role of +relic. + +"Now, if that'd bin _me_," remarked Mrs. Darling, as she stared at the +ivory satin dress, "I should 'ave took orf that real lace, which must be +worth _pounds and pounds_, and put on a nice himitation." + +"Well, I'm glad it _wasn't_ you," I retorted. + +The old lady winked at an attendant who was standing near, and I left +her to complete the conquest while I paid a visit to the "Georgian +dinner party". Those diners linger over their dessert an unconscionable +time. I wished I had the chance to help them out with the wine and the +biscuits. The red wine in the tall glasses, the cakes and fruit, +tantalise a hungry man who stares at them through the glass. The +gentlemen of the party apparently don't take tea. Three cups and +saucers only stand in front of the hostess, who is about to pour out. +One of the guests has risen and placed his glass of wine on the +mantelpiece. I imagine him the spokesman of the party. The museum was +almost deserted, everybody having gone to lunch. I could hear Mrs. +Darling's laugh in the distance. She and the attendant seemed to have a +good deal to say to each other; but in the corner where I stood there +was no one to disturb the Georgian ladies and gentlemen at their talk. +Their voices, speaking through the tunnel of nearly two hundred years, +were an atmosphere rather than a sound, and I was making an effort to +interpret it when Mrs. D. reappeared. She said she was sorry to have +kept me waiting, but the man to whom she had been talking knew the +barber who used to shave her husband when he had "bin on the drink," and +judging from her air of pleasant pre-occupation the encounter seemed to +have had a cheering effect. + +I noticed, as she spoke, that her eyes wandered hungrily to the Georgian +dinner table, and I suggested that after we had had a look at the top +floor we should go and get some lunch. An idea had suddenly occurred to +me of steak pudding at the "Cheshire Cheese". Mrs. D., I felt, would +appreciate the homeliness of that place of entertainment. + +There's a nice little furnished flat on the top floor of the Museum +which would suit me "down to the ground," as Mrs. D. expresses it. One +is not allowed to go inside and explore, and from where I stood I could +only catch tantalising glimpses of the three rooms it contained. In one +was an old four-poster standing cosily in a corner that seemed made to +hold it. To the right, through an open door, I caught a slant glimpse of +a fine apartment in which stood a magnificent old carved sideboard, two +ancient wooden chairs, and some pictures in oval gilt frames on the +panelled walls. + +An opening into the third room, of which I could see just a corner lit +by a small-paned window, excited my curiosity still more. The flat had +no doubt been so staged with an idea of enhancing its desirableness. A +touch of mystery is as provocative in a house as it is in a woman. What +old Wemmick did with his drawbridge and his cannon is an instance of +what can be done by condescending to make believe. + +As I continued to stare, a face appeared at the small-paned window +lighting the mysterious room. It was Mrs. Darling's face, grimacing +mischievously. How did she get there? I walked to the end of the +corridor and turned to the left, turned again, and behold, the secrets +of room three were revealed. A prim faded apartment with an open +spinet, old wooden chairs standing stiffly against the panelled wall, an +alcove in which old china was ranged, and needlework pictures. + +Mrs. Darling had again disappeared, and I stood for some time taking +stock of the contents of the room three and room two from this new point +of vantage. I was rather sorry I had wrested their secrets from them. +All Mrs. D.'s fault. It was just like her to find a prosaic solution +whilst I was making mysteries out of nothing. There she was again, +signalling from the spot where I had stood a few minutes before. She +seemed to be inviting me to a game of hide and seek, but a sense of +dignity, and fear of the attendants, prevented my accepting the +challenge. + +On our way downstairs we went into Room Four to see the relics of the +Great Plague. There is a bell used by the men in charge of the death +carts, when they went round calling their awful summons, "Bring out your +dead!" That old rusty bell with the long wooden handle could tell a tale +of horror if its iron tongue could speak our language. What sights it +has seen as the dead cart rumbled through the dark, narrow streets of +ancient London, and the bell rang its accompaniment to the bell-man's +fearful chant. Doors would open and lights shine out across the +pavement. The stricken silence of the night would be broken by stealthy +movements and smothered voices, shapeless, horrible burdens would +exchange hands, and the cart continue its way over the cobbles to the +awful goal of the plague pits. Perhaps it's well that rusty old bell +_can't_ speak! + +There are also the Bills of Mortality, and remedies prescribed as +preventive measures (boiled milk with two cloves of garlick, was one I +noticed), also two fuming pots, in which charcoal was burnt: one found +at Moorfield and one in Town Ditch, Broad Street. + +In a healthy reaction from the horrors of the Plague, Mrs. D. insisted +on having another look at the model of the Great Fire before we left the +Museum. It was only by reminding her that the "Cheshire Cheese" was a +"pub," and closed at three o'clock, that I at last succeeded in getting +her away from the fascinating toy. + +It is now past 1 A.M., and as I have been writing ever since 10 P.M., I +must leave the account of our visit to the "Cheese" till my next. Mrs. +Darling is, presumably, sleeping the sleep of the just, and I hope not +disturbed by anything worse than dreams of the Great Fire. To lay any +ghosts of _that man_ with the rusty old bell who may haunt my own +thoughts, and yours, I quote dear old Herrick's words of another and +happier "Bell Man":-- + + From noise of scare-fires rest ye free, + From murders, Benedicite; + From all mischances that may fright + Your pleasing slumbers in the night, + Mercy secure ye all, and keep + The goblin from ye, while ye sleep. + Past one o'clock, and almost two-- + My masters all, good day to you! + +Yours ever, + + GEORGE. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + + CARRINGTON MEWS, + SHEPHERD MARKET, + _24th February._ + +My Dear Agatha,--To take up my story where I dropped it the other +night.... You can approach the "Cheshire Cheese" either by the front +door in Wine Office Court or by the back door in Cheshire Court. I +prefer the tunnel-like passage leading to the back door, it seems a more +fit means of transporting one from Fleet Street of to-day to the Fleet +Street of 1667. + +Mrs. D.'s visions of bread and cheese gave place to something more +appetising as the combined odours of steak puddings, mutton chops, baked +potatoes, and Irish stew greeted our entrance into the narrow passage +where waiters jostled each other and hurled orders, like invectives, at +the kitchen upstairs. Walls, panelled to the ceiling, old rough benches, +sawdusted floors, a glowing fire burning in the large old-fashioned +grate--_this_ was the "Cheshire Cheese" of two hundred and fifty years +ago. One crosses the threshold of this homely tavern, and in the +twinkling of an eye is admitted to an intimacy with the rude comfort of +the past. Brisk waiters were pouring sparkling ale into tankards, and +placing before customers plates containing helpings generous enough to +satisfy the appetite of a starving man. In the box in the corner, +curtained off by a faded crimson frill from the rest of the room, were +two vacant places, which Mrs. D. and I took, and from my seat there I +could watch the gentleman in the morning coat who serves The Pudding. It +occupies the place of honour in the middle of the room, together with an +enormous joint of good old English roast beef. The Pudding resembles a +mountain of the volcanic order, and into its steaming crater the server, +after having cut slices of crust from its sides, delves deep with a +long-handled silver ladle, bringing up savoury portions of the +mysterious contents. + +The waiter brought the menu, but we did not need to study it. To go to +the "Cheshire Cheese" without having some of The Pudding is to explore a +wine vault without tasting of the vintage stored in the old barrels. By +the way, if you want a napkin at "The Cheese" you have to ask for it. +The presence of pewter on the tables, and the absence of napkins, is all +part of the ritual which strives to keep alive the spirit of those days +when, rumour has it, Dr. Johnson frequented the place. As to whether he +ever did is one of those disputed points of history which furnish +material for conjecture and research with the student of old times. +Those who say he _didn't_ base their assumption chiefly on the fact that +Boswell never mentioned the "Cheshire Cheese," but even Boswell did not +record what Johnson had for dinner every day, or how often he visited +his barber. Also, Johnson may have given up frequenting the "Cheshire +Cheese" before he knew Boswell. Seeing that Johnson lived just round the +corner, it is only reasonable to suppose that now and again he might +drop in, especially as his friend Goldsmith, whose visits to the tavern +are usually granted, lived almost opposite it. Picture the Doctor, fed +up with his collection of quarrelsome old women--Mrs. Williams, Mrs. +Desmoulins, Miss Carmichael--not to mention Levet, the eccentric +apothecary (Good God, Agatha! was there ever such a victim to good +nature?)