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diff --git a/75344-0.txt b/75344-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a1793c9 --- /dev/null +++ b/75344-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2325 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75344 *** + + + + + + “_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”--SHAKESPEARE. + + HOUSEHOLD WORDS. + + A WEEKLY JOURNAL. + CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. + + N^{o.} 306.] SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1856. {Price 2_d._ + {Stamped 3_d._ + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + BEEF. + ADVENTURES OF A RUSSIAN SOLDIER. + P.N.C.C. + LAVATER’S WARNING. + THE FRIEND OF THE LIONS. + THE MANCHESTER STRIKE. + THE HALL OF WINES. + THREE WIVES. + + + + +BEEF. + + +If I have a mission upon this earth, (apart from the patent and notable +one of being a frightful example to the rising generation of blighted +existence and misused energies)--that mission is, I believe, beef. +I am a Cœlebs, not in search of a wife, as in Mrs. Hannah More’s +white-neck-clothed novel, but in search of beef. I have travelled far +and wide to find it--good, tender, nourishing, juicy, succulent; and +when I die, I hope that it will be inscribed on my tombstone: “Here +lies one who sought for beef. Tread lightly on his grave: quia multum +amavit.” + +Next to the Habeas Corpus and the Freedom of the Press, there are +few things that the English people have a greater respect for and a +livelier faith in than beef. They bear, year after year, with the same +interminable unvarying series of woodcuts of fat oxen in the columns +of the illustrated newspapers; they are never tired of crowding to +the Smithfield Club cattle-show; and I am inclined to think that it +is their honest reverence for beef that has induced them to support +so long the obstruction and endangerment of the thoroughfares of the +metropolis, by oxen driven to slaughter. Beef is a great connecting +link and bond of better feeling between the great classes of the +commonwealth. Do not dukes hob and nob with top-booted farmers over +the respective merits of short-horns and Alderneys? Does not the noble +Marquis of Argentfork give an ox to be roasted whole on the village +green when his son, the noble Viscount Silvercorrel, comes of age? Beef +makes boys. Beef nerves our navvies. The bowmen who won Cressy and +Agincourt were beef-fed, and had there been more and better beef in +the Crimea a year ago, our soldiers would have borne up better under +the horrors of a Chersonesean winter. We feast on beef at the great +Christian festival. A baron of beef at the same time is enthroned +in St. George’s Hall, in Windsor’s ancient castle, and is borne in +by lacqueys in scarlet and gold. Charles the Second knighted a loin +of beef; and I have a shrewd suspicion that the famous Sir Bevis of +Southampton was but an ardent admirer, and doughty knight-errant in +the cause of beef. And who does not know the tradition that even as +the first words of the new-born Gargantua were “A boyre, à boyre,” +signifying that he desired a draught of Burgundy wine--so the first +intelligible sounds that the infant Guy of Warwick ever spake were, +“Beef, beef!” + +When the weary pilgrim reaches the beloved shores of England after a +long absence, what first does he remark--after the incivility of the +custom-house officers--but the great tankard of stout and the noble +round of cold beef in the coffee-room of the hotel? He does not cry “Io +Bacche! Evöe Bacche!” because beef is not Bacchus. He does not fall +down and kiss his native soil, because the hotel carpet is somewhat +dusty, and the action would be, besides, egregious; but he looks at the +beef, and his eyes filling with tears, a corresponding humidity takes +place in his mouth; he kisses the beef; he is so fond of it that he +could eat it all up; and he does ordinarily devour so much of it to his +breakfast, that the thoughtful waiter gazes at him, and murmurs to his +napkin, “This man is either a cannibal or a pilgrim grey who has not +seen Albion for many years.” + +By beef I mean, emphatically, the legitimate, unsophisticated article. +Give me my beef, hot or cold, roast, boiled, or broiled; but away with +your beef-kickshaws, your beef-stews, your beef-haricoes, your corned +beef, your hung beef, and your spiced beef! I don’t think there is +anything so contemptible, fraudulent, adulterine in the whole world (of +cookery) as a beef sausage. I have heard that it is a favourite dish +with pickpockets at their raffle-suppers. I believe it. There was a boy +at school with me in the byegone--a day-boy--who used to bring a clammy +brownish powder, in a sandwich-box, with him for lunch. He called +it powdered beef; and he ate this mahogany, sawdust-looking mixture +between slices of stale bread and butter. He was an ill-conditioned +boy who had begun the world in the face-grinding sense much too early. +He lent halfpence at usury, and dealt in sock (which was our slang for +surreptitious sweet-stuff); and I remember with what savage pleasure +I fell upon and beat him in the course of a commercial transaction +involving a four-bladed penknife he had sold me, and which wouldn’t +cut--no, not even slate-pencil. But the penknife was nothing more than +a pretext: I beat him for his beef. He had the ring-worm, and it was +bruited about afterwards that he was of Jewish parentage. I believe, +when he began life, he turned out but badly. + +I am reminded, however, that the subject of beef, as a British +institution, has already been treated at some length in this +journal.[A] I have merely ventured a few remarks on the bovine topic +generally, to preface the experiences I have to record of some recent +travels in search of beef I have made in the capital of France. One +might employ oneself better, perhaps, than in transcribing the results +of a week’s hankering after the flesh-pots of Egypt; and surely the +journey in search of bread is long and wearisome enough that we might +take beef as it comes, and thankfully. But, as I have said, beef is my +mission. I am a collector of bovine experiences, as some men collect +editions of Virgil, and some Raffaelle’s virgins, and some broadsides, +and some butterflies. And I know that there are moralities to be found +in beef as well as in the starry heavens and the vestiges of creation. + +[A] See Volume x. page 113. + +Let me first sum up all the knowledge I have acquired on the subject, +by stating my firm conviction that there is no beef in Paris,--I mean, +no beef fit to be eaten by a philobosopher. Some say that the French +cut their meat the wrong way; that they don’t hang it properly; that +they don’t hang it enough; that they beat it; that they overcook it. +But I have tasted infinite varieties of French beef; of the first, +second, and third categories. I have had it burnt to a cinder, and +I have had it very nearly raw. I have eaten it in private English +families resident in Paris, and dressed by English cooks. It is a +delusion: there is no beef in Lutetia. + +The first beef I tried in my last campaign was the evening I dined +at His Lorship’s. Don’t be alarmed, my democratic friend. I am not +upon Lord Cowley’s visiting list, nor are any coronetted cards ever +left at my door on the sixth storey. I did not receive a card from +the British Embassy on the occasion of the last ball at the Hôtel de +Ville; and I am ashamed to confess that, so anxious was I to partake +of the hospitality of the Prefect of the Seine (the toilettes and +the iced punch are perfect at his balls), that I was mean enough to +foreswear temporarily my nationality and to avail myself of the card +of Colonel Waterton Privilege of Harshellopolis, Mass.:--said colonel +being at that time, and in all probability exceedingly sick, in his +stateroom of the United States steamer Forked Lightning, in the middle +of the Atlantic ocean. But, by His Lorship’s I mean an Anglo-French +restaurant--named after a defunct English city eating-house--situate +near the Place de la Concorde, and where I heard that real English +roast beef was to be obtained at all hours in first-rate condition. + +Now, there is one thing that I do not like abroad; yea, two that are +utterly distasteful to me. The one thing is my countrymen’s hotels and +restaurants. These houses of refection I have usually found exceedingly +uncomfortable. So I was disposed to look somewhat coldly upon His +Lordship’s invitation, as printed upon placards, and stencilled on the +walls, till I was assured that his beef was really genuine, and that he +was an Englishman without guile. + +His Lordship’s mansion I found unpretending, even to obscurity. There +was no porte-cochère, no courtyard, no gilt railings, nor green +verandahs. His Lordship’s hotel was, in fact, only a little slice of +a shop, with one dining-room over it; for which I was told he paid an +enormous rent--some thousands of francs a-year. In his window were +displayed certain English viands pleasant to the sight: a mighty +beef-steak pie just cut; the kidney end of a loin of veal, with real +English stuffing, palpable to sight; some sausages that might have +been pork, and of Epping; some potatoes in their homely brown jackets, +just out at elbows, as your well-done potatoes should be, with their +flannel under-garments peeping through; and a spherical mass, something +of the size and shape of a bombshell, dark in colour, speckled black +and white, and that my beating heart told me was a plum-pudding. A +prodigious Cheshire cheese, rugged as Helvellyn, craggy as Criffell, +filled up the background like a range of yellow mountains. At the base +there were dark forests of bottles branded with the names of Allsopp, +and Bass, and Guinness, and there were cheering announcements framed +and glazed, respecting Pale Ale on draught, L.L. whisky, and Genuine +Old Tom.[B] I rubbed my hands in glee. “Ha! ha!” I said internally. +“Nothing like our British aristocracy, after all. The true stock, sir! +May His Lordship’s shadow never diminish.” + +[B] Our gallant allies have yet much to learn about our English +manners and customs. Only the other night, in the Foyer of the Grand +Opera, I saw (and you may see it there still if you are incredulous) a +tastefully enamelled placard, announcing that “genuine Old Tom” was to +be had at the Buffet. Imagine Sir Harcourt Courtley asking the Countess +of Swansdown, in the crush-room of Covent Garden Theatre, if she would +take half a quartern of gin! + +His Lordship’s down-stairs’ apartment was somewhat inconveniently +crowded with English grooms and French palefreniers, and with an +incorrigible old Frenchman, with a pipe as strong as Samson, a +cap, cotton in his ears, and rings in the lobes thereof, who had +learnt nothing of English but the oaths, and was cursing some very +suspicious-looking meat (not my beef, I hope) most energetically. +I have an opinion that stables and the perfume thereof are pretty +nearly analogous the whole world over; so, at the invitation of a +parboiled-looking man in a shooting-jacket and a passion (who might +have been His Lordship himself for aught I knew), I went up-stairs. +There was an outer chamber, with benches covered with red cotton +velvet, and cracked marble tables, like an indifferent café; where some +bearded men were making a horrible rattle with their dominoes, and +smoking their abominable cigars (surely a course of French cigars is +enough to cure the most inveterate smoker of his love for the weed). +This somewhat discomposed me; but I was fain to push forward into the +next saloon where the tables were laid out for dining; and taking my +seat, to wait for beef. + +There was myself and a black man, and his (white) wife, the Frenchman +with the spectacles, and the Frenchman with the bald head (I speak +of them generically, for you are sure to meet their fellows at every +public dining-table abroad), the poor old Frenchman with the wig, the +paralytic head and the shaking hands that trifle with the knives and +forks, as though they were red-hot. There were half-a-dozen other sons +of Gaul; who, with their beards, cache-nezs, and paletôts, all made to +pattern, might have been one another’s brothers; two ancient maiden +ladies, who looked like English governesses, who had passed, probably, +some five-and-thirty years in Paris, and had begun to speak a little +of the language; a rude young Englishman, who took care to make all +the company aware of the coarseness of his birthplace; an English +working engineer, long resident abroad, much travel-worn, and decidedly +oily, who had a voice like a crank, and might have been the identical +engineer that Mr. Albert Smith met on the Austrian Lloyd’s steamer; and +a large-headed little boy, with a round English jacket, who sat alone, +eating mournfully, and whom I could not help fancying to be some little +friendless scholar in a great French school, whose jour de sortie it +was, and who had come here to play at an English dinner. The days be +short to thee, little boy with the large head! May they fly quickly +till the welcome holidays, when thou wilt be forwarded, per rail and +boat, to the London Bridge station of the South Eastern Railway, to be +left till called for. I know from sad experience how very weary are the +strange land and the strange bed, the strange lessons and the strange +playmates, to thy small English heart! + +A gaunt, ossified waiter, with blue black hair, jaws so closely shaven +that they gave him an unpleasant resemblance to the grand inquisitor of +the holy office in disguise seeking for heretics in a cook-shop, and +who was, besides, in a perpetual cold perspiration of anger against the +irate man in the shooting jacket below, and carried on fierce verbal +warfare with him down the staircase. This waiter rose up against me, +rather than addressed me, and charged me with a pike of bread, cutting +my ordinarily immense slice from it. I mildly suggested roast beef, +wincing, it must be owned, under the eye of the cadaverous waiter; who +looked as if he were accustomed to duplicity, and did not believe a +word that I was saying. + +“Ah! rosbif!” he echoed, “bien saignant n’est ce pas?” + +Now, so far from liking my meat “bien saignant” I cannot even abide the +sight of it rare, and I told him so. But he repeated “bien saignant,” +and vanished. + +He came again, though; or rather his Jesuitical head protruded +itself over the top of the box where I sat (there were boxes at His +Lordship’s) and asked: + +“Paint portare? p’lale? ole’ ale?” + +I was nettled, and told him sharply that I would try the wine, if he +could recommend it. Whereupon there was silence, and then I heard a +voice crying down a pipe, “Paint portare!” + +He brought me my dinner, and I didn’t like it. It was bien saignant, +but it wasn’t beef, and it swam in a dead sea of gravy that was not to +my taste; fat from strange animals seemed to have been grafted on to +the lean. I did not get on better with the potatoes, which were full +of promise, like a park hack, and unsatisfactory in the performance. I +tried some plum-pudding afterwards; but, if the proof of the pudding +be in the eating, that pudding remains unproved to this day; for, when +I tried to fix my fork in it, it rebounded away across the room, and +hit the black man on the leg. I would rather not say anything about +the porter, if you please; and perhaps it is well to be brief on the +subject of the glass of hot gin-and-water I tried afterwards, in a +despairing attempt to be convivial; for it smelt of the midnight-lamp +like an erudite book, and of the midnight oilcan, and had the flavour +of the commercial terebinthium, rather than of the odoriferous +Juniperus. I consoled myself with some Cheshire cheese, and asked the +waiter if he had the Presse. + +“Ze Time is gage,” he answered. + +I did not want the Times. I wanted the Presse. + +“Sare,” he repeated wrathfully, “Ze Time is gage. Le Journal Anglais +(he accentuated this spitefully) is gage.” + +He would have no further commerce with me after this; and, doubtlessly +thinking that an Englishman who couldn’t eat his beef under-done or +indeed at all, and preferred the Presse to the Times newspaper, was an +outcast and a renegade, abandoned me to my evil devices, and contented +himself with crying “Voila!” from the murky distance without coming +when I called. He even declined to attend to receive payment, and +handed me over for that purpose to a long French boy in a blouse, whose +feet had evidently not long been emancipated from the pastoral sabots, +whose hair was cropped close to his head (in the manner suggesting +county gaol at home, and ignorance of small toothcombs abroad), and who +had quite a flux of French words, and tried to persuade me to eat civet +de lièvre that was to be served up at half-past seven of the clock. + +But I would have borne half a hundred disappointments similar to +this dinner for the sake of the black man. Legs and feet! he was a +character! He sat opposite to me, calm, contented, magnificent, proud. +He was as black as my boot, and as shiny. His woolly head, crisped +by our bounteous mother Nature, had unmistakeably received a recent +touch of the barber’s tongs. He was perfumed; he was oiled; he had +moustaches (as I live!) twisted out into long rats’-tails by means of +pommade Hongroise. He had a tip. He had a scarlet Turkish cap with a +long blue tassel. He had military stripes down his pantaloons. He had +patent leather boots. He had shirt-studs of large circumference, pins, +gold waistcoat-buttons, and a gorgeous watch-chain. I believe he had a +crimson under-waistcoat. He had the whitest of cambric handkerchiefs, a +ring on his forefinger, and a stick with an overpowering gold knob. He +was the wonderfullest nigger that the eye ever beheld. + +He had a pretty little English wife--it is a fact, madam--with long +auburn ringlets, who it was plain to see was desperately in love +with, and desperately afraid of, him. It was marvellous to behold the +rapt, fond gaze with which she contemplated him as he leaned back in +his chair after dinner, and refreshed his glistening ivories with a +toothpick. Equally marvellous was the condescension with which he +permitted her to eat her dinner in his august presence, and suffered +her to tie round his neck a great emblazoned shawl like a flag. + +Who could he have been? The father of the African twins; the Black +Malibran’s brother; Baron Pompey; Prince Mousalakatzic of the Orange +River; Prince Bobo; some other sable dignitary of the empire of Hayti; +or the renowned Soulouque himself, incognito? Yet, though affable +to his spouse, he was a fierce man to the waiter. The old blood +of Ashantee, the ancient lineage of Dahomey, could ill brook the +shortcomings of that cadaverous servitor. There was an item in the +reckoning that displeased him. + +“Wass this sa?” he cried, in a terrible voice; “wass this, sa? Fesh +your mas’r, sa!” + +The waiter cringed and fled, and I laughed. + +“Good luck have thou with thine honour: ride on ----” honest black man; +but oh, human nature, human nature! I would not be your nigger for many +dollars. More rib-roasting should I receive, I am afraid, than ever +Uncle Tom suffered from fierce Legree. + +I have not dined at His Lordship’s since--I would dine there any day +to be sure of the company of the black man--but I have more to say +about Beef. + + + + +ADVENTURES OF A RUSSIAN SOLDIER. + + +I was inscribed as a sergeant of the Séménofski guards at a very early +age. I was entrusted to the care of one of my father’s serfs, named +Savéliitch. He taught me to read and write, and was very indignant +when he learned that a Frenchman was to be conveyed back to the estate +with the annual provision of wine and oil from Moscow. “Nobody can say +that the child has not been well fed, well combed, and well washed,” +murmured old Savéliitch; “why then spend money on a Frenchman, while +there are plenty of native servants in the house!” + +M. Beaupré came and engaged himself to teach me French, German, and +all the sciences; but he made me teach him my native language, and +taught me many things that did me little good. He was fond of brandy, +and was, as I was told, too ardent an admirer of ladies. I remember +only that one day, when my respected tutor was lying upon his bed in a +hopeless state of drunkenness, and I was cutting up a map of Moscow for +a kite, my father entered the room, boxed my ears, and turned moussié +out of the house, to the great joy of Savéliitch, and to my sorrow. My +education being thus brought to a sudden close, I amused myself until I +had completed my sixteenth year, in playing at leap-frog, and watching +my mother make her exquisite preparations of honey, when one day my +father said to my mother: + +“Avdotia Vassiliéva, what age is Pétroucha?” + +“He has just entered his seventeenth year. Pétroucha was born the same +year that Nastasia Garasimova lost her eye, and--” + +“Well, well,” my father replied, “he starts for his regiment to-morrow.” + +My mother burst into tears, and I jumped for joy. + +“Don’t forget, André Pétrovitch,” said my mother to my father, who was +writing my letter of introduction, “to remember me to Prince B----, and +to bid him show every kindness to Pétroucha.” + +“Pétroucha is not going to St. Petersburg,” my father replied. I was +heart-broken. I had dreamed of nothing but St. Petersburg. When my +father had finished the letter, he turned to me and said: + +“This letter is addressed to André Karlovitch, my old companion in +arms. He is at Orenberg, and you will join him there.” The kibitka was +at the door. The servants had stowed away in it a tea-service, and +pies of different sorts tied up in cloths. My parents gave me their +blessing. My father said to me, “Good bye, Pierre; serve your Empress +with fidelity; obey your superiors, don’t seek favours from them; and +remember the proverb, ‘Take care of your coat while it is new, and +of your honour while it is white.’” A hare-skin touloup, or cape, was +thrown about me, and over it a fox-skin cloak. Thus equipped, I took my +seat in the kibitka, and left my parents, accompanied by Savéliitch. + +We arrived that night at Simbirsk, where I committed my first folly +by losing one hundred roubles at billiards, while Savéliitch was out, +executing some orders from home with which he had been entrusted. I +lost this sum to Ivan Lowrine, a captain of hussars. On this occasion +I also became intoxicated for the first time. Savéliitch hastened my +departure the following morning, and reluctantly paid my losses. I +promised him that, henceforth, I would not spend a single kopek without +his consent. + +We travelled rapidly; and, as we approached our destination, the +country became a measureless waste, covered with snow. Presently, the +coachman, taking off his hat, asked me anxiously whether we should not +return; and, pointing to a white cloud far in the east, said, “That is +the bourane!” + +I had heard of the bourane, and I knew that it sometimes buried whole +caravans of travellers. I knew it to be a tremendous cloud of snow, out +of which few people, once fairly in it, ever made their way. But this +one seemed to me to be a long way off, so I told the coachman to drive +forward. We went at full gallop. The wind rose rapidly, however; the +little white cloud became a huge moving snow mountain; very fine flakes +began to fall about us; then the wind howled, and in a few minutes we +could not see an inch beyond our noses. It was, in truth, the bourane. +The horses stopped; the snow began to bury us; Savéliitch began to +scold; the coachman played nervously with the horses’ harness--and no +house could be seen. We had begun to believe we should be soon buried +alive, when we suddenly perceived a black object near us, which we were +afraid was a wolf, but which turned out to be a man. We asked our way; +he replied that he knew the country under ordinary circumstances, but +could not distinguish anything then. Suddenly he cried, “Turn to the +left--there you will find a house: I smell the smoke.” + +The coachman managed to whip the horses into unusual exertion, and we +presently reached a hut lighted by a loutchina (a deal stick which +serves for a candle). The ornaments of the little room into which we +were ushered were a carbine and a Cossack hat. The Cossack host got us +some tea; and then I inquired for a guide. Some one called out from a +recess that he was cold, for he had pawned his touloup the day before, +for brandy. I offered him a cup of tea, and he advanced to drink it. He +was a remarkable fellow in appearance: tall, with very broad shoulders. +He wore a black beard, and short hair; his eyes were restless and +large; the expression of his face was, at times agreeable, at times +malicious. He preferred brandy to tea; and, having held a mysterious +conversation with the host, he retired for the night. I did not like +the look of affairs; the hut was in the middle of the steppe--very +lonely, and very like the meeting-place for thieves. + +But we were not robbed; and, the following morning, as we left to +proceed on our journey, I gave my hare-skin touloup, much against my +servant’s wish, to the guide who had led us to the house. The guide +was grateful, and promised that if ever he could be of service to +me I should be served. At that time the promise seemed sufficiently +ridiculous. + +We arrived without further adventure at Orenberg, where I presented +my letter to the general, who received me kindly, and then sent +me to serve, under the orders of Captain Mirinoff, in the fort of +Bélogorsk. This did not please me. The fort was a wretched little +village, surrounded by palisades. I stopped before a little wooden +house, which, I was informed, was the commandant’s. I entered. In +the antechamber I found an old man, seated upon a table, occupied in +sewing a blue patch upon one of the elbows of a green uniform. He +beckoned me into the inner chamber. It was a clean little room, with +an officer’s commission, neatly framed, hanging against the wall, and +rude prints surrounding it. In one corner of the room an old lady, with +a handkerchief bound round her head, was unwinding some thread from +the hands of a little old man with only one eye, who wore an officer’s +uniform. The old lady, on seeing me, said: + +“Ivan Kourmitch is not at home; but I am his wife. Be good enough to +love us, and take a seat, my little father.” + +I obeyed, and the old lady sent for her subaltern, the ouriadnik. While +the servant was gone, the lady and the officer both questioned me, and +judged that it was for some offence that I was sent to Bélogorsk. The +lady informed me that Chvabrine, an officer at Bélogorsk, had been sent +thither for duelling. The ouriadnik appeared, and was a fine specimen +of a Cossack officer. + +“Quarter Piote Andréïtch,” said the old lady, “upon Siméon Kouroff. The +fellow let his horse break into my garden.” + +These, my quarters, looked out upon the dreary steppe. The next +morning a little fellow, with a remarkably vivacious appearance, +came to see me. I found that he was Chvabrine, the duellist. His +lively conversation amused me, and we went together that day to the +commandant’s house to dinner. As we approached it I saw about twenty +little old invalids, wearing long tails, and three-cornered hats, +ranged in order of battle. The commandant, a tall, hale old man, +dressed in a cotton nightcap and a morning gown, was reviewing this +terrible force. He spoke some civil words to me, and we left him to +complete his military duties. When we arrived at his house, we found +the old one-eyed man and Palachka laying the cloth. Presently, the +captain’s daughter, Marie, made her appearance. Chvabrine had described +her to me as a very foolish person. She was about sixteen years of age, +had a fine fresh colour, and was very bashful. + +I did not think much of her that day. She blushed terribly when her +mother declared that all she could bring her husband in the way +of wealth was a comb and a few kopeks. We talked chiefly of the +possibility of standing a siege from the Bachkirs; and the commandant +declared that if such a siege occurred he would teach the enemy a +terrible lesson. I thought of the twenty invalids, and did not feel +quite so confident on the subject. + +Ivan Kourmitch and his wife Vassilissa were very kind to me, and +received me as one of the family. I liked the little one-eyed officer; +I became more intimate with Marie. + +Father Garasim and his wife Akoulina I was also glad to meet, almost +daily, at the commandant’s house. But I soon disliked Chvabrine. He +talked lightly and slightingly of Marie, and even of Vassilissa. One +day, however, I read to him some amorous verses I had written; he saw +at once, and truly, that they were addressed to Marie. He ridiculed +them mercilessly, and told me that if I wished to win the love of Marie +I had only to give her a pair of ear-rings. I flew into a passion, and +asked him how he dared to take away the character of the commandant’s +daughter. He replied, impertinently, that he spoke of her from +personal experience. I told him to his teeth that he lied. He demanded +satisfaction. + +I went to the one-eyed officer--whom I found threading mushrooms for +Vassilissa--to ask him to act as second. But he declined. In the +evening I was at the commandant’s house; and thinking that night that +it might be my last, as my duel with Chvabrine was to be early on the +morrow, Marie appeared dearer to me than ever. Chvabrine came, and +behaved so insolently that I could hardly wait until the morrow. + +I was to my time, the next morning, behind a haystack; Chvabrine was +also punctual. We had just stripped our coats off, when the one-eyed +officer appeared with five invalids, and marched us off in custody. + +Vassilissa ordered us to give up our swords, and told Palachka to take +them up into the loft; for, in truth, Vassilissa was the commandant +of Bélogorsk. She then ordered Ivan Kourmitch to put us in opposite +corners of the rooms, and to feed us on bread and water until we +repented. Marie was very pale. After a stormy discussion, however, our +swords were restored to us, and I parted with my adversary: feigning +reconcilement, but secretly agreeing to meet again when the affair had +quite blown over. The next night I had an opportunity of talking alone +with Marie Ivanovna; and I learned from her--how she blushed as she +told me!--that Chvabrine had proposed marriage to her, but that she had +refused him. This information explained to me the fellow’s measured +scandal. I burned to meet him again. + +I had not to wait long. The next day, as I was biting my pen, thinking +of a rhyme in an elegy I was composing, the very fellow tapped at my +window. I understood him; seized my sword; engaged with him; and fell +presently--wounded in the shoulder, and insensible. + +When I became once more conscious, I found myself in a strange bed, +Savéliitch by my side, and--Marie Ivanovna also. She asked me tenderly +how I felt? Savéliitch, faithful fellow, cried out: + +“Thanks to Heaven he recovers, after four days of it!” + +But Marie interrupted him, and begged him not to disturb me with his +loud exclamations. I seized her hand, and she did not withdraw it. +Presently I felt her burning lips upon my forehead. I asked her then to +become my wife. She begged me to calm myself, if only for her sake, and +left me. + +Although the barber of the regiment was my only medical adviser, I soon +recovered. I and Marie were engaged; but she doubted whether my parents +would consent. This doubt I could not help sharing; but the letter I +wrote to my father on the subject appeared to both of us so tender and +convincing, that we felt certain of its success, and gave ourselves up +to the happy dreams of lovers. + +I found that Chvabrine was a prisoner in the corn-warehouse, and that +Vassilissa had his sword under lock and key. I obtained his pardon +from the captain; and, in my happiness at tracing his wretched calumny +to offended pride, forgave him. My father, in answer to my appeal, +refused my prayer, and informed me that I should soon be removed from +Bélogorsk. He also wrote to Savéliitch, and called him “an old dog,” +for not having taken better care of me. + +I went straight to my mistress. She was bitterly distressed, but +adjured me to follow the will of Heaven, and submit. She would never +marry me, she declared, without the benediction of my parents, and from +that day she avoided me. + +This was towards the end of the year seventeen hundred and +seventy-three. The inhabitants of the vast and fertile province of +Orenberg had only lately acknowledged the sovereignty of the Czar, and +were yet discontented, and full of revolutionary ideas. Every month +some little insurrection bubbled up. To suppress this harassing state +of things, the imperial government had erected fortresses in various +parts of the province, and quartered therein Cossack soldiers. These +Cossacks in their turn became turbulent; and the severe measures +adopted by General Traubenberg to reduce the army to obedience ended +in his cruel murder, and a rising that cost much blood. By severe +imperial punishments this rising had been suppressed; and it was only +some time after my arrival at Bélogorsk that the authorities perceived +how ineffectual their cruel punishments had been. + +One evening when I was sitting alone in my room, thinking of doleful +things, I was sent for by the commandant. I found him in consultation +with Chvabrine, Ivan Ignatiitch, and the ouriadnik of the Cossacks. +Neither Marie nor her mother appeared. The subject of our conference +was the rising of the Cossacks under Pougatcheff, and his assumption +of the style and title of Peter