--Picture him, on some bitter winter's night, putting on his +cocked hat, his greatcoat and muffler, taking his stout stick, and +banging the door of his asylum behind him with a grunt of satisfaction. +How the wind howls through the dark courts! But there are ruddy lights +in the windows of "The Cheese," and inside a blazing fire, the smoke +from a dozen churchwardens, the scent of hot punch, and last but not +least, listeners and the companionship of congenial spirits. Whatever +Johnson may have done in his life, he certainly haunts the old place in +death. One cannot turn one's eyes in any direction without encountering +mementoes of the old lexicographer, and there is the brass tablet set in +the wall over "The Favourite Seat of Dr. Samuel Johnson". You can't get +away from that! "Deny it who can!" says the tablet defiantly, and it +suddenly occurred to me that here is another task for Paul Pry--a task +more fascinating even than the quest of the "curious sculptured figure," +which disappeared so strangely from St. Ethelburga's, Bishopsgate. One +could make it the work of a lifetime to find out if Dr. Johnson was in +the habit of frequenting the "Cheshire Cheese". Meanwhile, perhaps the +problem would have been solved by accident. Some descendant of one of +the Doctor's correspondents finds an old letter amidst a bundle of dusty +documents that had not seen the light of day for many a long year--a +letter in which the Doctor, after giving a vivid account of the Gordon +Riots, congratulates himself that Bolt Court is so near the "Cheshire +Cheese," it not being safe for respectable citizens to be much abroad in +the streets at nights. The letter would be put up to auction, and the +"Cheshire Cheese" would run up the bidding.... + +The waiter placed before me a portion of The Pudding, and Mrs. D. +brought me back to realities to ask what I imagined was in it. I told +her there was steak in it, oysters, kidneys, and larks, and she said it +wasn't fair to the birds. She also subsequently became of the opinion +that it wasn't fair to the eaters, when she suffered embarrassment from +the tiny bones of the larks. If it was a bloater, said she, you'd know +what you were about, and where to look for the bones, but bones in a +beef-steak pudding, where you didn't expect them, were a trap for the +unwary. I reassured her that I had never heard of an accident, and I had +lunched and dined many times at "The Cheese," but I regret to say that +The Pudding, from Mrs. D.'s point of view, was not a success. + +When paying the bill I said something to the waiter about the Familiar +Spirit of the place, and he suggested that we should visit the rooms +above. He then went out into the sawdusted passage by the bar, and in +exactly the same tone of voice as that with which he ordered chops and +steaks, shouted up the stairs, "Charlie, a gentleman to see The Chair". + +Whereupon up we went, gathering sawdust on the soles of our shoes as we +climbed the twisted staircase, past the kitchen (where The Pudding is +cooked in a huge copper boiler which is kept going all night)--at this +moment the fizzling, sputtering, steaming scene of a score of culinary +activities--past a grandfather clock in the corner which is older than +Dr. Johnson himself, and into the room where stands the original chair +used by Dr. Johnson at the Mitre Tavern in Chancery Lane, which place, I +need hardly add, exists no longer. + +There the old chair stands, wide enough and sturdy enough to hold the +ponderous form in the snuff-coloured coat with the brass buttons. I hope +the wearer of that coat had many a pleasant hour within the wooden arms, +now empty with an emptiness never more to be filled apparently. The +chair, alas! is enclosed in a glass case, no doubt a necessary +precaution, but one which must effectually keep the ghost out of his +seat. No self-respecting ghost could condescend to enter a glass case. +_I_ should have had the chair standing in a corner of the room where, in +some quiet hour, the Doctor might seat himself for a while to recall +bygone times in a spot where yesterday still defies to-day. + +A night at the "Cheshire Cheese," by the way, might be prolific in +ghostly adventure. That grandfather clock on the staircase would have +something to say. A clock is, to me, the mouthpiece of a silent house, +and after I had visited the bar, to help myself to a drink, and had sat +for a while in the Doctor's seat in the dark coffee-room, I should mount +the stairs softly, taking the clock unawares. Old clocks are given to +thinking aloud, and there's no telling what this one might not reveal. + +But I am forgetting--the house would not be as silent as I had been +picturing it. There would be another sound close at hand, one to which +no stretch of the imagination could impute a ghostly interpretation: the +sound of _The Pudding_ bubbling and rumbling in the copper boiler! And +the ghosts would reasonably wish to avoid the reminder of a feast in +which they are no longer able to participate. Nevertheless, I shall put +the "Cheshire Cheese" on the list of places I intend to visit when I'm a +ghost myself. Meanwhile, I am just going out to post this and buy an +evening paper. It therefore behoves me, dear Agatha, to say, + + _Adieu._ + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +When the Honourable George Tallenach issued from the dark doorway of +Carrington Mews into the evening light of Shepherd Market he had no +premonition of having come out to meet anything unusual, unless it were +the beauty of the close of that perfect spring day. He stood for a +moment under the flickering gas lamp twirling the letter he carried +between his thumbs, then he crossed the cobbles towards the little shop +at the corner where he was in the habit of buying his morning and +evening papers. He could see the placards from the moment of coming out, +and as he went his hand travelled mechanically towards his pocket to +find a penny. + +The day's work done, Shepherd Market gossiped and loitered. Sounds +travelled in the quiet, and as he stood reading the news-sheets he could +hear the clatter of pails from the mews where men washed down motor +cars, and the echoes of voices and footsteps in adjacent streets and +turnings. His eyes travelled along the newspaper boards expectantly. It +was all grist that came to his mill, from Captain Coe's finals to the +Irish question, or the opinion of a leading novelist on the novels of +the future. + +"Sudden death of a Countess." The statement leapt at him in staring +black letters, and he stood staring at the words conscious of a feeling +of intimate disturbance, and forgetful that he had to make the nightly +choice between a "Pall Mall" and a "Westminster". As a matter of fact, +though, "The Evening News" placard had taken the decision out of his +hands. That paper having made a specialty of the "Sudden death of a +Countess," could presumably give some of the particulars. + +Of course, he told himself, as he pursued his way with the paper in his +pocket, of course there was more than one Countess in existence, and it +was pure nervousness on his part to have associated the announcement +with Katherine. But even as he so reflected there came the recollection +of her face, as he had last seen it from the window of her car. That was +a