the Third. The commandant had received +orders to be on his guard; and, if possible, to exterminate the enemy. +Putting on his spectacles, he began to bustle about, and to issue +orders to have the cannon cleaned; and to have the Cossacks kept true +to the imperial cause. + +The ouriadnik had already deserted to the rebel’s camp. A Bachkir +had been taken prisoner, with seditious papers upon his person. This +prisoner, had been bound and secured in the commandant’s loft; and it +was resolved that he should be conducted before us, and be subjected to +the torture, in order to extract from him a description of his leader’s +strength. + +The commandant had scarcely ordered the Bachkir into his presence, +when Vassilissa rushed into the chamber, and cried out that the rebels +had taken the fortress of Nijnéosern, had hanged all the officers, and +were now marching upon Bélogorsk. I thought of Marie, and trembled; +but my energy increased with the occasion, and I at once advised +the commandant to send the ladies to Orenberg. But Vassilissa would +not hear of this. She declared that she would live and die with +her husband, but that she thought Marie should be sent away; and +that evening--the last Marie might possibly spend at Bélogorsk--the +supper-table was surrounded by gloomy faces; and no face I think, was +gloomier than mine. We parted early, but I contrived to forget my +sword, that I might have an excuse for returning to bid Marie good-bye +alone. When I returned, I clasped her in my arms; she sobbed bitterly; +and thus we parted. I went home, and, without undressing myself, lay +down to sleep. + +I was aroused by the entrance of the corporal, who came to announce +to me that the Cossack soldiers had all deserted the fortress, and +that bands of strange men surrounded us. I thought, with horror, that +Marie’s retreat was cut off. Having given some necessary orders to the +bearer of this unwelcome news, I hurried off to the commandant’s house, +as the day was dawning. On the way I was met by Ivan Ignatiitch, who +told me that the commandant was already upon the ramparts, and that +it was too late for the commandant’s daughter to be safely conveyed +to Orenberg. Terribly agitated, I followed the one-eyed officer to +that little eminence protected by a pallisade, which was the only +fortification of Bélogorsk. The captain was arranging his soldiers +in order of battle. In the dreary distance of the steppe, I could +plainly see the Cossacks and the Bachkirs. The commandant ordered Ivan +Ignatiitch to point the cannon upon the enemy, and the soldiers all +vowed that they would fight to the death. + +Presently, as the enemy began to advance in a compact mass, Vassilissa, +accompanied by Marie, who would not leave her mother, appeared, to know +how affairs stood. Marie’s pale face was turned upon me, and I burned +to prove to her that I had a brave spirit worthy of her love. In the +midst of the advancing enemy, Pougatcheff, the renowned rebel leader, +could be distinguished, mounted upon a white horse. In a few minutes +four horsemen advanced from the main body, and rode close up to the +ramparts. They were four traitors from the fortress. They called upon +us not to resist. The captain replied by a volley which killed one +of the four, and the rest rode back to join the advancing army. The +balls now began to whistle about us; and at this moment the commandant +ordered Vassilissa and Marie to withdraw. The old man blessed his +child, embraced his wife, and bade her put a sarafan upon Marie, lest +she should require it; the sarafan being the rich robe in which the +dead are buried. The pale girl came back to make to me the sign of a +last farewell, and then went away with her mother. + +The fall of the fortress was soon accomplished. Our soldiers would not +fight (though they had very much affected me when they swore to do +it), but threw down their arms after the first assault. We were taken +prisoners, and dragged by the triumphant rebels through the streets, to +an open place, where Pougatcheff was seated surrounded by his officers. +He was handsomely dressed; and, as I caught a glimpse of his face +through the crowd, I thought it was one I had seen before. Pougatcheff +ordered the commandant to swear fidelity to him as his lawful czar. +Ivan Kourmitch replied with a defiance. Pougatcheff fluttered a white +handkerchief in the air, and in a few moments our poor commandant was +swinging from a gibbet. Ivan Ignatiitch shared his commander’s fate: +and then my turn came. I was ready to follow my brave brother officers; +when Chvabrine, who had found time to cut his hair short and provide +himself with a Cossack caftan, to desert to the enemy, whispered +something in the chief’s ear. Pougatcheff, without looking at me, said, +“Hang him at once!” + +The rope was round my neck, and my thoughts were with Heaven, when I +was suddenly released. I found that Savéliitch had thrown himself at +the chief’s feet, and told him that a large sum would be paid for my +ransom. I was put aside, and remained a horrified spectator of the +scenes which ensued. A Cossack killed Vassilissa with his sword, at +the foot of her husband’s gibbet, and then Pougatcheff went to Father +Garasim’s to dinner. I rushed to the commandant’s house to find Marie; +there every room had been ransacked. Presently, however, I found +Palachka, and she told me that the commandant’s daughter was at Father +Garasim’s house. Wild with terror I rushed thither, for it was to be +the scene of Cossack revels. I asked for the father’s wife; and she +told me that she had passed Marie off as her niece. The poor girl was +safe. I returned home hastily, passing groups of rebels engaged in the +work of pillage. + +Savéliitch asked me whether I did not remember Pougatcheff. I did not. +He was surprised; and reminded me of the drunken fellow to whom I had +given my touloup on my way to Orenberg. He was right; that drunken +wanderer was now the successful rebel-chief, and I understood the mercy +that had been extended to me. But I was much troubled. I could not +make up my mind to leave Marie; yet I knew that my duty to my country +forbade me to remain in the midst of a rebel camp. While I was thinking +deeply of these opposite calls upon my conduct, a Cossack arrived +to take me once more before his chief, at the commandant’s house, +where I found Pougatcheff seated at a table covered with bottles, and +surrounded by eight or ten Cossack officers. The wine had already +excited them. Chvabrine and the rebel ouriadnik, who had deserted with +the Cossacks from the fort, were of the party. + +Pougatcheff welcomed me heartily, and bade his officers make place +for me at the banqueting table. I sat down in silence. Here, on the +previous night, I had taken leave of Marie. + +All were on good terms and quite free with their chief. A march upon +Orenberg having been arranged, the officers retired. I was about to +follow them, when Pougatcheff bade me remain. When we were alone, he +burst into a fit of laughter; telling me he had spared me because of my +kindness to him when he was hiding from his enemies, and that now, if I +would serve him, he would heap favours upon me. He asked me to tell him +frankly whether or not I believed him to be the Czar. I was firm, and +told him that he was too clever to believe me, even if I were capable +of telling him a lie to serve my purpose. He promised to make me +field-marshal if I would remain with him. I replied that I had sworn to +serve the Empress; and that, if he wished to do me a favour, he would +provide me with an escort to Orenberg. I told him that my life was in +his hands, but that I would neither serve him nor promise not to bear +arms against him. He behaved well, and said I should be free. + +Next morning I found Pougatcheff surrounded by his officers, throwing +money to the crowd. He beckoned me to approach, told me to leave +instantly for Orenberg, and to tell the garrison to expect him in a +week. If they threw open the gates to him they would be well treated: +if they resisted they must expect terrible consequences. He then turned +to the crowd, and, to my horror, presented Chvabrine to them as their +future governor! Chvabrine! Marie’s traducer! + +When Pougatcheff had left the square, I hastened to Father Garasim’s +house to learn that Marie was in a fever and quite delirious. I rushed +to her room--how changed she was! She did not know me. How could I +leave the poor orphan at Bélogorsk while Chvabrine remained governor? +Suddenly, however, I thought that I might make all haste to Orenberg +and return with a strong force, drive the rebels away, and claim my +bride. I seized the poor girl’s burning hand, kissed it, took leave of +her good protectors, and was soon on my way, determined not to lose a +moment. + +As we approached Orenberg we saw the state prisoners with their shaven +heads and disfigured faces, hard at work upon the fortifications. I was +conducted direct to the general, who was lopping the fruit trees in the +garden. I related to him the misfortunes of Bélogorsk, and pressed for +help. He replied that there would be a council of war in the evening, +and that he would be happy to see me at it. I was there punctually. +A cup of tea was given to each guest, after which the general called +upon all present to deliberate upon the state of affairs. The question +was, should the Imperial troops act on the offensive or defensive? +He declared that he should require an opinion from each individual; +and, as usual, he should begin by asking the opinion of the junior +officers. He then turned to me. I stated that the rebels were not in +a condition to resist a disciplined army, and therefore urged the +propriety of acting vigorously on the offensive: hereupon a little +civil functionary, who was taking his third cup of tea with the help of +an admixture of rum, suggested that operations should be confined to an +offer of seventy or one hundred roubles for the head of Pougatcheff. +Every voice was for defensive measures; and, when all present had +delivered their opinions, the general, tapping the ashes out of his +pipe, declared that he was of the same opinion as the ensign. I looked +proudly about me; but the conclusion of the general’s speech turned +the triumph to the side of my opponents, for this gallant old soldier +declared that he could not assume the responsibility of acting against +the decision of the majority; therefore, preparations must be made for +a siege, and we must depend upon the fire of the artillery, and the +force of vigorous sorties. I returned to my quarters in a state of +wretched despondency. Poor Marie! + +Pougatcheff was true to his message. He appeared before Orenberg +with a considerable force, and the siege lasted long--with various +fortune--until the people within the walls were almost starving. One +day when some of our cavalry had dispersed a strong body of Cossacks, +I was about to dispatch a loiterer with my Turkish sword, when he +raised his hat and saluted me by name. I recognised the ouriadnik of +Bélogorsk. He had a letter for me--I tore it open--it was from Marie. +It informed me that she was the forced occupant of Chvabrine’s house, +and that within three days she would be compelled to marry him or be at +his mercy. The girl implored me to fly to her succour. + +Almost mad, I spurred my horse, rode at full gallop to the general’s +house, threw myself without ceremony into his room, and asked him to +give me a battalion of soldiers and fifty Cossacks to drive the rebels +out of Bélogorsk. The old soldier began to argue the matter coolly. +This exasperated me, and I told him that the daughter of our late +valiant commander was in the hands of Chvabrine, and that he was about +to force her to marry him. The general thought that she might be very +happy with him for a time, and that afterwards, when he had shot him on +the ramparts of Orenberg, it would be time enough for me to marry the +charming widow. There was no hope of softening the old man. I wandered +away in despair. Out of this despair, grew a desperate resolution. + +I resolved to leave Orenberg and go alone to Bélogorsk. Savéliitch +tried in vain to dissuade me from my purpose, but without effect. I +mounted my horse and rode briskly past the sentinels, out of Orenberg, +followed by my faithful servant: who was mounted upon a lean horse, +which one of the besieged had given him, having no more food for it. We +rode hard; but night had closed in when we approached the great ravine +where the main body of the rebels, under Pougatcheff, were encamped. +Suddenly four or five lusty fellows surrounded me. I struck at the +first with my sword--putting spurs to my horse, at the same time, and +so escaped; but Savéliitch was overpowered, and, returning to help +him, I was overpowered too, and through the darkness of that terrible +night, led before the rebel chief that his guard might know whether +they should hang me at once or wait till daylight. I was conducted at +once to the isbâ, which was called the czar’s palace. This imperial +hut was lighted by two tallow candles, and was furnished like any +common isbâ, except that the walls were finely papered. Pougatcheff, +surrounded by his officers, recognised me at once, and bade all his +attendants retire, except two, one of whom was a prisoner escaped from +Siberia. This man’s face was hideously disfigured; his nose had been +cut off, and his forehead and cheeks branded with red-hot irons. I told +my business frankly, and Pougatcheff declared that the oppressor of +the orphan should be hanged. But his officers dissuaded him, and one +of them suggested that he should try the effects of a little torture +upon me. Pougatcheff then questioned me as to the state of Orenberg; +and, although I knew that the people were dying of hunger, I declared +that it was excellently provisioned. This reply suggested to one of +the chief’s confidential friends, the propriety of having me hanged, +as an impertinent liar. But Pougatcheff was a generous enemy, and made +me declare to him that the commandant’s daughter was my betrothed, and +then he bade his officers prepare supper for us, saying that I was an +old friend of his. I would have willingly avoided the festivity, but it +was impossible; and I saw two little Cossack girls enter to spread the +cloth, sadly enough. I ate my fish soup almost in silence. + +The festivity was continued until all present were more or less +intoxicated, and until Pougatcheff had fallen asleep in his seat. I +was then conducted to the place in which I was to sleep, and was there +locked up for the night. On the following morning I found a crowd +surrounding a kibitka, in which Pougatcheff was seated. He beckoned +me to a seat beside him, and to my astonishment shouted to the stout +Tartar driver, “To Bélogorsk!” The kibitka slipped quickly over the +snow. In a few hours I should see my beloved Marie. + +We drew up, after a rapid journey, before the old commandant’s house. +Chvabrine hastened out to meet his sovereign; but was troubled when +he saw me. Pougatcheff entered the house, drank a glass of brandy, +then asked about Marie. Chvabrine said she was in bed. His chief then +ordered the traitor to conduct us to her room. The fellow did so, but +hesitated at her door,--pretended to have lost the key--then said that +the girl was delirious. Pougatcheff forced the door with his foot; +and, to my inexpressible horror I saw my dear betrothed lying upon +the floor, in coarse peasant clothing, with bread and water before +her. She shrieked when she saw me. Pougatcheff asked her what her +husband had been doing to her; but she replied vehemently that she was +not his wife, and never would be. Pougatcheff turned furiously upon +Chvabrine, and Chvabrine, to my disgust, fell upon his knees at the +rebel chief’s feet. Then Pougatcheff told Marie that she was safe; but +she recognised in him the murderer of her father and closed her eyes in +horror. However, he made Chvabrine write a safe-conduct for Marie and +me through all the provinces under the control of his followers; and +then he went out to inspect the fortifications. I was left alone, and +presently Marie came to me, with a smile upon her pale face, dressed in +her own becoming clothes. + +We enjoyed the tenderness of our meeting for a time in silence; but +presently I told her my plan--how that it was impossible for her +to accompany me to Orenberg, where starvation was playing terrible +ravages;--how I had arranged that Savéliitch should conduct her to my +father’s house. Remembering my father’s letter, she hesitated; but, at +length, my arguments prevailed. In an hour my safe-conduct arrived. + +We followed in a few hours, travelling in an old carriage that had +belonged to Marie’s father, Palachka being in attendance upon Marie. +A little after nightfall we arrived at a small town which we believed +to be in the possession