month or more ago, and he had heard nothing of her since. He wished +now he had called--he had meant to do so, but had procrastinated as +usual. Well, he would call to-morrow. Yes, he would certainly call +to-morrow. + +He paused at the shop at the corner of East Chapel Street to admire the +colour effect of some enamelled candlesticks against a length of orange +cretonne, and his hand went towards the pocket in which was the +newspaper. "It's too dark to read it here," he muttered, and walked on, +carrying the paper in his hand. It was just six o'clock, and the +public-house opposite the Serendipity shop was lighting up. If he went +inside he would be able to read the paper there. But he didn't go +inside. He continued his way through Market Place and across Curzon +Street to the post office in Queen Street, where he dropped Agatha's +letter in the box. This done, he stood in an attitude of indecision for +a minute or two, then, with an effort that left him rather breathless, +he drew near the open door through which a light streamed and unfolded +the newspaper. + +His hands shook, and for a moment the print danced under his eyes. But +presently a name separated itself from the blurred characters, the name +he had expected to see, and he knew it would not now be necessary to pay +the call he had planned to make on the morrow. + +Perhaps he had some intention of paying it this evening, for his feet, +when he left the post office, led him towards the house in Curzon +Street, where Katherine had spent the years of her childless widowhood. +As he went he thought, "I wish I'd gone to see her," and those +quarter-days, when a cheque for fifty pounds had appeared with clockwork +like punctuality by the first post, became so many poignant stabs of +recollection. He had sometimes felt aggrieved that the cheque had not +been bigger, but at this moment he could find a score of reasons why +there should have been no cheque at all. It was hard on Katherine having +a brother like himself, living just round the corner. She had tried to +carry it off by making a joke of it, but the joke, he suspected, rather +hung fire. + +There was a peach-coloured sky in the west, and the electric arcs +multiplied themselves down the misty street like a string of giant +opals. The tall house with the balconies and the shrubs in green boxes +loomed ahead, and his pace slowed. The blinds were all down, and there +was a light in one of the upper windows. He supposed he ought to go in. +There was no one but himself to represent the dead woman. But he did not +want to go in. He could not face the loquacious housekeeper to-night. +To-morrow--yes, on second thoughts, he would have, after all, to keep +that resolution to call at Curzon Street on the morrow, but the errand +would be strangely different. He had meant to make the visit an occasion +for saying certain kind things to his sister, but, as usual, he had let +the opportunity slip. It had gone to swell the ranks of all those other +lost chances of his life, and once again he was met by those saddest of +all sad words, "Too late". + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + + CARRINGTON MEWS, + _12th March._ + +Dear Agatha,--The letter you sent in answer to my wire has remained too +long unanswered, but I have, since Katherine's death, been immersed in +correspondence of a most uninteresting and tedious description. The work +entailed in the settling of affairs is colossal, and when I haven't been +writing tiresome business epistles, or others even more tiresome to +people who never remembered my existence when I was a poor man, the +lawyers have had me in their octopus-like clutches. + +You will notice that I refer to my poverty in the past tense. Yes, +Agatha, I have no longer to consider whether I can afford a glass of ale +with my chop for lunch, or half a crown for admission to the pit (to be +quite correct, I should say three shillings, the odd sixpence being +one's contribution towards the expenses of the war). I can even, if I +wish, call a taxi to take me round the corner, or ask Mrs. Darling to +dine with me at the Ritz. Katherine left me all she possessed. She did +it, I believe, with qualms as to the wisdom of the deed, but, as I have +remarked before, "blood is thicker than water," and the habit of giving, +where I am concerned, had become with Katherine a habit. Her +forebodings, however, were apparent in the wording of her will, and her +lawyer treated me to quite a sermon when I called to sign some papers +the other day. He said it behoved me to take up the social duties +entailed in the possession of a house in Curzon Street, together with an +income of five thousand a year. The Countess, he reminded me, had always +been very punctilious in the discharge of her obligations as a member of +the aristocracy, and it would be an act of ingratitude on my part if I +failed to carry on the family traditions. (I wonder if he has, at any +time, seen me with Mrs. Darling.) He hinted at the desirability of my +settling down with a suitable wife. Mrs. Darling, by the way, has +already had her say on this subject, putting it a little more crudely, +and with a rather unflattering reference to "Old Parr". By the way, she +refuses absolutely to go any more jaunts round London with me. She says +if I don't know my place, she knows hers, and that she has no ambition +to "git into the papers". She added that there had been a man with a +camera hanging about the Mews lately, and she shouldn't wonder if he +wasn't waiting to snapshot the heir to the Countess of Corbridge's +thousands. + +Mrs. Darling, alas! has altered. Gone is her air of good comradeship, +gone _her_ meat puddings, and _my_ snowy pocket handkerchiefs. She says +I can afford to lunch out properly now, and send my washing to a laundry +in the country. She seems to have lost interest in me since I ceased to +want anything of her. It's a trait I have noticed in women in whom the +maternal instinct is strongly developed. But if Mrs. Darling is +faithless to me, I am not faithless to her. I have plans for the old +lady which I shall unfold in due course. Katherine pensioned her +housekeeper, who is retiring, and I propose taking Mrs. Darling with me +to Curzon Street. She will be almost as difficult to transplant from +Carrington Mews as I shall, but a companion in misfortune softens the +blow, and we shall help each other. + +Dear me, Agatha, but this is a doleful letter, and to tell the truth, my +mood is not hilarious. I would give a good deal to have Katherine back +in Curzon Street, and myself secure in a life of vagabondage. When I +think of all this new life entails I lose heart, and fear to lose my +youth also. + +Now I come to think of it, that's an admission worthy of Old Parr +himself. Lose my youth at sixty-five! Haven't I already lost it? The +answer is--No, for youth and vagabondage are synonymous. There is only +one person who can help me in such a crisis, and that person is +yourself. Existence has become too complex to be faced alone. I want +some one to help me spend this money in the service of those to whom a +few pounds makes the difference between heaven and hell, and your talent +for philanthropy has always been handicapped by lack of means. There is, +though, a condition attached which may put you off the bargain--George +Tallenach is, as Mrs. Darling will tell you, "not everybody's money". +But years ago there was a woman who stuck up for George when no one else +had a good word to say for him. If now he asks her to change the duties +of friend for those of a wife, will she think it too late? + +Adieu, Agatha, and may the meeting, and the answer, come soon. + + GEORGE TALLENACH. + + +_Postscript._ + +George sealed the letter and moved to his armchair by the hearth. The +March evening was chill and the fire was companionable. He was in no +hurry to light his lamp, for there was always at such an hour the book +in the grate which could be best read in the dark. + +Turning its leaves to-night he found the record of a past which, if it +offered nothing else, certainly provided variety of interest, and +through its changing scenes there had always been Agatha. Agatha who, in +those days when they first met, had been a beauty with a score of +admirers. He had never understood why she had given them all the go-by +to remain true to his unworthy self. He supposed it had become a habit. +If Agatha had a fault it was that she was given to habits. She was also +inclined to be conventional. He had seen her wince involuntarily when he +had shocked some social prejudice, but the wince had been hustled into a +corner by the smiling eyes that said, "It's very silly of me, I know". +There was no doubt his friendship had saved her from the worst perils of +spinsterhood. She would take to Curzon Street like a fish to water, and +she would accept Mrs. Darling with the wince and its accompanying smile. +The smile he had no doubt would triumph in the end, for Mrs. Darling was +a sport and Agatha was no snob. + +His chin dropped on his chest as the scene shifted to those days of +vagabondage which had come with the gift of Katherine's two hundred a +year. Days when the London streets had been the scene of limitless +wanderings, providing undying interest and entertainment, romance and +adventure. They had been happy days--were they ended? + +The door opened with a jerk, letting in a draught and Mrs. Darling. +"Jest as I expected!" she exclaimed. "I ses to myself as I was comin' up +the stairs, I ses, 'I wouldn't mind bettin' 'e's sittin' there in the +dark, lettin' the fire out,'" and the speaker, after making a vigorous +onslaught on a smouldering lump of coal, looked round for matches. + +"I don't want the lamp lit yet," complained George. + +But Mrs. D. calmly proceeded with her self-elected task. "Sittin' in the +dark's only fit for blind people and lovers," she stated, and her eyes +went towards the stamped letter which lay on the writing pad. + +"I'm jest goin' to the post, I'll take it," she offered, and a few +minutes later, as she dropped the letter into the box, she said to +herself, "If he _'as_ asked her to marry 'im, it's jest as well not to +give 'im the chance of changin' 'is mind." + + THE END. + + + + +ABERDEEN: THE UNIVERSITY PRESS + + + + +MILLS & BOON'S AUTUMN LIST 1921 + + NEW AND FORTHCOMING BOOKS + PUBLISHED BY + MILLS & BOON, Ltd., 49 Rupert Street, London, W.1 + Telephone: 929 Regent. + Telegrams: "Millsator, Piccy, London." + Cablegrams: "Millsator London." + +Note.--The approximate published prices for the forthcoming books are +given. It may be necessary to alter these before publication. + + +IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT. + +The Official Biography. + +JACK LONDON + + By Charmian Kittredge London (Mrs. Jack London). + With many Illustrations from photographs. + Two volumes. Demy 8vo. About 36s. net + +This fascinating biography of a most remarkable man is one of +extraordinary human interest. Jack London was a virile creature, gentle, +compounded of curiosity and fearlessness, the very texture of fine +sensibility, with an ardent brain and a divine belief in himself. Such a +man should be honoured with an unusual biography. Mrs. Jack London's +work has been a labour of love, and will be welcomed by millions of +readers. The book contains, roughly, 250,000 words, and is one of the +most interesting publications of recent years. The many and varied +photographs will be found by lovers of Jack London to be of exceptional +interest. + +Mills and Boon wish it to be distinctly understood that this book is +the official Life of JACK LONDON, and is the only publication authorised +by the Jack London Estate. + + +GENERAL LITERATURE + +BY CHELSEA REACH + + By Reginald Blunt, + Author of "The Wonderful Village," "In Cheyne Walk," etc. + With 24 Illustrations. + Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net. + +Mr. Reginald Blunt's forthcoming book. "BY CHELSEA REACH," comprises a +further collection of papers relating to interesting places and persons +in that riverside quarter of extraordinarily varied historic +associations. The book forms a sequel to Mr. Blunt's "PARADISE ROW," "IN +CHEYNE WALK," and "THE WONDERFUL VILLAGE"; and those who found enjoyment +in the entertaining records of those volumes will know what to expect. + +Two Chelsea places to which special papers have been devoted form a +striking antithesis; one being "Danvers' House," built by Sir John +Danvers the Regicide, and occupied also by his beautiful wife, once the +Lady Magdalen Herbert; by George Herbert the poet, her son; by John +Donne, her old admirer and the great preacher Dean of St. Paul's; and +subsequently by several other notable folk; and the other telling the +story of "Cremorne Gardens," the nineteenth century Ranelagh, of which +the chequered and rather questionable career ended amid so much +excitement and opposition in 1877. + +Two personal studies also relate to very different Chelsea celebrities, +the first being Sir Hans Sloane, the famous collector, and founder of +the British Museum; and the second, Mrs. Carlyle, by whom a fresh and +very characteristic batch of letters to her young friend "Carina" are +now for the first time given to the enjoyment of the many lovers of her +delightful letters. + +Mr. Blunt's new volume also contains two papers dealing with the +Literary Workshops of Chelsea, old and modern. These describe the abodes +and methods of work of a number of famous and interesting authors, and +include descriptions of Sir Thomas More's famous house, Swift's poor +lodging, Smollett's strange assemblies at Monmouth House, Leigh Hunt's +unkempt abode, Carlyle's soundproof garret, Rossetti's studio and +garden, and many other chronicles of the homes and intimacies of Chelsea +authorship. + +The book will be illustrated by a number of very interesting old prints, +facsimiles, and photographs. + + +MY SOUTH AFRICAN YEAR (1920) + + By Charles Dawbarn. + Author of "Makers of New France," &c., &c. + With 30 Illustrations from Photographs. + Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net. + +"MY SOUTH AFRICAN YEAR" represents impressions of the well-known +correspondent and writer, Mr. Charles Dawbarn, who toured extensively +through the Union, studying for twelve months the politics, social life, +and poignant controversies of the sub-continent. The author, whose works +on France are in most libraries, is at his best in the book--according +to the report of literary gossips: intimate and friendly to the great +country he is describing: authoritative and explanatory by virtue of the +privilege he enjoyed of coming into contact with South Africa's leading +men. + +He is never happier than when dealing with the problems that beset this +growing community, whether they touch Anglo-Dutch relations or the +growing self-consciousness of the native. Some of his pungent chapters +deal with subjects which, less picturesquely treated, would appear +forbidding--here they glow with life. In addition to pictures of Botha, +Smuts, Hertzog, Tielman Roos, J. W. Jagger, Sir Thomas Smartt, Mr. +Thomas Boydell, and other figures in the political arena, you have, we +are told, delightful glimpses of the chief towns. There is tumultuous +Johannesburg; quiet and intensely Scotch Durban; Cape Town rustling with +political intrigue and captivating in its situation of sea and mountain, +and with its wine-farms, suggesting a foretaste of Paradise; +Pietermaritzburg sleeping on its illustrious past, still a school centre +for growing South Africa; Ladysmith redolent of the siege--and a score +of studies of the veld, of the gold mines and mission stations--or the +varied appeal of this wonderful land. + + +SOMERSET NEIGHBOURS + + By Alfred Percivall. + Demy 8vo. 8s. 6d. net. + +A book about Somerset life and character, by a lover of Somerset and a +resident of many years. The author knows Somerset well, and has written +a most entertaining book, with its flashes of wit and humour, and its +undeniable charm. + +English writers have rarely succeeded in true portraiture of those +belonging to the soil. We have had romance, which is assuredly largely +false, realism which is ever falser, and humour which, too often, is not +so very humorous, but it is hard to name any one work which is direct +painting and shows in a medium of humour and pathos, endurance, and true +realistic romance of life in the hidden villages of England. It is not +too much to say of this book that, however unknown the author may now +be, he is destined to no mean place among our best writers, for this +book contains stories which are assuredly true genius. Those who can +read of Jenny Rickman without tears or of the Squire of the Woods +without feeling that they have made a discovery, can have little taste +for literature. The author loved and worked for over thirty years among +the people he describes with such loving care, and, without knowing it, +has