of the rebels; but, on giving Pougatcheff’s +pass-word to the sentinels, we were instantly surrounded by Russian +soldiers, and I was hurried off to prison. I demanded an interview +with the commanding officer; but this was refused; and I was told the +major had ordered Marie to be taken to him. Blind with fury, I rushed +past the sentinels direct into the major’s room, where I found him +gambling with his officers. In a moment I recognised him,--as the +commander--Lowrine, who had lightened my purse at Simbirsk. + +He received me with a hearty greeting, and began to rally me about my +travelling companion; but my explanations quieted his raillery, and he +went to make his excuses to Marie for his rude message, and to provide +her with the best lodging the town afforded. I supped with Lowrine +that night, and agreed to do my duty, by joining his troop at once, +and sending my betrothed on to Simbirsk, under the care of Savéliitch. +Savéliitch had many objections, but I overpowered them; and Marie shed +many tears, but I kissed them away before we parted. + +The vigorous operations of the following spring brought many reverses +to Pougatcheff; at last he was taken. I jumped for joy. I should +clasp my beloved Marie once more in my arms. Lowrine laughed at my +extravagant delight. + +I was about to depart for my father’s house when Lowrine entered my +room, and showed me an order for my arrest, and safe conveyance to +Kazan, to give evidence against Pougatcheff. This drove me nearly mad +with disappointment. There was no evasion to be thought of, and I was +escorted on my way to Kazan, between two hussars with drawn swords. I +found this place almost in ashes. Here I was at once placed in irons, +and locked up in a wretched cell. But my conscience was tranquil, for +I had resolved to tell the simple truth about my transactions with +Pougatcheff. + +On the day after my arrival I appeared before the council. In reply +to the questions of my judges--who were evidently prejudiced against +me--I told every fact as it had occurred, until I came to Marie, when +I suddenly thought that to name her would be to ruin her. I hesitated +and was silent. I was then confronted with another prisoner--Chvabrine! +He lied my life away; swore that I had been a spy in the service of +Pougatcheff, and we were both conducted back to prison. + +Meantime, my father had received Marie kindly, and both my parents +soon loved her. She explained to them the innocence of my connexion +with the rebel chief, and they laughed at my adventures; until one day +they received a letter from their relation, Prince Banojik, telling +them that I had been convicted; but that, through his interference, my +punishment was commuted to perpetual exile in Siberia. + +My parents were stricken with grief, and Marie, with the soul of a +heroine, started with Palachka and the faithful Savéliitch for St. +Petersburg. She heard that the Court was at the summer palace of +Tzarskoïé-Selo; and, with the assistance of the wife of a tradesman +who served the Empress, gained access to the Palace gardens. Here she +met a very agreeable lady, to whom she told her story, mentioning how +I suffered because I would not even divulge her own name to exculpate +myself. This lady listened attentively, and then promised to take care +that the petition on my behalf should be presented to the Empress. A +few hours afterwards, Marie was summoned before the Empress herself, in +whom she recognised the lady she had met in the garden, and I received +my pardon; the Empress being convinced that I was innocent. + +Shortly afterwards, we were married.[C] + +[C] This story forms the substance of the most popular prose fiction +of the Russian poet Pouschkin, who died in eighteen hundred and +thirty-nine. He was historiographer to the Emperor Nicholas. + + + + +P.N.C.C. + + +The thing which drove me from my late purchase of Longfield Hall in +Cumberland--after nine months’ trial,--back to town, has been a dead +secret, until this present writing. My friends have found a mine of +reasons to explain the circumstance: either the county families refused +to visit us; or our income was not more than enough to maintain our +lodge-keeper; or my eldest daughter had made love to the surgeon’s +young man at Nettleton; or I could not get on without my billiards and +my five to two at whist; or I had been horse-whipped by Lord Wapshaw +for riding over his hounds. There was more behind the curtain than +people thought; and a thousand other good-natured explanations. + +The actual facts are these: We arrived in Cumberland at the close +of last autumn, and were as happy for some months as the days were +long--and the days were very long indeed; everybody was kind and +hospitable to us, and, on our parts, my port became a proverb and my +daughters a toast. It was “Blathers, come and take pot-luck,” from +almost any neighbour I fell in with on my walks; or, “Mr. Blathers, +we see nothing of your good wife and family,” from the archdeacon’s +lady, though we had been dining at the Cloisters three times within +the fortnight; or “Lord and Lady Wapshaw have the----” but, no; the +forms of familiarity, through which the high nobility communicate with +their intimates, should not be lightly quoted. In a word, then, I was a +popular man and “an accession to the county.” + +In the early spring time I began to feel the country gentleman’s first +grief; it came over with the swallows and, like them, never left +my roof. Two of my acquaintances--men I had never esteemed as evil +genii--rode over on an April day to Longfield; Sir Chuffin Stumps +and Biffin Biffin of the Oaks; they were unusually cordial--quite +empressés, my wife subsequently observed--to all of us, and after +luncheon they desired to have some conversation with me in my study; +that is the apartment wherein I keep my Landed Gentry, my stomach-pump +(a capital thing to have in a country-house), and my slippers, and +thither my two guests were ushered. + +“It has always been the custom, my dear Blathers,” said the baronet, +“for the tenant of Longfield Hall to be the president of the Nettleton +Cricket-club; that we should offer, that he should accept that honor, +is due to his position in the county” (and indeed there was scarcely +a flat piece of ground big enough to play upon in all the district, +except in my paddock, I well know). “Lather, your predecessor, was +president; Singin was president before him; the Longfields of Longfield +were presidents time out of mind; and you--Blathers--you will be +president now?” + +“Of course you will,” agreed Biffin. + +“But, my dear sirs,” said I, “what shall I have to do?--what will be my +duties, my--” + +“Do!--nothing at all,” interrupted Sir Chuffin Stumps, “positively +nothing; you have no duties, only privileges; let us have your ground +to play upon; dine with us on Wednesdays in the tent, and on the great +match-days; give a crust of bread and a shakedown to a swell from +any long distance, now and then; you sit at the head of the festive +board--your health is drunk continually--you are appealed to upon +all the nice points of the game, and your decision is final. It’s a +splendid post!” + +“Splendid!” echoed Biffin. + +“But I have not played at cricket for this thirty years,” I urged. “I +don’t know the rules. I couldn’t see the ball, if you were to give me +all creation. I’m as blind as a bat.” + +“Ha, ha, very good,” laughed the baronet. “A bat--d’ye see, Biffin,--a +bat? Blathers will do, depend upon it; he’ll keep the table in a roar. +As for the game, Mr. President, it’s just what it used to be--round +instead of under, that’s all; and they cut a good deal oftener and stop +much less, perhaps, than they used to do.” + +“Dear me,” said I, “then there’s not so many of them as there were, I +suppose?” + +“And as for near-sight,” pursued Sir Chuffin, “play in spectacles. +Bumpshus, our great wicket-keeper, he plays in spectacles; Grogram, +your vice-president, he plays in spectacles; it’s considered rather an +advantage than otherwise to play in spectacles.” + +“Certainly,” echoed Biffin, “it’s a great advantage.” + +“So good-bye, Blathers,” said both gentlemen rising; “the first of May +is our meeting day, and the tent must be up and everything arranged, +of course, by that time; but Grogram will write and let you know every +particular.” + +And that was how I was made P.N.C.C., almost without a struggle. + +In the course of a week I received a letter from Grogram, saying that +there would be no difficulty whatever about anything; he would settle +about the dining-tent, and the dressing-tent, and the cooking-tent, +and I should only have the contracts for food and the wine-tasting +to manage; the hiring of a bowler, the cutting and rolling of the +grass. The coming matches for the year--I should, of course, arrange +about myself; and I must be sure, he wrote, to let all the members +of the club know of the day of meeting, and all the playing members +of every match-day, and to dun Lord Wapshaw for his two years’-due +subscriptions, as the treasurer didn’t like to--with some other little +matters; and, by the bye, did I happen to have my cricket toggery +complete yet? as, if not, he (Grogram) could let me have a registered +belt almost for nothing, because he had grown out of it, he was sorry +to say, himself; also some improved galvanised india-rubber leg-guards, +and some tubular batting-gloves, and a catapult--remarkably cheap. +The postscript said, “of course you will come out in flannels and +spike-soles.” + +I really thought when I first read this letter that I should have +died with anxiety. I showed it to Mrs. Blathers, and she fairly burst +into tears, and it was hours before we could either of us look our +difficulties calmly in the face. Flannels! I had at that moment upon +my person the only description of flannel garment which I possessed--a +jerkin coming down no distance at all, and not to be dreamt of as a +reception-dress to the club and half the county upon the first of +May; spike-soles I did happen to have, being a skater, and set them +out accordingly; but what possible use a pair of skates could be for +cricket I could not imagine. The rest of the things I sent to Grogram +for, who accommodated me with them very good-naturedly for fifteen +pounds fifteen shillings. I put them all on--one way and another--but +could make no use of the catapult, except to sit in it, and my youngest +child had convulsions, because, she sobbed, Pa looked so like that +dreadful diver who lived in the pond at the Polytechnic. + +I issued all the circulars, and signed myself the obedient servant of +two hundred and forty-six strange gentlemen. I set my gardener and my +coachman to roll out the cricket-ground. I tasted the bad sherry of +the three Nettleton wine-merchants, and made two of them my enemies +for life. My advertisements for a bowler were answered by a host of +youths, with immense professions and very limited employment; some were +from Lord’s, some from the Oval, “the Maribun know’d him well enough,” +averred one young gentleman; another--with a great hollow in his hand +from constant practice--affirmed, that “if I wanted hart, there I had +it, and no mistake;” by which he meant that Art was enshrined in his +proper person--and him I chose. + +The first of May was as the poets love to paint it: the white tents +glittered in sunshine, and the flags fluttered from their tops to a +gentle breeze; the wickets were pitched upon the velvet sward, a fiddle +and cornopean, concealed in the shrubbery, welcomed every arrival with +See the Conquering Hero Comes; and the president’s heart beat high +with the sense of his position. I was attired in my full diving-dress, +over the Nettleton uniform, and I held a bat in my right hand. The +sides were chosen, and the game began; the carriages of the nobility +and gentry formed a brilliant circle round the ground; a flying ball, +struck by a hand more skilful than common, gave their situation the +least touch of peril to enhance it. I myself was placed at one of the +wickets, and my new bowler was placed opposite to me; he and I had +practised together for a day or two, and he knew the balls I liked. I +sent the sixth out to the left with a great bang, to the admiration +of all but Grogram--who is a person of saturnine disposition--and got +three runs; alas! the unprofessional Wilkins--the swiftest round-hand +in the club--then inherited the mission of my destruction by bowling +to me; the whizz of his balls absolutely took away my breath, and, if +they had struck me, would doubtless have taken away my legs. But I +placed the bat resolutely in the earth, and cowered behind it as well +as I could manage. At last, after a warning cry of Play!--about as +inappropriate a name as he could have called it--a tornado seemed to +sweep past me, followed by a smack as of the resistance of flesh, and +the wicket-keeper ejaculated “Out!” to my infinite joy. + +Then came the happy time of cricket. The danger of the thing being +over for that whole innings, you have nothing to do but to lie on the +ground with a cigar, and explain how you had intended to have caught +that ball, and hit it between long field off and cover point; when +you holloa out, “Butter-fingers!” and “Wide!” and “Run it out!” My +happiness, however, was but of short duration; the new bowler delivered +his deadly weapon against the rest in a manner he had known better +than to practise upon me. Wilkins, too, seemed to derive new strength +from every bail he struck towards the sky, and reaped the air with +that tremendous arm of his more terribly than ever. In an hour and +twenty minutes, we were fagging out on our side. The president had his +choice of places; and, having observed that the wicket-keepers had +either stopped the balls, or much diminished their velocity before they +arrived at long-stop, I declared for that happy post. Alas! this was +the case no longer. Swift as thought, and infinitely more substantial, +the balls rushed with unabated fury beside me; hardly, by leaping into +the air, and stretching my legs very wide apart, could I escape the +fearful concussion. “Stop ’em! Stop ’em!” screamed the fielders. “Why +the deuce don’t he stop ’em?” bawled old Grogram, indignantly. So I +waited my opportunity, watching, hat in hand, till one came slower +than usual; and then I pounced upon him from behind, as a boy does on +a butterfly. The crown of my hat was carried away, indeed, but the +missile could not force its way through my person, and I threw it up +to the man that hallo’d for it most in triumph; but my reputation as a +cricketer was gone for ever. + +At dinner I was comparatively successful. Lord Wapshaw was on my right; +Sir Chuffin Stumps on my left; two long lines of gentlemen in flannels +were terminated, perspectively, by Grogram, opposite; the archdeacon +said grace; my new bowler assisted in waiting at table; and everything +was upon the most gorgeous scale. Presently, however, the rain came +down in torrents, and, in spite of the patent imperviousness of the +tent, as vouched for by the vice-president, some umbrellas had to be +borrowed from the hall (which were never returned). After dinner, there +was a friend of his lordship to be ballotted for, and I distributed +the little balls, as directed, and sent round the box. The rule of +exclusion was one black ball in ten. There were four black balls to +thirty white balls, and I had to publish the fact to all present. + +“My friend black-balled, sir?” said the irascible peer. “Impossible! +Did you do it?--did you?--did you?” he asked of everybody successively, +amidst roars of laughter at his utter want of appreciation of the +fundamental end and aim of the institution of vote by ballot. “There +must be some mistake, sir,” said he, when they had each and all +declined to satisfy such an extraordinary enquiry. “Mr. Blathers, try +them again.” + +This time there were four white balls to thirty black ones, a +melancholy result which I had also to announce. His lordship left the +tent--the marquee, somebody observed--like a maniac; and, though I +swear I did not blackball his man, he never asked me to Hiltham Castle +again from that day to this. + +Now the season had begun, I became inundated with letters from the +presidents of other cricket-clubs, requesting the N.C.C. to play them +on some particular day; which, if it suited Wilkins, was invariably +inconvenient to Grogram, and if it pleased Grogram, was sure to be the +worst in the year for all the rest. So we were requested to name our +own day, in a flippant, skittle-playing, come-on-when-you-like sort of +manner, throwing upon me still greater responsibilities. The end of it +was that the Levant club came to Nettleton, eat our dinner, drank our +wine, and beat us; but refused to play a return match, or to give us +any dinner whatever. Swiftly Downham, Esq., the man who has a European +reputation as mid-wicket-on, honoured us by his company at Longfield +“for a couple of nights,” as he bargained, and stayed a fortnight, +smoking regularly in the best bedroom. Swiper, the professional +batsman, also favoured us, and left me a cotton pocket-handkerchief +with a full-length portrait of himself, in exchange, I hope--or else +it was robbery--for a plain white silk one of my own. A whole school +came over from Chumleyborough to play us, and nine of them took up +their quarters at the hall. Fresh from toffey and gingerbeer as they +were, I was fool enough to give them a champagne supper, of which +the consequences were positively tremendous. They were all of them +abominably ill, and the biggest boy kissed my daughter Florence, +mistaking her, as he afterwards stated in apology, for one of the maids. + +Wednesday, on which the club met, became my dark day of the week, and +cast its shadow before and behind it; it was then that I made feud with +Wilkins, by deciding that his balls were wide, and exasperated Grogram +by declaring his legs were before wicket. I should not have known how +these things were, even could I have seen so far; but I gave judgment +alternately, now for the ins and now for the outs, with the utmost +impartiality. One fine afternoon my own and favourite bowler absconded +with about a dozen of the best bats, quite a forest of stumps, and a +few watches belonging to the members of the N.C.C.; this was the drop +too much that made my cup of patience overflow. I determined to resign, +and I did resign. + +Staying at Longfield Hall any longer, having ceased to be the +president, I felt was not to be thought of, so I disposed of it. I +wrote a cheque for a lot of things, embraced Grogram (whom I dearly +love), and left the club my catapult. My last act of office was to +appoint another bowler--a black man. He does capitally, Wilkins +writes; only--from his having been selected by me from a band of +tumblers, I suppose--he will always bowl from under his left leg. + + + + +LAVATER’S WARNING. + + + Trust him little who doth raise + To the same height both great and small, + And sets the sacred crown of praise, + Smiling, on the head of all. + + Trust him less who looks around + To censure all with scornful eyes, + And in everything has found + Something that he dare despise. + + But for one who stands apart, + Stirr’d by nought that can befall, + With a cold indifferent heart, + Trust him least and last of all. + + + + +THE FRIEND OF THE LIONS. + + +We are in the Studio of a friend of ours, whose knowledge of +all kinds of Beasts and Birds has never been surpassed, and to +whose profound acquaintance with the whole Animal Kingdom, every +modern picture-gallery and every print-shop, at home and abroad, +bears witness. We have been wanted by our friend as a model for a +Rat-catcher. We feel much honored, and are sitting to him in that +distinguished capacity, with an awful Bulldog much too near us. + +Our friend is, as might be expected, the particular friend of the +Lions in the Zoological Gardens, Regent’s Park, London. On behalf of +that Royal Family dear to his heart, he offers--standing painting away +at his easel, with his own wonderful vigour and ease--a few words of +friendly remonstrance to the Zoological Society. + +You are an admirable society (says our friend, throwing in, now a +bit of our head, and now a bit of the Bulldog’s), and you have done +wonders. You are a society that has established in England, a national +menagerie of the most beautiful description, and that has placed it +freely and in a spirit deserving of the highest commendation within the +reach of the great body of the people. You are a society rendering a +real service and advantage to the public, and always most sensibly and +courteously represented by your excellent Mitchell. + +Then why (proceeds our friend), don’t you treat your Lions better? + +In the earnestness of his enquiry, our friend looks harder than usual +at the Bulldog. The Bulldog immediately droops and becomes embarrassed. +All dogs feel that our friend knows all their secrets, and that it +is utterly hopeless to attempt to take him in. The last base action +committed by this Bulldog is on his conscience, the moment our friend +fixes him. “What? You did, eh?” says our friend to the Bulldog. The +Bulldog licks his lips with the greatest nervousness, winks his red +eyes, balances himself afresh on his bandy forelegs, and becomes a +spectacle of dejection. He is as little like his vagabond self, as that +remarkable breed which the French call a bouledogue. + +Your birds (says our friend, resuming his work, and addressing himself +again to the Zoological Society), are as happy as the day is--he was +about to add, long, but glances at the light and substitutes--short. +Their natural habits are perfectly understood, their structure is +well-considered, and they have nothing to desire. Pass from your birds +to those members of your collection whom Mr. Rogers used to call, “our +poor relations.” Of course I mean the monkeys. They have an artificial +climate carefully prepared for them. They have the blessing of +congenial society carefully secured to them. They are among their own +tribes and connexions. They have shelves to skip upon, and pigeon-holes +to creep into. Graceful ropes dangle from the upper beams of their +sitting-rooms, by which they swing, for their own enjoyment, the +fascination of the fair sex, and the instruction of the enquiring minds +of the rising generation. Pass from our poor relations to that beast, +the Hippopotamus--What do you mean? + +The last enquiry is addressed, not to the Zoological Society, but to +the Bulldog, who has deserted his position, and is sneaking away. +Passing his brush into the left thumb on which he holds his palette, +our friend leisurely walks up to the Bulldog, and slaps his face! +Even we, whose faith is great, expect to see him next moment with the +Bulldog hanging on to his nose; but, the Bulldog is abjectly polite, +and would even wag his tail if it had not been bitten off in his +infancy. + +Pass, I was saying (coolly pursues our friend at his easel again), +from our poor relations to that impersonation of sensuality, the +Hippopotamus. How do you provide for him? Could he find, on the banks +of the Nile, such a villa as you have built for him on the banks of the +Regent’s canal? Could he find, in his native Egypt, an appropriately +furnished drawing-room, study, bath, wash-house, and spacious +pleasure-ground, all en suite, and always ready? I think not. Now, I +beseech your managing committee and your natural philosophers, to come +with me and look at the Lions. + +Here, our friend seizes a piece of charcoal and instantly produces, on +a new canvas standing on another easel near, a noble Lion and Lioness. +The Bulldog (who deferentially resumed his position after having +his face slapped), looks on in manifest uneasiness, lest this new +proceeding should have something to do with him. + +There! says our friend, throwing the charcoal away, There they are! The +majestic King and Queen of quadrupeds. The British Lion is no longer +a fictitious creature in the British coat of arms. You produce your +British Lion every year from this royal couple. And how, with all the +vast amount of resources, knowledge, and experience at your command, +how do you treat these your great attractions? From day to day, I +find the noble creatures patiently wearing out their weary lives in +narrow spaces where they have hardly room to turn, and condemned to +face in the roughest weather a bitter Nor’-Westerly aspect. Look at +those wonderfully-constructed feet, with their exquisite machinery for +alighting from springs and leaps. What do you conceive to be the kind +of ground to which those feet are, in the great foresight of Nature, +least adapted? Bare, smooth, hard boards, perhaps, like the deck of a +ship? Yes. A strange reason why you should choose that and no other +flooring for their dens! + +Why, Heaven preserve us! (cries our friend, frightening the Bulldog +very much) do any of you keep a cat? Will any of you do me the favour +to watch a cat in a field or garden, on a bright sunshiny day--how she +crouches in the mould, rolls in the sand, basks in the grass, delights +to vary the surface upon which she rests, and change the form of the +substance upon which she takes her ease. Compare such surfaces and +substances with the one uniform, unyielding, unnatural, unelastic, +inappropriate piece of human carpentery upon which these beautiful +animals, with their vexed faces, pace and repace, and pass each other +two hundred and fifty times an hour. + +It is really incomprehensible (our friend proceeds), in you who should +be so well acquainted with animals, to call these boards--or that +other uncomfortable boarded object like a Mangle with the inside taken +out--a Bed, for creatures with these limbs and these habits. That, a +Bed for a Lion and Lioness, which does not even give them a chance of +being bruised in a new place? Learn of your cat again, and see how +_she_ goes to bed. Did you ever find her, or any living creature, go to +bed, without re-arranging to the whim and sensation of the moment, the +materials of the bed itself? Don’t you, the Zoological Society, punch +and poke your pillows, and settle into suitable places in your beds? +Consider then, what the discomfort of these magnificent brutes must be, +to whom you leave no diversity of choice, no power of new arrangement, +and as to whose unchanging and unyielding beds you begin with a form +and substance that have no parallel in their natural lives. If you +doubt the pain they must endure, go to museums and colleges where the +bones of lions and other animals of the feline tribe who have lived in +captivity under similar circumstances, are preserved; and you will find +them thickly encrusted with a granulated substance, the result of long +lying upon unnatural and uncomfortable planes. + +I will not be so pressing as to the feeding of my Royal Friends +(pursues the Master), but even there I think you are wrong. You may +rely upon it, that the best regulated families of Lions and Lionesses +don’t dine every day punctually at the same hour, in their natural +state, and don’t always keep the same kind and quantity of meat in the +larder. However, I will readily waive that question of board, if you +will only abandon the other. + +The time of the sitting being out, our friend takes his palette +from his thumb, lays it aside with his brush, ceases to address the +Zoological Society, and releases the Bulldog and myself. Having +occasion to look closely at the Bulldog’s chest, he turns that model +over as if he were made of clay (if I were to touch him with my little +finger he would pin me instantly), and examines him without the +smallest regard to his personal wishes or convenience. The Bulldog, +having humbly submitted, is shown to the door. + +“Eleven precisely, to-morrow,” says our friend, “or it will be the +worse for you.” The Bulldog respectfully slouches out. Looking out of +the window, I presently see him going across the garden, accompanied by +a particularly ill-looking proprietor with a black eye--my prototype I +presume--again a ferocious and audacious Bulldog, who will evidently +kill some other dog before he gets home. + + + + +THE MANCHESTER STRIKE. + + +There can be no doubt that the judgment to be formed upon a strike +among the operatives in a great factory district, if it is to be worth +anything, must be based upon a more difficult chain of reasoning than +usually goes to the consideration of irregularities in the appointed +course of trade. Perfectly free competition regulates all prices, it +is said; and, in most callings, regulates with certainty the price +of labour. A self-adjusting power is introduced by it into the usual +machinery of commerce. So far as regards labour, the working of it is +that, as a rule, every man goes where he can get most value for such +work as he can best perform; and every man who wants labour will, to +the extent his capital allows, vie with his neighbours in attempting +to secure to his service the best labour he can meet with of the +sort he wants. That is the ordinary course of trade. Only the true +price stands, and that price being the lowest by which men of average +capabilities find that they can live, a poor trade entails secret +hardships; middling trade a bare subsistence; and none but a very brisk +trade affords chance of wealth. So it is with the price of skilled +labour; but, with the price of unskilled labour, it is scarcely so. In +each class of men possessing special capabilities, there is a given +number only, and the aim of each of their employers is to do what he +can towards securing for himself, out of that number, the best. For +the absolutely unskilled, there can be no competition when a mass +of the population, ignorant and in sore need, is pressing forward +to receive a dole of such work as it can perform; or, if there be a +competition, it is of an inverse kind--a struggle among thousands for +the food of hundreds; each striving by the most desperate offer of +cheap labour--sometimes even an hour’s work for a farthing--to secure a +portion of the necessary subsistence. + +Skilled labour is, with but few exceptions, subject to an inevitable +law, with which employer and employed alike must be content to bring +their operations into harmony. But, with unskilled labour, the +compulsion set on the employer is in no proportion to that set on +the employed. Wages in that case are not regulated by a just regard +to the fair relations between capital and labour; the question among +competitors being not who shall, by paying most, attract the most +efficient class of servants, and secure the heartiest assistance; +but who shall, by paying least, take most advantage of the necessity +of people who are struggling for the chance of only a few crumbs +of the bread of independence. It thus becomes notorious enough how +it is that cheap articles are produced out of the lifeblood of our +fellow-creatures. The evil can only be corrected now, by the direct +interference of our consciences. Unwholesomely cheap production is a +perversion of the common law of trade which will in course of time be +blotted out by the advance of education; and there can never be in this +country a glut of intelligence and skill, although we may soon have a +glut of ignorance. Parallel with the advance of mind, there will run +the advance of mind-work, and the diffusion of a right sense of its +value will be increased. + +Thus it will be seen, that while we believe with all our hearts in +the wholesomeness of the great principle of free competition--regard +nothing as so really helpful to the labourer, so sure to beget healthy +trade and bring out all the powers of the men engaged in it--we do +see that there is in society one class, and that a large one, upon +which, when men look, they may believe that competition is an evil. The +truth is, that the existence of that class, so helpless and so much +neglected, is the evil to remove; but while it remains--as wholesome +meat may kill a man with a disease upon him--there is an unsound body +hurt by it, requiring, O political economist! spoon-meat and medicine, +not the substantial bread and beef which doubtless theory can prove +and experience affirm, to be the best of nourishment for human bodies. +There are fevers among bodies politic as among bodies corporal, and +we are disposed to think that half the difficulties opposed to a +distinct and general perception of the truths which our economists have +ascertained, depend upon the fact that they have not yet advanced--so +to speak--from a just theory of nutrition to the formation of a +true system of therapeutics. That which will maintain health is not, +necessarily, that which will restore it. Often it happens that a +blister or a purge, though it would certainly make sound men sick, will +make the sick man whole. May it not also be that what is ruinous to +all sound trade shall hereafter come to be known as a social medicine +possessed, in certain cases, of a healing power, and applicable +therefore to some states of disordered system? We believe that a great +many discrepancies of opinion may be reconciled by a view like this. +Its justice is hardly to be questioned; although, as to the particular +applications of it, there is room for any amount of discussion. + +Thus, in the case of the Manchester strike, the workmen--though not +of the unskilled class--may state that they are unable to feel the +working of the principle of competition; that if they do not get what +pay they like at one factory, they are not practically at liberty to +get the value of their labour in another. Even the population of one +mill, thrown out of work, is too large and too special, as to the +nature of the various kinds of skill possessed