drawn a portrait of a true shepherd of his people which, had it been +done consciously by another hand, might have stood beside Goldsmith's +"VICAR OF WAKEFIELD" himself. + + +ABRAHAM LINCOLN + + By Frank Ilsley Paradise. + With a Frontispiece. + Crown 8vo. 5s. net. + +The re-appearing of Abraham Lincoln as a living force in the affairs of +the world, more than half a century after his death, is one of the +striking phenomena of our time. The Lincoln, whose figure moves among us +and whose voice we hear again, is still the wise and gentle leader of +the people whom his contemporaries knew. In his own land his memory is +suffused with a tender sentiment, as of one who had borne great burdens +and passed through deep sorrows for love of his fellow men. But with the +passing years sentiment, among his disciples, has assumed the form of a +stern resolution to live in his spirit and complete his unfinished task. + +For Democracy is still, as it was sixty years ago, a great venture. It +has opened vast tracts of unknown country, but its stability forever +depends upon the quality of manhood it produces. The anxious question +with which Lincoln's mind was ever occupied, as to whether a nation +could at once be strong and free, remains as yet unanswered. And it is +because Lincoln--in his rugged strength, his kindly spirit and unselfish +devotion to the public good--is the outstanding figure in the history of +democracy under bitterest trial that he lives among us to-day. + +Legends gather soon about a great name, but in actual life Lincoln lived +close to the earth. He was no saint, worked no miracles, and would have +repudiated the idea of martyrdom. Most of his life was spent among +common people and in the atmosphere of great books. His virtues were of +the simple, human kind that grow in the common garden of +neighbourliness, genial fellowship, and of high purpose. + +So far as is possible in limited space this book seeks to portray the +man as he lived upon earth--a struggling, ambitious, kindly man, caught +up into the noblest of causes and revealing both in heart and mind the +great qualities of democratic leadership. + + +THE CHARM OF LONDON + + By Sophie Cole. + With 8 Illustrations from Photographs. + Crown 8vo. 6s. net. + +Miss Sophie Cole, who writes novels of London Life which lovers of +London welcome, has, in this volume, given us a series of sketches of +bits of old London. They are chosen haphazard, and characterised by the +personal touch which should appeal to those who have an adventurous love +of exploring the alleys and courts of the great city, its dim old +churches and historic houses. "THE CHARM OF LONDON" is not of the guide +book order, although it may serve that purpose for anyone with an +afternoon to spare and the need of an object for an outing. + +The claims of London are so inexhaustible and each claim so alluring +that the writer had to make a more or less indiscriminate choice in the +matter of subjects. The book is written in the form of letters, and Miss +Cole puts her reflections on the places visited into the mouth of the +"Honourable George," who writes to a friend the accounts of his rambles +with his oddly chosen companion "Mrs. Darling." One day it is Chelsea +they visit, another Fleet Street and the City, another Mayfair, The +Charter House, or the Foundling Hospital ... the loquacious George +acting the part of cicerone to that unconscious humorist, the Cockney +Mrs. Darling. The result is these letters, which reveal the Honourable +George as a man of unconscious humour, an inveterate old gossip, a +dreamer of dreams, and, incidentally, a charming advocate of the "lost +art." + + +NERVES AND THE NERVOUS + + By Edwin L. Ash, M.D., B.S., M.R.C.S. + Crown 8vo. 5s. net. + +A distinguished physician once said that he had found "NERVES AND THE +NERVOUS" most useful in helping some of his patients to carry on and not +lose heart when they were passing through a period of nervous debility. +Gratified that in its original form this little book thus achieved the +object for which it was written, the Author now hopes that this new and +largely re-written Edition will find still wider field of usefulness. + + +By the Author of "Mental Self-Help." + +MIDDLE AGE HEALTH AND FITNESS + + By Edwin L. Ash, M.D., B.S., M.R.C.S. + Crown 8vo. 6s. net. + +Why fear Middle Age? For the majority it should be the time of success, +the age of fruition, the period of accomplishment. At forty a man is in +the prime of life, whilst at fifty he is still well within the season of +vitality and splendid endeavour. For woman Middle Age brings some +ill-health certainly, but that should only be in passing, and for her +the years past forty need have no terrors. Girlhood and youth lack many +sweet gifts brought by the Fairy of Middle Age; experience brings +contentment, and added powers of enjoyment. In society, in sport, as in +her friendships and in her home, the woman of forty-five may still be a +queen and yet look forward to a long and happy reign. + +But good looks and nerve, athletic success and social charm are +certainly more and more dependent on physical fitness and mental poise +as the years go by after forty; health is, indeed, as essential to the +enjoyment of middle life as in the more buoyant time of youth. In this +little book the author holds out a helping hand to all who are looking +anxiously at wrinkles, stray gray hairs, or their last record on the +weighing machine; he gives them a bright and hopeful message with many +useful hints on how to keep up and doing in the "forties" and "fifties" +of life. + + +An Absolutely Original Fairy Tale. + +THE STREET THAT RAN AWAY + + By Elizabeth Croly. + With 4 Illustrations in Colour. + Crown 8vo. 5s. net. + +Publishers' Note:--Did you know that the Fairies never go to a Registry +Office? Did you know that when they require a Governess for two human +children (orphans) who have fallen into their charge they think nothing +of kidnapping a most charming girl and placing her--in The Street That +Ran Away? + +And did you know that this Street of old gothic gables and swinging +casements, as if it had not enough mysteries of its own, goes wandering +about the world with its children and their governess from London to +Damascus, from the North Pole to El Dorado, running into adventures with +wild beasts and queer characters till you tremble for the safety of your +own tiled roof. + +And did you know.... + +Ah, but you must read this beautiful story of enchantment to know all +about the boy and girl, their charming governess, and the mysterious +Street that ran away with them. No one can tell that tale save the +author of the book. All we can do is to tell you no tale but a fact--the +fact that here is a really lovely and wonderful book which the children +of the world will take to their hearts and remember when they have +children of their own clamouring for a story. + + +LETTERS TO MY GRANDSON ON THE WORLD ABOUT HIM + + By The Hon. Stephen Coleridge. + Crown 8vo. 4s. net. + +Mills & Boon have in the press a series of letters written by Mr. +Stephen Coleridge to his grandson on Science. Mr. Coleridge, as is well +known, entertains a strong opinion that the study of Science should +never displace in the education of the young the study of letters, +agreeing with Dr. Johnson that to acquire a knowledge of Science is "not +the great or the frequent business of the mind." + +Nevertheless, Mr. Coleridge believes that an ignorance of the laws of +nature and of the wonders of the Universe is a condition of vulgarity, +and that every child should learn from the world about him, first to +recognise the evidences of design patently displayed everywhere in the +order and process of nature, and, secondly, to be filled with reverence +for the Power that ordained it; accordingly he has written these letters +explaining to his grandson the wonderful provisions that cover the earth +with devices that not only make it habitable, but spread over it beauty +on every side. + +The letters inculcate the habit of observation and of curiosity +concerning matters of every-day experience which are not often dealt +with in school books, such as the causes of the singing of the kettle on +the hob, of the blue colour of the sky in the daytime and of the red and +gold colours of it at Sunset, of rain and dew, and winds, and many +others of the daily experiences about us. But always Mr. Coleridge +enforces the principle that scientific knowledge should