among its people, to +be able to find anything like prompt absorption into other factories; +but as masters almost always act in groups for the determination of +wages, it is the population, not of one mill, but that of five or six, +that becomes discontented; and the best proof of the fact that it is +practically unable to better itself even though higher wages may be +given elsewhere is, that it does not better itself. There is a curious +and decided variation in the rates of wages paid in various factories +and manufacturing towns; variations artificially increased by strikes, +but the existence of which shows, at any rate, to the satisfaction +of the operatives, that rates may be arbitrary, and that the natural +law does not work easily in their case which brings the price of any +article to its just, uniform level. The Manchester masters point out +to their men other masters who pay less than they pay; the operatives +point on the other hand, to masters paying more. But it is not in +their power to carry their own labour to those masters, as it ought +to be, for a free working of the principle of competition. Mechanical +and accidental difficulties stand completely in the way, and they are +aggravated on both sides by habits of imperfect combination. It is +just to state these difficulties, and to show that the instinct of the +operative may not be altogether reprehensible when it suggests to him +that against the worst uneasiness which he feels in the system to which +he belongs, a blister or a bloodletting, in the shape of a strike, is +the best remedy. He may be very wrong, as a man is apt to be wrong when +doctoring himself. There is an excuse for his quackery in the fact that +he has, at present, no physician to call in. + +The difficulties of the case, as it is felt by employers and employed +in our manufacturing districts, is aggravated, as we have said, by +imperfect combinations; for, between the trades’ unions and the +masters’ associations there is, in truth, a perfect unity of interest. +They who reduce the master’s capital, reduce his power of employing +labour; they who wrong the labourer by whom they live, reduce his will +and power to do work. At present, men and masters are in many cases +combatants, because they never have been properly allies; they have not +been content to feel that they are fellow-workers, that the man at the +helm and the man at the oars are both in the same boat, and that the +better they agree together, the more likely they will be to weather out +a storm. + +In the case of the existing strike at Manchester, we have read +carefully the manifestoes, replies, and counter-replies that have been +passing between the opposed bodies for the purpose of being laid before +the public; and the fact made in them of all others most manifest +is--that the points raised in them are points that ought to have been +raised very many months ago; discussed and understood between the +masters and the men before the strike, and for the prevention of the +strike. + +Upon the precise points in dispute we cannot undertake to give a +definite opinion. From each party to the quarrel we get half a case, +and the halves are not such as the public easily will know how to +unite into a distinct whole. Rates of wages, as we have already said, +do not appear to be uniform, and while the masters in Manchester +desire, as we think, most fairly and properly, to bring a certain +class of wages, raised unduly by strikes, to its just and natural +rate, pointing to some other place in which the rate is low, the men +point to a place where the rates are higher than at Manchester, and +say, Come let us strike an average between the two. The offer is +refused. It may be necessarily and wisely refused. There are evidently +many accessory considerations that affect the nominal day’s wages in +this place and that. To the public out of Lancashire it cannot be +explained fully by manifestoes. Between masters and men, if they were +in any habit of maintaining a right mutual understanding it ought +not to be possible that any controversy about them could be pushed +to the extremity of open breach. The spinners on strike head one of +their documents with the last words of Justice Talfourd: “If I were +asked what is the greatest want in English society to mingle class +with class, I would say in one word, the want of sympathy.” Most +true; but need we say that there is sympathy due from workmen towards +employer, as well as from employer towards workmen? It is essential to +a correction of the evil thus stated that the operative should either +generously be the first to give up hostile prejudices, or that at +the least he should be altogether prompt to second, heart and soul, +every attempt of the master to establish a relation of good-will and +confidence with him. Men rarely quarrel except through what is wisely +called--misunderstanding. + +There is some reason that we will not undertake to give, which causes +Lancashire, although by no means the only British factory district, to +be the district most afflicted by misunderstandings. Nowhere else are +the masters so much obstructed by the dictatorial spirit of the men; +nowhere else is the law so much interfered with, by the dictatorial +spirit of the masters. In Scotland, Yorkshire, and the west of England, +masters and men work generally well together, and the law is more or +less obeyed; machinery, for instance, not being, as a rule, obstinately +left unfenced. + +Many pages of this journal have been devoted already to the +discouragement of strikes. We have urged invariably that the one +perfect remedy against them is the opening up of more and better +opportunities of understanding one another, between man and master. In +case we may be supposed to be ignorant of the feelings about which we +reason, let it be known that every thought--almost every word--upon +this subject given in the paragraphs that follow will be the thought or +word, not of a speculative person at a distance, but of a Lancashire +millowner. At the time of the disastrous Preston strike, a Preston +manufacturer, whose men stood by him honestly and well, published at +Manchester, a little pamphlet;[D] which, if its counsel had been taken, +would assuredly have made the present strike of Manchester impossible. +Mr. Justice Talfourd’s last words, placed lately by the men above their +manifesto, was then chosen as a motto by the masters. Coming, this +gentleman wrote, into Lancashire from a district where good feeling +subsisted between the employer and the employed, it was with the +utmost surprise that he found labour and capital to be in a state of +antagonism throughout the country. From the time when he first began +to employ labour in Lancashire, more than a quarter of a century ago, +he has made it his strict business to study the system at work around +him, and discover the real causes of the evils that undoubtedly exist; +and he has no hesitation in saying, that the main cause is a want of +cordial feeling--the absence, in fact, of a good understanding between +the parties to the labour-contract. This feeling must be established, +he adds, or the case never will be mended. Such understanding does +not come by any explanations from third parties; it is produced only +by direct and habitual intercourse between the parties too often at +issue. The Preston manufacturer says that no doubt the masters in +Lancashire help their men to be intelligent by spending money liberally +upon schools connected directly or indirectly with their mills. Duty +is done amply; and, for duty’s sake, too, to children; but, he adds, +what is really wanted is the education of the adult intellect. The +minds of children, having been prepared by the rudiments of knowledge +to receive ideas (whether good or evil), they are then cast adrift to +gather and continue their education by absorbing all the notions, all +the prejudices, and all the fallacies with which chance may surround +them. A dispute arises; there is no sympathy shown to the operatives +by the employers; but much real or pretended sympathy is shown by +the delegates, who tell them fine-spun theories about the results of +trades’ unions; talk to them in an inflated manner about their rights +and wrongs; tell them that a strike is the only way of battling for the +right. Such men never interfere without widening the breach, on which +they get a footing. + +[D] Strikes Prevented. By a Preston Manufacturer. Galt and Co. 1854. + +So far, the Preston manufacturer says what we have felt and said on +numerous occasions. Now let us see how he not only speaks, but acts, +and how the doing looks which illustrates the saying. + +In the first place, minor acts of friendship to the men may be +mentioned:--He has encouraged them to form a Provident Club in +connection with his mill, and given them all help in it that would not +compromise their independence; at the same time he has encouraged them +also to support the benefit clubs out of doors. He has liked them to be +led to accumulate savings, never believing that a store of money in the +operative’s power would facilitate a strike, but rather knowing that +the provident man who has saved property will be especially unwilling +to see it dissipated. He has provided his men with a reading-room and +a lending library, and secured a fund for its support, while he has +removed a cause of soreness that exists in even well-regulated mills, +by devoting to their library the fines levied upon operatives for +faults of discipline. Such fines are necessary, and the faults for +which they are imposed cost, of course, loss to the millowner for which +they are no real compensation; nevertheless, if the master puts such +shillings into his own pocket, or, as is sometimes the case, gives them +as pocket-money to a son, experience declares that they are grudged, +and sometimes counted as extortions. Let the fine go to the common +account of the men, and the payer of it, instead of being pitied as +the victim of a tyrant, will be laughed at--thanked for his donation +to the library, and so forth. Practically, also, the result of this +system, as the Preston manufacturer has found, is to reduce the number +of the fines. Men would so much rather be victims than butts, that +acts of neglect are more determinedly avoided, though we may suggest +the general good feeling in the mill as a much better reason for the +greater care over the work. + +Left to select, by a committee chosen from among themselves, the books +to be placed in their library, the men have been found to prefer those +which contained useful knowledge--such as manuals of popular science, +voyages, and histories. + +So much being done to promote among the adults increasing intelligence +and good feeling, there remains the most essential thing, the +cornerstone of the whole system. It has been the practice of this +master to promote weekly discussion--meetings among the operatives in +his employment. Topics of the day, opinions of the press, the state +of trade, questions concerning competition, discoveries on practical +science or mechanics, especially such as affect the cotton-trade; +and, lastly, the conduct and discipline of their own mill, provide +plenty of matter for the free play of opinion. The master takes +every possible opportunity of being present at these meetings; and, +from what he has heard in them concerning his own mill, the Preston +manufacturer declares that he has derived substantial advantage. It +will, very often, he says, happen that the men may fancy themselves to +be suffering under a grievance which does not really exist, and which +a very little explanation will at once remove. Sometimes, too, a real +grievance may be in existence, which the employer needs only to be +informed of to remedy. In some mills, this master adds,--such is the +fear of the consequence of being thought a grumbler,--that the men will +often draw lots to determine who shall be the bearer of a complaint +which may have been long seeking expression. + +With one extract we will sum up the result of the adoption of this +system. “I confess,” says the Preston manufacturer, “that, at the +time, having control of a large establishment, I cultivated a habit +of meeting and discussing questions with my workmen, both questions +affecting the public concernment, and questions relating to our +business. I confess that I derived quite as much benefit from these +discussions as they did; and how much that was, may be inferred from +the fact that, after the institution of that habit, I never had +a dispute with my operatives. And I will here say that, at those +meetings, I have heard an amount of sound and various information, +expressed with a native strength and eloquence such as would have +surprised any one not conversant with the Lancashire population. It +was from those meetings that I derived the settled conviction which I +now entertain, that the operatives do not lack the power, but only the +means, of forming sound and independent opinions.” + +We believe that we employ ourselves more usefully at this juncture in +setting forth general principles like these than in any attempt, by +arbitration as third parties in a special case, to introduce that +which the Preston manufacturer declares to be only a fresh element of +discord. + + + + +THE HALL OF WINES. + + +If you mount the Belvedere of the Jardin des Plantes, at Paris, there +is one particular segment of the panorama which forms a very complete +and singular picture. The right-hand wing (theatrically speaking) is +formed by Jussieu’s famous cedar of Lebanon, planted by his own hands +in seventeen hundred and thirty-five; that on the left hand is a clump +of yews, firs, and miscellaneous evergreens. The heights of Montmartre +crown the horizon; the middle distance is formed by the line of houses +that constitute the quays on the right bank of the Seine, broken in +the midst by the cupolas of St. Pol, and a little to the left by the +barn-like roof of St. Louis dans l’Île. But the whole central space +of the landscape is overspread with what might be a lake of brown mud +in a half-dried and crumpled state, but which, after a second look, +proves a vast expanse of tiled roofs running in parallel rows, and +slightly diversified by the tops of trees and by scarcely visible +skylights which break up the gray-brown uniformity. That petrified +mud-lake consists entirely of the roofs which cover the famous Entrepôt +or Halle-aux-Vins, which Napoleon the First propounded (by imperial +decree) in eighteen hundred and eight, on the site of the Abbey of +St. Victor, where Abelard had listened to the lessons of Guillaume de +Champeaux, and where many good bottles of ecclesiastical wine had made +their disappearance down monkish throats. + +If your curiosity is sufficiently awakened to pay the Entrepôt a nearer +visit, you will meet with much to interest. Suppose you walk down Rue +Cuvier,--perhaps one of these days we shall have Owen Street, and +Faraday Street, in London,--you will reach the Quai Saint Bernard, with +the Seine rushing rapidly to the left and in front. You will encounter +an eddying stream of pleasure and of business combined, as if the whole +population of Paris were dancing a grand Sir Roger de Coverly together; +omnibuses flitting backwards and forwards,--Hirondelles, Favorites, +Gazelles, Parisiennes; holiday parties laden with eatables, to be +washed down, outside the Barrière, by wine untaxed by octroi duty; +students and savans bent on taking notes on botany and comparative +anatomy; wine merchants and their customers with mouths in tasting +trim, bound either for the Halle itself or for Bercy beyond it; troops +of children with their nurses and grandmothers, about to spend the +afternoon in watching the monkeys; artisans’ cousins from the interior, +with hearts palpitating at the hope of beholding living lions, tigers +and boa-constrictors, for the first time in their life; not to mention +the man who cuts your portrait in black paper, with the Arab who jumps +into the air like a goat and lights on his forefeet like a sportive +tomcat, on their way to compete with the giantess, the learned pig, and +the fortune-telling pony at the foot of the bridge of Austerlitz. From +all these mundane follies the Halle-aux-Vins is secluded, in monastic +style, by a light railing covered with stout iron network, which allows +it to gaze at the Vanity Fair, while it separates it from too familiar +contact with the world. It is in the crowd--without being of it--a +convenient, friar-like, differenceless distinction. Exclusiveness, +however, of whatever kind, is more apparent than real. At the bottom of +Rue Cuvier, turn to your right, and you may enter at once, unless you +prefer walking along the Quai to the principal entrance, where there +is a letter-box, in case you have a billet-doux to post. The principal +restriction imposed upon a stranger is, that he is forbidden to smoke +amongst the eaux-de-vie. + +Well, now that you are inside it, what do you think of it? Is the +wine-market of Paris like any thing else? The name of the establishment +puts the London Docks into your head; but, beyond their commercial use +and distinction, there is no more analogy between the London Docks, and +this little bit of fairy-land, than there was between the caverns of +Ætna, where Vulcan made pokers and tongs, and the slopes of Parnassus +where the Muses danced. The Halle-aux-Vins is not a building, nor a +labyrinthine cellar; it is a complete town, as perfect and unique +in its way as Pompeii itself. Once a week, indeed, it resembles the +city of the dead; it is silent, solitary, and closed. No business is +transacted there on Sundays, save only by the restless spirits which +will work unseen, and which contrive to make their escape invisibly, +however fast they may be imprisoned. + +The Halle is the very concentration and impersonation of French vinous +hilarity. It would not do for port and sherry, which require a more +solid and stately residence; nor is it sufficiently whimsical and +mediæval to serve as a rendezvous for Rhenish, Austrian, and Hungarian +volunteers in the grand army of Jean Raisin. Rudesheimer, Voeslan, +Gumpoldskirchen, or Luttenberg, could not well sojourn comfortably in +any place that had not a touch of a ruined castle in its architecture. +But the Entrepôt, whose first stone was laid little more than forty +years back, no more pretends to an elderly and dignified mien than +does the Bal Mabille (by daylight) or the Château des Fleurs. It is +as tasteful and as elegant as if intended to serve as a suburban +luncheon-place, where you might call for any known wine in the world, +to be sipped under the shade of flowering shrubs, to the accompaniment +of sandwiches, sausage-rolls, and ices, handed to you by white-aproned +waiters or rosy-cheeked and smart-capped damsels. + +Great part of this town consists of houses--summer-houses, +dolls-houses,--of one story, with one door, one window, and one +chimney; with room in each, for exactly one more than one inmate. +An extra apartment is sometimes contrived, by means of a bower, +which serves instead of a garden--there is none--though a great +deal of gardening is done in the Halle, in tubs, flower-pots, and +mignonette-boxes, wherein luxuriant specimens of the culture are +observable; myrtles, oleanders, lilacs, orange-trees, bay-trees, and +pomegranates, all a-growing and a-blowing. Favoured mansions possess +a garden--sometimes as much as three or four mètres square--bedecked +with roses, dwarf and standard, lilies of the valley, violets double +and single, irises displaying some of the colours of the rainbow, +hollyhocks, gilliflowers, blue-bells, and oyster-shells all in a row. +There is an abundant supply of excellent water; of course to serve no +other purpose whatever than the refreshment of the aforesaid favourites +of Flora, though people say more wine is drunk in Paris than ever comes +or came into it. + +The Halle-aux-Vins houses, which put you in mind of Gulliver’s box in +Brobdingnag, are raised from the ground on separate blocks of stone, +to keep them dry, which suggests the further idea of the possibility +of their being flown away with by an eagle or roc, if they had only +a convenient ring in the roof. Of course, the houselings,--detached +and separate; no quarrelling with next-door neighbours, nor listening +to secrets through thin partition walls,--are ranged in streets, +the perusal of whose simple names is sufficient to create a vinous +thirst. What do you say to walking out of Rue de Bordeaux into Rue +de Champagne, thence traversing Rue de Bourgogne, to reach Rue de la +Côte-d’Or, and Rue de Languedoc, before arriving at Rue de Touraine! +The Barmecide’s guest would have been in ecstacies, in defiance of the +koran, at such a feast. + +Moreover, to make things still more pleasant, every one of the +euphonious alleys and streets is planted with trees of different +ornamental species,--the lime, the horse-chesnut, and other arboreal +luxuries. It is a pity that the climate does not permit the growth of +cork-trees, bearing crops of ready-cut corks, including bungs, long +clarets, and champagne-stoppers. The happy mortal to whom each little +lodge belongs, is indicated by a legible inscription giving not only +the number of his isolated square counting-house, according to its +place in the alley which it lines, whether in single or in double row, +but also bearing the town-address of its tenant, and specifying the +special liquors in which he deals; thus:--“21, Mossenet, Senior, & +Cie.; Quai d’Anjou, 25. Fine wines of the Côte-d’Or cellar, Rue de +Champagne, 17.” Similar biographical sketches are given of other lords +of other summer-houses which wink at you with their Venetian blinds +behind their fences of trelliswork covered with creeping plants. + +The ground-plan of the Halle-aux-Vins is formed of square blocks, +consisting of magazins, divided at right angles by the streets we have +traversed. The magazins are appropriately named after the rivers of +France along whose banks are the most famous vineyards. The Magazin du +Rhone, Magazin de L’Yonne, Magazin de la Marne, Magazin de la Seine, +and Magazin de la Loire, will serve as guides to the nomenclature of +the rest of the establishment. Five principal masses of building are +thus divided by clean-swept streets, whose most conspicuous ornaments, +besides the little thrifty fir-trees, arbor-vitæ, and junipers in +tubs, are groups of all sorts of casks lying about in picturesque +attitudes, as if they had purposely arranged themselves in tableaux +for the sake of having their portraits drawn; and drays, which are +simply long-inclined planes balancing on the axle of the wheel, on +which the casks are held by a rope tightened by a four-handled capstan. +The elevation of the Halle-aux-Vins is pyramidal in principle. The +ground-floor of the blocks is crossed by galleries from which you enter +cobwebby rather than mouldy cellars, whose more apt denomination would +be the Bordeaux word chais. Each gallery, a sort of rectangular tunnel +some three hundred and fifty metres long, is lighted by the sunshine +from a grating above, and is traversed by a wooden railway for tubs to +roll on straight and soberly. Great precautions are taken against fire. +The galleries are closed at each end by double doors of iron grating. +The sapeurs pompiers, in various ways, make their vicinity if not their +presence felt. + +Other storehouses, built over the ground-floor so as to form a second +story, are tastefully surrounded with terraces, on which you are +strictly forbidden to smoke. These upper magazins are approached +from the streets by inclined planes of road-way for the use of +vehicles; pedestrians, by stepping up light iron staircases, may more +readily breathe the air of the terrace, while sounds of tapping and +wine-coopering mingle with the hum of the adjacent city, with the +passing music of some military band, or with the roar and the scream of +the captive creatures which are stared at by the crowd in the Jardin +des Plantes. Vinous and spirituous smells float in the atmosphere from +the full casks which lie about, in spite of the coating of plaster with +which their ends are covered; and we draw nigh to the vaulted magazins +of eau de vie, where every brandy-seller has his own proper numbered +store, lighted from above by little square skylights, and where roam +groups of inquisitive tasters, or spirit-rappers, anxious to pry into +secrets that are closely veiled from the vulgar herd. The sanctum +of the shrine is the Depotoir Public, or public gauging and mixing +apparatus of cylindrical receivers, and glass-graduated brandyometers, +and cranes for raising the barrels to the top of the cylinders. In +this presence-chamber of alcoholic majesty, etiquette is strictly +observed. Conformably with the rules and regulations of the Entrepôt, +the conservator apprises Messieurs the merchants that they are required +to mind their P’s and Q’s. It is no more allowable to meddle with the +machinery, or to intrude behind the mystic cylinders, than it is to +make playthings of the furniture which adorns the altar of a cathedral. + +There are paradoxical facts connected with the Halle-aux-Vins which +none but the thoroughly initiated can solve. Perhaps it may afford a +clue to know that there are two emporia of wine and spirit at Paris; +one, the Halle within the barrière, and, therefore subject to the +octroi tax, and more immediately connected with the supply of the city +itself--the other, Bercy, close by, but outside the barrière, and +consequently filled with the goods yet untouched by the troublesome +impost. Large as it is, the Entrepôt is not large enough; were it +twice as big, it would all be hired. For, of all trades in Paris, +the wine-trade is the most considerable. There are now nearly seven +hundred wholesale merchants, and about three thousand five hundred +retail dealers, without reckoning the épiciers, or grocers, who usually +sell wines, spirits, and liqueurs in bottle; taking no account of the +innumerable houses where they give to eat, and also give to drink. Not +only is it the mission of Parisian commerce to moisten the throats of +the metropolis, but it is the natural intermediary of the alcoholic +beverages that are consumed in the vineyardless districts of France. +The twentieth part of the produce of the empire travels to Paris. But, +as the imposts on their arrival are very heavy and moreover press +only on the local consumption, means have been taken to store the +merchandise in such a way as not to pay the duty till the moment of its +sale to the consumer. Hence, there is established on the bank of the +Seine where Bercy stands, an assemblage of a thousand or twelve hundred +cellars and warehouses--a sort of inland bonding-place--outside the +limits of the octroi tax. These are hired by the merchants of the city +as receptacles for their stock in hand. + +The buildings of the Halle-aux-Vins, within the fiscal boundary, cost +altogether thirty millions of francs, estimating the value of the site +at one third of that sum. The speculation, however, has not hitherto +responded to the hopes that were entertained at the time when it was +founded. Whether the rentals (which vary from two francs and a half to +five francs the superficial mètre), are fixed at too low a figure, +or whether the wine-merchants, disliking to be watched and hindered +in the performance of their trade manipulations, prefer their private +magazins at Bercy, the Entrepôt brings in to the city of Paris no more +than three hundred thousand francs clear a year, that is, about one per +cent for the capital employed. That Jean Raisin is somewhere made the +subject of certain mystic rites which are scrupulously screened from +public observation may be proved by the simple rules of addition and +subtraction. + +The wine-trade of Paris amounts to two million two hundred thousand +hectolitres; four hundred thousand are consumed in the banlieue, +outside the barrière, and seven hundred thousand are sent away, to +supply the northern departments. What then becomes of the one million +one hundred thousand which are left at Paris? It is made into one +million four hundred thousand hectolitres! It may be calculated +from the price at the vineyard, the carriage, the taxes, and other +etceteras, that unadulterated wine, of however inferior a quality, +cannot be sold in Paris for less than half a franc, or fifty centimes, +the litre. Now, for considerable quantities retailed in cabarets, the +price is as low as forty centimes. The equilibrium is reestablished by +clandestine and fraudulent manufacture. On ordinary common wines it +is practised to the extent of increasing them on the average as much +as three-tenths. Various sweet ingredients are fermented in water. +A farmer travelling from Orleans in the same railway carriage with +myself, showed me without the slightest hesitation, or concealment, +a sample of dried pears which he was taking to Paris to sell to the +Bercy wine-brewers. Very inferior raisins, dried fruits in general, and +coarse brown sugar, enter into the magic broth. To complete the charm, +an addition is made of some high-coloured wine from the south, a little +alcohol, and a dash of vinegar and tartaric acid. Such preparations +as these are harmless enough; they become grateful to the palate that +is habituated to them; and certain adroit manipulators succeed in +producing a beverage which attains considerable reputation amongst a +wide circle of amateurs. Certainly the so-called petit Macon you get at +Paris is a most agreeable drink, when good of its kind. At respectable +restaurants, drinking it from a sealed bottle, you may reckon with +tolerable safety on its genuineness. In wine shops, where wine is drunk +from the cask, its purity is not so certain. The great test is, that +manufactured and even light wines will not keep; they must be consumed, +like a glass of soda water, as soon as they are ready for the lip. It +is said that the lamented Fum the Fourth had a bin of choice wine which +he would allow no one to taste, except on special occasions when he +chose to call for it himself. But a king, however low he may descend, +can hardly go down the cellar-steps with a bunch of keys in one hand +and a tallow candle in the other, to decant his own favourite port +and sherry. One morning, his Majesty decided that the evening’s feast +should be graced by the appearance of some of the treasured nectar. Of +course, the underlings had drunk it all themselves, except a single +bottle, which they had the marvellous modesty to leave. What was to be +done? A panting cupbearer was sent with the final remnant to procure +from a confidential purveyor to the palace something as nearly like +it as possible. “You shall have it by dinner-time,” said the friend +in need; “and by letting me know any morning, you may have more to +any extent you want. But,” said the benevolent wizard, in tones of +warning--“but, remember, it must be all consumed the same night. It +will not keep till next day.” + +I hope the impromptu wine-maker was duly careful of the royal health. +But in Paris there are said to be a number of cabaretiers, who, from +the lees of wine mixed with a decoction of prunes doctored with +logwood, sugar of lead, sugar, and eau-de-vie, metamorphose wholesome +fountain-water into an infamous potion, which they shamelessly sell as +the juice of the grape. The French Encyclopédie, in its article “Vin,” +gives a large number of serviceable receipts, which may or may not have +been tested at Bercy. If effectual, their value is beyond all price. +An elixir to improve instantly the most common wine; A mode of giving +to the wine of the worst soil the best quality and the most agreeable +taste; A mode of giving to ordinary wines the flavour of Malmsey, +Muscat, Alicant, and sherry; The manner of knowing whether there be +water in the wine; The means of restoring wine that is changed; Remarks +on bottles which spoil the wine; and, The method of improving and +clarifying all sorts of wines, whether new or old; would alone be quite +sufficient to make the fortune of any man who could scrape a hundred +francs together, and with that immense capital start as Parisian +wine-merchant. The particulars of these prescriptions are unnecessary +for the reader, especially, seeing that I have given him the reference; +but I cannot resist transferring for his edification, from L’Editeur, +an Oran (Algerian) newspaper for the eighth of November last, an +advertisement, giving real names relative to the Liqueur Trasforest, of +Bordeaux:-- + +“This precious composition, very advantageously known for a long time +past, and recently brought to perfection by its author, gives to +wine of the most inferior crûs a delicious richness, which is easily +confounded with the true richness of the Médoc; consequently, it is +well appreciated by connoisseurs, who give it the preference over all +preparations of this nature. Messieurs the proprietors, merchants, and +consumers, who have not yet employed it, are invited to make a trial +of it; there is no doubt as to their being convinced of its excellent +properties by the advantages they will derive from it, especially to +consignments to beyond the seas. [Much obliged to the philanthropic +House of Trasforest.] A great number of retail dealers owe the +preference which they enjoy, to this aromatic liquor, which is an agent +proper for the preservation of wine, at the same time that it imparts +to it a very superior quality and value by the delicate bouquet which +it communicates. + +“To employ the Liqueur Trasforest properly, you ought in the first +place to whip up the wine; let it remain about fifteen days; and not +add the Liqueur