never for a +moment lessen our adoration for the glories of nature; and as an +instance of his method we give the following quotation from the 8th +letter:-- + + "XXX. This is the explanation made by scientific people of the + blue sky, and of the glorious reds and golds and amber and + daffodil depths of the dying day. I do not know there is any + particular harm in ascertaining, if it be true information, how + these wonders of the world are caused, any more than there is any + particular harm in knowing that behind the beautiful face and form + of a lovely woman there exist a skull and skeleton made of bone; + but those who permit these items of dull knowledge to impair in + the slightest degree their reverence for the loveliness of a + beautiful woman, or their adoration for the great Spirit of the + Universe, 'whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,' had + better never have acquired them." + + +SWITZERLAND IN WINTER + + By Will and Carine Cadby. + With Twenty-four Illustrations. + F'cap. 8vo. 4s. net. + +This is a new and thoroughly revised edition. The volume contains +considerable new matter, and gives the fullest and probably most up to +date information to be obtained. + + +POPULAR EDITION. + +WITH THE WALNUTS AND THE WINE + + By Gilly. F'cap. 8vo. + With a coloured wrapper. + 2s. 6d. net. + +Evening Standard.--"A mellow, jovial book, replete with good stories +which will amuse even those who have no walnuts and no wine. Some +excellent stories are told of the Services, and every parent will revel +in the stories about children in this little symposium." + + +OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY + + By "A Trustee." + F'cap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. + +"OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY" is written for ordinary men and women who are not +content to be mere puppets in the hands of professional agents, but +desire to have some intelligent appreciation of their responsibilities +and of the principles which ought to govern their decisions. + +The plain man will find that he can read "OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY" from +beginning to end with understanding and enjoyment, for it is always +lucid, reasonable and humane. Its method is to proceed from the +exposition of principles to their logical application in practice so +that the reader learns not only what he ought to do or avoid doing, but +why that may be done and not this. The chapters on investments will be +found particularly helpful and often illuminating. Equally authoritative +and valuable are the author's observations on proving a will, on +distinctions between capital and income, on the payment of annuities, on +legacies to minors, on choosing executors and trustees, on the Public +Trustee and on other corporate trustees. + + +COMMON SENSE SELF-HELP + +A STUDY IN THE ECONOMICS OF MIND POWER. + + By Edmund Dane, LL.B. + F'cap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. + +What is the secret of the clear and strong common sense, which inspires +confidence in the judgments of those who have it? That is the question +which the author has set himself to investigate and answer, and he has +revealed the mystery. The modern principles of Psychology, stripped of +technicality and difficulty, are lucidly summarised and the part played +by Feeling, Imagination and Will in the working of the mind as an +efficient machine set out as well as the part played by the Reasoning +Faculty. It is shown that Logic, as the Art of Reasoning, is properly an +application of Psychology as the Science of Mind Power. The uses of the +Art of Reasoning in Inductive and Deductive Inference and in the +formation of correct judgments are dealt with practically. A valuable +feature is the chapter on how to avoid and detect fallacies. This, in +short, is a book which everybody who desires to add to his mental +efficiency and success should carry in his pocket. It can be read and +re-read, since it contains a large amount of scientific marrow in a +small compass; it is the science of Mind Power and Mental Economics put +in a nutshell. + + +TAKE IT IN TIME + +TALKS ON THRIFT FOR BOYS AND GIRLS. + + By the Author of "How to Make a Fortune." + F'cap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. + +In this little book the truths of Thrift and Economics are set out in +simple and idiomatic English, freed from difficulty and plainly and +clearly stated. The author shows how character makes money and how a +true view of the world and its affairs, formed early in life, is the +secret of thriving and success. The aim is to give boys and girls a +grasp of practical and working truths and facts which all should, for +their own happiness and well-being, know. It covers ground not hitherto +taken up in education, and, alike in subject and style, is admirably +adapted as a reading book. From cover to cover the book is packed with +fact tersely put and in a way that makes it insistently interesting. The +author has laid himself out to put lucidly the lessons of life and the +results of experience, so that youthful readers may avoid pitfalls. What +money is and does and what is meant by industry and commerce are shown +in language the youngest minds can readily understand. + + +THE HISTORY AND ADVENTURES OF A PENNY + + By Edmund Dane, LL.B. + F'cap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. + +"THE HISTORY AND ADVENTURES OF A PENNY"--In the form of a simple story +this little book sets out some of the leading and elementary truths of +economics, and more especially those relating to wages, prices, +production, and exchange. It touches upon and illustrates the true +association between Capital and Labour in the creation of wealth, and +shows the part played by science, invention, and skill. The author's +thesis in effect is that to promote a popular knowledge of economic +truth is the surest means of promoting popular thrift, which, based upon +a popular knowledge of economic truth is the surest safeguard against +fantastic politics. The means of creating wealth and common abundance +were never greater than they are to-day, and the lack of a popular +knowledge of economics is the chief stumbling block. Facts are put in +this book in a form which the simplest minds can readily grasp, and in a +manner interesting to all. The plan of the book is novel as well as +useful. + + +THE BETRAYAL OF LABOUR + +AN OPEN LETTER TO RT. HON. J. R. CLYNES (Member of Parliament). + + By the Author of "The Mirrors of Downing Street." + Crown 8vo. 1s. net. + + +MY IMPRESSIONS OF WALES + + By Alfred E. Zimmern. + Sometime Professor of International Politics at + the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. + Crown 8vo. 1s. net. + +A brilliant and incisive, but studiously unbiassed, sketch by a +recognised authority on modern Wales and its problems and of the +relations between Welsh and English, which should be of particular +interest at the present juncture. + + +THE PONTING FAIRY BOOKS + + By Alice and Clarence Ponting. + F'cap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net each. + +Charming and Original. + +Mills & Boon are issuing a series of delightful children's books by +Alice and Clarence Ponting. The pictures, taken by an expert +photographer, are probably the most original which have yet appeared. +The four volumes ready are + + THE GNOME'S TREASURE + THE LAND OF NURSERY RHYMES + THE RIDDLE OF THE WOOD + THE RIVER OF DREAMS + +Times.--"These fairy-tale books are delightfully illustrated by +photographs of real children playing the roles of the personages of the +tales." + +Daily Graphic.--"I wished I were a little boy again when I started +reading the four little children's books by Alice and Clarence Ponting." + +Aberdeen Free Press.--"These pleasantly written books represent a novel +and interesting departure. The photographs are admirably conceived and +skilfully executed. To those practically acquainted with photography the +features will be a revelation of how fairy effects can be secured by +simple methods; to young readers they will be a source of never-failing +wonder." + +NEW VOLUME. + +THE MAGICIAN'S CARPET AND THE GARDEN OF ENCHANTMENT. + + With 21 Illustrations. + 3s. 6d. net. + +This Volume contains Two Fairy Stories, and the pictures are remarkable. + + +FICTION + + _Bound in cloth._ + _Printed on best quality paper._ + _Picture wrappers in Colours._ + + +By the Author of "The Great Accident." + +EVERED + + By Ben Ames Williams. + Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. net. + +WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:-- + +Punch.--"He can write enthrallingly. Mr. Williams wins my most sincere +admiration." + +Scotsman.--"A fine tale." + +Athenaeum.--"We are particularly pleased." + +Times.--"An excellent story." + +Time and Tide.--"Mr. Williams can spin a first-rate yarn." + +Clarion.--"I made a mental note to keep an eye open for more." + +Westminster Gazette.--"His love and knowledge of the sea, the sure way +in which he sets before us the closed, cramped, personal atmosphere of +life deserves comparison with the greater power of Mr. Conrad's genius. +Mr. Williams is evidently in training for a championship, and we await +the next round with interest. We might even put a little money on him." + + +By the Author of "Big Tremaine." + +TRADITION + + By Marie Van Vorst. + Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. net. + +A delightful novel. + + +By the Author of "The Hoofslide." + +GRAINS OF DUST + + By Anthony Carlyle. + Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. net. + +An enchanting story. + + +By the Author of "The Loitering Highway." + +THE OTHER GATE + + By Sophie Cole. + Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. net. + +A charming novel. + + +By the Author of "Sparrows." + +THE TRIUMPH + + By Horace W. C. Newte. + Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. net. + +A powerful and absorbing novel. + + +By the Author of "The Fly in the Bottle." + +ROSE IN THE BUD + + By Maud Mallet. + Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. net. + +A delightful novel. + + +By the Author of "Hagar's Hoard." + +WHITE SHOULDERS + + By George Kibbe Turner. + Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. net. + +"Hagar's Hoard" was one of the greatest first novels of recent years. +Mills and Boon confidently recommend "WHITE SHOULDERS" as a truly +remarkable novel, which is certain of immense popularity, and which will +undoubtedly place Mr George Kibbe Turner in the foremost rank of living +novelists. + + +A BRILLIANT FIRST NOVEL. + +A SONG OF ARABY + + By John Guisborough. + Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. net. + +A fine novel of adventure by an officer who served in the Mesopotamian +campaign for more than three years. It completes the library of those +who collect books on Mesopotamia, a land of Oriental mystery, jinn and +efreets. The English hero and heroine in hours of peril cross the +desert, passing Ur of the Chaldees, said to be the home of Abraham. All +the fascination of the Near East, its Arabs and Turks, its deserts and +rivers are here vividly portrayed. + + +By the Author of "Happy Ever After." + +WHEN I WAS A QUEEN IN BABYLON + + By Rose Allatini. + Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. net. + +A brilliant novel. + + +BRY OF HAG FELL + + By Richard Chater. + Crown 8vo. 6s. net. + +Mr. Chater gives us a story which does something more than interest and +excite the reader. It does more than hold his attention from the first +page to the last. It haunts the memory. + +This is the test of a masterpiece. + +The story is the chronicle of a swift year of passion in the lives of +two sisters and one man. In quite different ways these two sisters are +lovable English girls, so charming and graceful that they find +additional lovers with every reader of the book. The man, belonging to a +different class, is a son of the wild country, with a drive in his +temperament which is like a torrent. How love played with these lives is +the drama of the tale. + +The story is set in the midst of the Yorkshire fells, and the grandeur +of those mountainous solitudes invests the tale with a sensible +greatness. The reader forgets all the conventions of society and all the +restrictions of the town. He finds himself listening to a movement of +the human heart in the midst of nature's eternal indifference to +mankind. + +Mr. Chater writes with an extraordinary swiftness, getting all his +effects without verbosity and without effort. His passionate sympathy +with human nature and his deep knowledge of men and women are evident +throughout the story, so that the reader lives with his people, loves +with them, hates with them, rejoices with them, sorrows with them, and +in the end finds he is haunted by their memory. + + +CREPE DE CHINE + + By W. Edward Stirling. + Crown 8vo 3s. 6d. net. + +This is the novelization of the play by F. Brett Young and W. Edward +Stirling about to be produced in London and the provinces. + + +Recent Additions to Mills & Boon's List. + +By the Author of "The Mirrors of Downing Street." + +THE GLASS OF FASHION + +SOME SOCIAL REFLECTIONS. + + By "A Gentleman with a Duster." Second Edition. + Crown 8vo. 5s. net. + +The Spectator.--"... he is destined to light a match which in the future +may be used to light a candle that will illuminate our little corner of +the world. To hope more would be to hope too much. And yet how great, +how tremendous a destiny we are half-prophesying for our author!" + +Public Opinion.--"Few men have the vision, and the knowledge, and the +power to write books like this. The publishers' lists show that, and the +newspapers confirm it, and the pulpit proves it." + + +THE BOOK WHICH BECAME FAMOUS IN 24 HOURS. + + Daily Telegraph.--"A book with a soul." + Sunday Herald.--By "Someone really behind the scenes." + +THE MIRRORS OF DOWNING STREET + + By "A Gentleman with a Duster." + Fourteenth Edition. + Crown 8vo. 5s. net. + +The Times.--"A remarkable collection ... brilliantly written ... +knowledge, shrewdness and subtlety." + +Times Literary Supplement.--"Fresh, acute, intimate, and without +political bias." + +Daily Telegraph.--"Pungent and effective ... remarkably revealing ... a +book with a soul and a vivid purpose." + +Manchester Guardian.--"This nameless author who knows so much and writes +so well. The essays contain the most important contribution to the +knowledge and understanding of our age." + +Spectator.--"Not only brilliantly worded, but full of intuition." + +Morning Post.--"Wise and witty." + +Daily Graphic.--"Promises to be the most talked of book of the day." + +Evening News.--"He possesses the sure gift of portraiture." + +The Rt. Hon. C. F. G. MASTERMAN in the Sheffield Independent.--"Written +with sincerity and no personal advertisement." + +New York Herald.--"Of fascinating interest, with a style pungent and +epigrammatic. Does not contain a dull line." + +Baltimore Evening Sun.--"Truly a most brilliant book. An intellectual +treat." + + +MENTAL SELF-HELP + + By Edwin L. Ash, M.D., B.S., M.R.C.S. + Author of "The Problem of Nervous Breakdown." + Crown 8vo. 5s. net. + +Evening Standard.--"Dr. Ash is a specialist on the problem of nervous +breakdown. Incidentally, he is a literary man who possesses the rare +gift of being able to express profound knowledge in a simple manner. The +book is packed with directions for those who lack concentration of +mind." + +Sheffield Daily Telegraph.--"There is no nonsense about Dr. Ash's MENTAL +SELF-HELP. It is a stimulating, sensible book by a doctor who has +thoroughly studied his subject." + +Everyman.--"Never was it so necessary as at present to insist on the +influence of the mind on health, and this is the first work I have seen +which deals with the subject simply and practically." + + +MILLS & BOON'S RAMBLES SERIES + + With about 40 Illustrations and picture wrappers. + Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. + + "They teem with interesting information + about people and places."--Standard. + + RAMBLES ABOUT THE RIVIERA Frances M. Gostling. + RAMBLES AROUND FRENCH CHATEAUX Frances M. Gostling. + RAMBLES IN NORWAY Harold Simpson. + RAMBLES IN FLORENCE G. E. Troutbeck. + RAMBLES IN ROME G. E. Troutbeck. + RAMBLES IN IRELAND Robert Lynd. + RAMBLES IN THE NORTH YORKSHIRE DALES J. E. Buckrose. + RAMBLES IN THE BLACK FOREST I. A. R. Wylie. + + +THE CHILDREN'S STORY OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY + + By G. E. Troutbeck. + Illustrated. + Fourth Edition, revised. + Stiff paper cover, 2s. 6d. net. + Cloth, 5s. net. + +This popular book is again in print, and will appeal irresistibly to all +lovers of Westminster Abbey, and especially to the youthful mind. + + +HOW TO MAKE A FORTUNE OR THE ART OF GROWING MONEY. + + By One Who Has Grown It. + F'cap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. + +Bookseller.