until the wine is drawn off, so that its mixture +with the wine may be perfect. After several days of rest it may be +put in bottle; the aroma keeps indefinitely. [That may mean for an +indefinitely short period.] Twenty years’ experience and success prove +that the high reputation of this excellent production is incontestably +merited. A flask suffices to perfume, bonify, and age, a hogshead +(barrique) of wine. Price one franc fifty centimes. An allowance +of twenty per cent. to wholesale dealers. Orders attended to for +ready-money payment. Beware of imitations. + +“General entrepôt and special manufacture: Maison Trasforest, Rue +Dauphine, 35, and Rue Saint-Martin, 56, opposite the Cours d’Albrest, +Bordeaux. (Prepay orders and their answers.) Sole depôt in Oran at +the office of the journal L’Editeur. At the same depôt may be had +the Gelatinous Powder, for the complete, absolute, and instantaneous +clarification of white and red wines, vinegars, eaux-de-vie, and +liqueurs.” + + + + +THREE WIVES. + + +I have besides my town residence in Cecil Street--which is confined +to a suite of two apartments on the second-floor--a very pleasant +country-house belonging to a friend of mine in Devonshire; this latter +is my favourite seat, and the abode which I prefer to call my home. I +like it well when its encircling glens are loud with rooks, and their +great nests are being set up high in the rocking branches; I like it +when the butterflies, those courtly ushers of the summer, are doing +their noiseless mission in its southern garden, or on the shaven lawn +before its front; I like it when its balustraded roof looks down upon +a sea of golden corn and islands of green orchards flushed with fruit; +but most it pleases me when logs are roaring in its mighty chimneys, +and Christmas time is come. Six abreast the witches might ride up them, +let their broomsticks prance and curvet as they would. If you entered +the hall by the great doors while Robert Chetwood and myself were at +our game of billiards at its further end, you could not recognise our +features. The galleries are studies of perspective, and the bare, +shining staircases as broad as carriage ways. The library, set round +from the thick carpet to the sculptured ceiling with ancient books, +with brazen clasps, and old-world types, and worm-drilled bindings. The +chapel, with its blazoned saints on the dim windows, and the mighty +corridors with floors of oak and sides of tapestry, are pictures of the +past, and teach whole chapters of the book of history: Red Rose and +White Rose, Cavalier and Roundhead, Papist and Protestant, Orangeman +and Jacobite have each had their day in Old Tremadyn House. When the +great doors slam together, as they sometimes will, to the inexpressible +terror of the London butler, they awake a series of thunderclaps which +roll from basement to garret: many a warning have they given, in the +good old times, to Tremadyns hiding for their lives, and many an arras +has been raised and mirror slipped to right or left at that menacing +sound. To this day, Robert Chetwood often comes anew upon some hold +in which, those who ruled before him have skulked--sometimes in his +own reception-rooms, but more commonly in the great chambers where he +puts his guests. These chambers are colossal, with huge carved pillars +bearing up a firmament of needlework, and dressing-closets large +enough for dining-rooms. Every person of note who could or could not +by possibility of date or circumstance have slept therein have had the +credit of passing a night within Tremadyn House, from the Wandering +Jew, Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth, down to Charles the First, Peter +the Great, and the late Emperor Nicholas. There has been more than one +murder in the Red room, several suicides in the Blue, and one ghost +still haunts those spots in expiation. Tremadyns in lace cuffs and +wigs; in scarlet and ermine; in armour from top to toe, line both the +galleries--sold by the last Charles Surface of a dissolute race for +ten pounds ten shillings a head. One great Tremadyn dynasty has passed +away; Robert Chetwood, late banker in the City of London, not so long +ago banker’s clerk, now reigneth in their stead. The Tremadyns came in +at the time of the siege of Jericho, or thereabouts, and the Chetwoods +about ten years before the siege of Sebastopol; but there the advantage +ceases. There is no man kinder to the poor, no man more courteous to +all men, no man, whatever his quarterings, in all Devonshire with +a better heart than Robert Chetwood. Tremadyn House is open to the +county, as it ever was, and his old London friends are not forgotten; a +hale and hearty gentleman indeed he is, but he has had many troubles; +he is as happy as any man bereaved of children can be, and it was the +loss of them that made him buy the house and give up his old haunts and +busy way-- + + He saw the nursery windows wide open to the air, + But the faces of the children they were no longer there; + +and that, wherever it may be, is too sad a sight to look upon. + +But what a wife the old man had, to make up, as it seemed even to +me, for all! I say to me, for one of those lost children, a maiden +of seventeen, was my betrothed bride--the gentlest and most gracious +creature eyes ever looked upon; I think if I could write my thoughts +of her, I should move those to tears who never saw her face, when they +read “Gertrude died.” She gave herself to me: the old man never could +have given her. I say no more. + +This is why Tremadyn House has become to me a home. It pleases Robert +Chetwood to have his friend’s son with him, above all, because he was +his daughter’s plighted husband, and my father’s friend is trebly dear +to me as Gertrude’s father. When the Christmas party has dispersed, and +the great house is quite emptied of its score of guests, I still remain +with the old couple over the new year. They call me son, as though I +were their son, and I call them my parents. If Heaven had willed it +so, dear Gertrude and myself could not have hoped for greater wedded +happiness, more love between us, than is between those two. “Perhaps,” +he says, with a smile I never saw a young man wear, “perhaps it is that +my old eyes are getting dim and untrustworthy, but Charlotte seems +to me the dearest and most pleasant-looking dame in all the world.” +And his wife makes answer that her sight also is just as little to +be depended on. To each of them has come the silver hair, and the +reverence with it that alone makes it beautiful; and if their steps +are slower than in youth, it is not because their hearts are heavier; +they are indeed of those, so rare ones, who make us in love with life +down even to its close. They always seemed to me as having climbed the +hill together their whole lives long, and never was I more astonished +than upon this new year’s eve, when, Mrs. Chetwood being with us two +in after-dinner talk, as custom was when all her guests were gone, her +husband told this history. He had always talked quite openly to me, + + A pair of friends, though I was young, + And Robert, seventy-two; + +and then, at the end of another year of love and confidence, I could +not resist inquiring of them how long they two had been one. + +“Well, on my word, George,” said the dear old lady, “you should be more +discreet than to ask such questions.” + +But her husband answered readily: + +“This thirty years. I’ve been a married man myself this half-a-century.” + +“Why, you don’t mean to say----” said I. + +“Yes, I do,” he interrupted. “Of course I do. Charlotte has been my +wife too long, I hope, to be jealous now of either Kate or Mary; but I +loved them each in turn almost as dearly as I love her. Charlotte,” +he added, turning towards her as she sat in the great arm-chair, “you +don’t mind George being told about my other two wives, do you?” + +“I don’t mind your talking of Mary much,” she answered, “but get over +that young Kate’s story as quickly as you can, please.” + +And I really thought I detected a blush come over her dear old face +while she was speaking. + +“It is rather less than half a century ago,” he began, “since I first +set foot in this beautiful Devon county. I came down on a short holiday +from London, in the summer time, to fish, and I brought with me, +besides my rod and basket, a portmanteau full of clothes and about +twenty-five pounds in gold, which was the whole amount of my savings. +I was junior clerk in a house at that day, with one hundred and twenty +pounds a-year, and with as much chance of becoming a partner as you, +my dear briefless Charles, have of sitting on the woolsack. From the +top of Tremadyn House I could point you out the farm-house where I +lodged, and will some day take you to see it,--a mighty homestead, with +a huge portico of stone and flights of stone steps leading to the upper +chambers from without. On one side was the farm-yard, filled with swine +and poultry, with open stalls for cattle, and enormous barns, not so +well kept or neat, perhaps, as the present day requires, but a perfect +picture of plenty; on the other stood the cider-presses, and beyond, +the apple orchards, white with promise, red with fruit, made the air +faint with fragrance; half orchard was the garden, too, in fruit, +through which, beneath a rustic bridge, my trout stream wandered. +Charlotte, you know the place--have I not painted it?” + +“You have, Robert,” she said. The tears were in her eyes, ready to +fall, I saw. + +“There, then, I met Katie. The good man of the house was childless, and +she, his cousin, was well cared for as his child. It was no wonder, +George: the dark oak parlour seemed to need no light when she shone +in it. Like a sunbeam gliding over common places, whatever household +matters busied her she graced. Some sweet art seemed to lie in her, +superior to mere neatness, as high-heartedness excelleth pride. I put +on salmon flies to catch trout. I often fished without any hook at +all. I strove to image her fair face and form in the clear waters, by +the side of that hapless similitude of myself--the reflex of a forlorn +youth in his first love. I did my best at haymaking to please her. I +took eternal lessons in the art of making Devon cheese. I got at last +so far as to kiss her hand. I drew a little, and she sat to me for her +portrait. We sallied out a mushrooming and getting wild flowers, and +on our way sang pleasant songs together, and interchanged our little +stores of reading. On the eve before my long put-off departure we were +thus roaming: we had to cross a hundred stiles--the choicest blessings +of this country I used to think them--and once, instead of offering +my hand to help her over, I held out both my arms, and, upon my life, +George, the dear girl jumped right into them; and that was how I got to +kiss her cheek.” + +“What shocking stories you are telling, Robert,” said Mrs. Chetwood, +and certainly she was then blushing up under her lace cap to her white +hair. + +“Well, my dear, nobody was there except Kate and myself, and I think I +must know what happened, at least as well as you do: so,” he continued, +“after one more visit to the farm-house, Kate and I were married; she +gave up all her healthy ways and country pleasures to come and live +with me in the busy town; studious of others’ happiness, careful for +others’ pain; at all times forgetful of herself: active and diligent, +she had ever leisure for a pleasant word and a kind action; and for +beauty, no maid nor wife in the world was fit, I believe, to compare +with her; to you, George, who knew and loved our dearest Gertrude, I +need not describe her mother. She was not long with me, but it soon +seemed as if it must have cost my life to have parted with her; yet the +girlish glory faded, and the sparkling spirit fled, and the day has +been forgiven, though forgotten never, which took my darling Katie from +my side.” + +The old man paused a little here. Mrs. Chetwood kissed him softly upon +the cheek. + +“My second wife,” he resumed, “was not so young, and certainly had not +the outward graces of my first. She was beautiful, too, in the flower +as Kate was in the bud; her face had not the vivacity, nor her eyes +the dancing light of Katie’s, but there sat such a serenity upon her +features, as we sometimes see upon a lovely landscape when the sun is +near its setting; a look which no man ever tires of; and Mary bore me +children, and then, much as I had loved the sapling, it seemed to me +that the full-fruited tree was dearer yet. She was no country girl from +the Devon dales, but a town lady, bred. I had a great house by that +time, with all things fitting about me, and my sphere was hers. The +pearls suited her pleasant brow, and crowned her still raven tresses +as becomingly as the single rose in her hair had adorned simple Kate. +I think, if I may say so without ingratitude for my present great +happiness, and with the leave of my dear Charlotte, that the happiest +hours of my life were spent during those days, when our two children’s +voices rang cheerily over the house, and some little scheme of pleasure +for them was my everyday desire and Mary’s. Even at the terrible time +when boy and girl were being taken from us at once, never did their +patient mother seem more dear to me; from when the hush of sickness +stole upon us at first, to the day when that white procession left our +doors, what a healing spirit was she! When we thought that the thickly +folded veil of sorrow had fallen over us for ever, how tenderly she put +it aside! + +“It must needs have happened that my speech has here been melancholy, +but indeed I should not speak of Mary so. She was the blythest, +cheerfullest, most comfortable middle-aged wife that man ever had; +behind our very darkest trouble a smile was always lying ready to +struggle through it, and what a light it shed! One of your resigned +immoveable females, who accept every blessing as a temptation, and +submit, with precisely the same feelings to what they call every +chastening, would have killed me in a week. George, my Mary acted at +all times according to her nature, and that nature was as beautiful and +blessed as ever fell to the lot of womankind. You might well think that +Kate and Mary were two prizes great enough for one man to draw out of +the marriage lottery, and yet I drew another. When I lost my beloved +Mary, my third wife took her place in my inmost heart. + +“Kiss me, Charlotte,” said the old man, tenderly, and again she kissed +him on the cheek. “And now,” continued he, “let us fill our glasses, +for the New Year is coming on apace; and please to drink to the memory +of my two wives, and to the health of her who is still left to me. +The two first toasts must necessarily be somewhat painful to my dear +Charlotte, and we will, therefore, receive them in silence, but the +third we must drink with all the honours.” + +So after those, he stood up, glass in hand; and said to her, + +“Kate, Mary, Charlotte,--bride, matron, and dame in one, to whom I +have been wedded this half-century,--for I have had no other wife, +George,--God bless you, dear old heart! We have had a merry Christmas, +as we have ever had, and I trust it may be permitted to us to have, +still together, one more happy New Year. Hip! hip! hip! Hurrah!” and +the echoes of our three times three seemed cheerily to roam all night +about Tremadyn House. + + + + + Now ready, Price Five Shillings and Sixpence, cloth + boards, + + THE TWELFTH VOLUME + OF + HOUSEHOLD WORDS, + +Containing from No. 280 to No. 303 (both inclusive), and the extra +Christmas Number. + +_The Right of Translating Articles from_ HOUSEHOLD WORDS _is reserved +by the Authors_. + +Published at the Office, No. 16, Wellington Street North, Strand. +Printed by Bradbury & Evans, Whitefriars, London. + + + + +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES + +This is from Volume XIII of the series. + +New original cover art included with this eBook is granted +to the public domain. + +Transcriber has generated a Table of Contents. + +Apparently misspelled words have been changed: + + page 11, where “cuting” has been changed to “cutting”. + page 14, where “frightning” has been changed to “frightening”. + page 18, where “eightteen” has been changed to “eighteen”. + page 21, where “Transforest” has been changed to “Trasforest”. + page 21, where “Bourdeaux” has been changed to “Bordeaux”. + page 22, where “Bourdeaux” has been changed to “Bordeaux”. + +Punctuation anomalies have been changed: + + page 3, inserted comma after “wig”, in + “the wig, the paralytic head” + page 7, changed period to comma, at end of line + “protected by a pallisade,” + page 7, changed comma to period, at end of line + “fortification of Bélogorsk.” + page 16, changed hyphen to period, at end of line + “wrong when doctoring himself.” + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75344 *** |