--"Full of wise counsel and useful hints, and specially aims +at how a fortune can be made from small beginnings." + +Times.--"Practical in how to begin and continue making money in +industrial business; on inventions; on how to make house property pay; +and how to deal successfully with stocks and shares." + + +LIFE WITHOUT MONEY + + By the Author of "Life Without Servants." + With a Coloured Wrapper. + F'cap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. + +Weekly Dispatch.--"Here the reflective, good-humoured father discourses +on the prevalent disease of Thingitis, the unnecessary dependence on +things which is the root of much present discontent and a great deal of +useless expenditure." + + +JESUS THE CARPENTER AND HIS TEACHING. + + By "A Working-Man" (Trade-Unionist). + F'cap. 8vo. 2s. net. + +The Socialist says:--"The Church--the Christian Church--every section of +it, will ban it and crucify the writer if they possibly can. This simple +little story is told gracefully and well." + +Times says:--"This little book is well worth reading, especially by +Ministers of Religion." + + +MILLS & BOON'S SPECIAL HALF-CROWN NOVELS + + 2s. 6d. net. + Bound, with Jackets and especially suited to Circulating + Libraries. + + THE SEAS OF GOD A. W. Armstrong. + TALES OF TWO CONTINENTS Robert Barr. + THE HELPING HAND Robert Barr. + CURIOUS HAPPENINGS Marjorie Bowen. + THE FOOL OF FORTUNE E. C. Buley. + A BIT AT A TIME Dion Clayton Calthrop. + THE HOOFSLIDE Anthony Carlyle. + THE DEVIL'S CHAPEL Sophie Cole. + THE CYPRESS TREE Sophie Cole. + A VARIETY ENTERTAINMENT Sophie Cole. + JOHN FITZHENRY Ella McMahon. + THE LOVE CHIT Maud Mallet. + ISLAND TALES Jack London. + TAKE JOY HOME S. C. Nethersole. + THE GENTLE BIGAMIST Horace W. C. Newte. + PANSY MEARES Horace W. C. Newte. + THE ROGUE'S PROGRESS Horace W. C. Newte. + THE SOCIALIST COUNTESS Horace W. C. Newte. + THE LOOSING OF THE LION'S WHELPS John Oxenham. + DOLLY AND HER DIARY "Pan." + THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN JACK Max Pemberton. + + +MILLS & BOON'S Cheap Popular Reprints + + +Bound with Picture Jacket. + + Crown 8vo. 4s. net. + (*) Marked thus are new volumes. + + (*)THE VALLEY OF THE MOON Jack London. + + +Bound with Picture Jacket. + + Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. + (*) Marked thus are new volumes. + + THE LADY FROM LONG ACRE Victor Bridges. + (*)THE MAN FROM NOWHERE Victor Bridges. + (*)MR. LYNDON AT LIBERTY Victor Bridges. + (*)THE MYSTERY OF GOLDEN LOTUS Louise Gerard. + (*)A SPANISH VENDETTA Louise Gerard. + (*)BEAUTIFUL END Constance Holme. + (*)THE SPLENDID FAIRING Constance Holme. + SMOKE AND SHORTY Jack London. + HEARTS OF THREE Jack London. + THE LITTLE LADY OF THE BIG HOUSE Jack London. + JERRY OF THE ISLANDS Jack London. + A DAUGHTER OF THE SNOWS Jack London. + (*)THE MUTINY OF THE ELSINORE Jack London. + (*)ISLAND TALES Jack London. + SPARROWS Horace W. C. Newte. + (*)THE LOCUST Joan Sutherland. + (*)THE SEA BRIDE Ben Ames Williams. + (*)BRODIE AND THE DEEP SEA I. A. R. Wylie. + + +Bound with Picture Jacket. + + Crown 8vo. 2s. net. + (*) Marked thus are new volumes. + + (*)FOOTLIGHTS Arthur Applin. + (*)WICKED Arthur Applin. + THE GREATER CLAIM Arthur Applin. + (*)MRS. O'H Harold Begbie. + THE DUCHESS, THE ARTIST, AND THE PICTURE BOOK Harold Begbie. + A LONDON GIRL Harold Begbie. + THE CRUISE OF THE SCANDAL Victor Bridges. + GOLDEN BARB'S VICTORY E. C. Buley. + THE LUCK OF MAPLEDOWN E. C. Buley. + (*)THE CYPRESS TREE Sophie Cole. + A LONDON POSY Sophie Cole. + THE LOITERING HIGHWAY Sophie Cole. + THE GATE OF OPPORTUNITY Sophie Cole. + THE HOUSE IN WATCHMAN'S ALLEY Sophie Cole. + THE PRIDE OF THE FANCY George Edgar. + DAYS OF PROBATION Louise Gerard. + LIFE'S SHADOW SHOW Louise Gerard. + FLOWER OF THE MOON Louise Gerard. + A TROPICAL TANGLE Louise Gerard. + THE VIRGIN'S TREASURE Louise Gerard. + THE WITCH CHILD Louise Gerard. + THE WAVES OF CIRCUMSTANCE Louise Gerard. + (*)THE CORAL PALACE Beatrice Grimshaw. + KRIS GIRL Beatrice Grimshaw. + GUINEA GOLD Beatrice Grimshaw. + CRUMP FOLK GOING HOME Constance Holme. + THE MYSTERY OF THE YELLOW ROOM Gaston Leroux. + THE RED ONE Jack London. + MICHAEL, BROTHER OF JERRY Jack London. + THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK Jack London. + THE HUMAN DRIFT Jack London. + WAR OF THE CLASSES Jack London. + REVOLUTION Jack London. + THE IRON HEEL Jack London. + THE ROAD Jack London. + THE JACKET Jack London. + THE NIGHTBORN Jack London. + JOHN BARLEYCORN Jack London. + A SON OF THE SUN Jack London. + ADVENTURE Jack London. + VOYAGING IN WILD SEAS Mrs. Jack London. + A WOMAN AMONG THE HEAD-HUNTERS Mrs. Jack London. + JACK LONDON AND HAWAII Mrs. Jack London. + JACK LONDON IN THE SOUTHERN SEAS Mrs. Jack London. + (*)THE FLY IN THE BOTTLE Maud Mallet. + AN ENGLISH GIRL IN PARIS Constance E. Maud. + MY FRENCH FRIENDS Constance E. Maud. + RED GOLD Roy Norton. + ANCIENT MARINERS Morley Roberts. + THE MADONNA OF THE BEECHWOOD Morley Roberts. + IN THE NIGHT Joan Sutherland. + THE DAWN Joan Sutherland. + THE EDGE OF EMPIRE Joan Sutherland. + BEYOND THE SHADOW Joan Sutherland. + FETTERED (Cophetua's Son) Joan Sutherland. + THE HIDDEN ROAD Joan Sutherland. + THE PRICE OF A SOUL Paul Trent. + AN UNKNOWN LOVER Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey. + GRIZEL MARRIED Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey. + BIG TREMAINE Marie Van Vorst. + (*)MARY MORELAND Marie Van Vorst. + ALL THE BROTHERS WERE VALIANT Ben Ames Williams. + THE TEMPLE OF DAWN I. A. R. Wylie. + THE DUCHESS IN PURSUIT I. A. R. Wylie. + THE SHINING HEIGHTS I. A. R. Wylie. + THE DAUGHTER OF BRAHMA I. A. R. Wylie. + THE RAJAH'S PEOPLE I. A. R. Wylie. + + +Picture Wrappers. + + Crown 8vo. 2s. net. + + DADDALUMS (the Novel of the Play) Arthur Applin. + ROMANCE (the Novel of the Play and Film) Acton Davies. + SPARROWS Horace W. C. Newte. + SIDELIGHTS Horace W. C. Newte. + + +Bound with Picture Jacket. + + F'cap 8vo. 1s. 6d. net. + + SMOKE BELLEW Jack London. + WHEN GOD LAUGHS Jack London. + BEFORE ADAM Jack London. + TURTLES OF TASMAN Jack London. + CHILDREN OF THE FROST Jack London. + LOST FACE Jack London. + THE GOD OF HIS FATHERS Jack London. + LOVE OF LIFE Jack London. + THE HOUSE OF PRIDE Jack London. + SOUTH SEA TALES Jack London. + THE SCARLET PLAGUE Jack London. + THE STRENGTH OF THE STRONG Jack London. + THE CRUISE OF THE DAZZLER Jack London. + AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH Jack London. + LOVE W. B. Trites. + + +Picture Wrappers. + + Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d. net. + + SHOP GIRLS Arthur Applin. + THE GIRL WHO SAVED HIS HONOUR Arthur Applin. + FOOTLIGHTS Arthur Applin. + A LONDON GIRL Harold Begbie. + THE RAINY DAY Harold Begbie. + CLOSED DOORS Harold Begbie. + PADDY DORAN E. C. Buley. + THE FLYING JOCKEY E. C. Buley. + CAN A MAN BE TRUE Winifred Graham. + A GOOD TIME Horace W. C. Newte. + THE LONELY LOVERS Horace W. C. Newte. + CALICO JACK Horace W. C. Newte. + PANSY MEARES Horace W. C. Newte. + LENA SWALLOW Horace W. C. Newte. + A PILLAR OF SALT Horace W. C. Newte. + RUTH, THE WOMAN WHO LOVED Horace W. C. Newte. + LOVE W. B. Trites. + + +Picture Wrappers. + + 1s. net. + + GOLDEN BARB'S VICTORY E. C. Buley. + THE LUCK OF MAPLEDOWN E. C. Buley. + LINED WITH RAGS Phyllis Campbell. + WHITE HEAT "Pan". + JOHN CAVE W. B. Trites. + + +FROM MILLS & BOON'S LIST + + +BY CHELSEA REACH + + By REGINALD BLUNT + With 24 Illustrations. + Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net + + +MY SOUTH AFRICAN YEAR + + By CHARLES DAWBARN + With 30 Illustrations from Photographs. + Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net + + +SOMERSET NEIGHBOURS + + By ALFRED PERCIVALL + Demy 8vo. 8s. 6d. net + + +ABRAHAM LINCOLN + + By FRANK ILSLEY PARADISE + With a Frontispiece. + Crown 8vo. 5s. net + + +THE STREET THAT RAN AWAY + + By ELIZABETH CROLY + With 4 Illustrations in Colour. + Crown 8vo. 5s. net + + +LETTERS TO MY GRANDSON ON THE WORLD ABOUT HIM + + By the Hon. STEPHEN COLERIDGE + Crown 8vo. 4s. net + + +SWITZERLAND IN WINTER + + By WILL and CARINE CADBY + With 24 Illustrations. + F'cap, 8vo. 4s. net + + + + +Burnley Express Printing Company Limited Burnley England + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LURE OF OLD LONDON*** + + +******* This file should be named 39932.txt or 39932.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/9/9/3/39932 + + + +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. 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