^ " THE STORY /ES FROM YEAR TO YEAR."—SHAKESPEARE. ALL THE YEAR ROUND. ") ^ A WEEKLY JOUENAL. CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. WITH WHICH IS INCOEPOKATED HOUSEHOLD W O.E D S.

N°- 254.] SATURDAY, MARCH 5, 1864. [PjlICE id.

gratitude, decency, had gone to sleep for awhile. QUITE ALONE. O'Connell caUed Wellington a '^stimted cor­ poral," and Alvanley a " bloated buffoon," and BOOK THE FIRST: CHILDHOOD. DisraeH the yoimger "a lineal descendant of the impenitent thief." One Cocking had cast him­ CHAPTER VII. WHEN WILLIAM THE I^OURTH self into space in a parachute, and, coming into WAS KING. contact Avith the earth, was smashed to death. THE epoch, there was no denying it, was a A crafty Frenchman lured many hundreds of wild and dissolute one. The imprint of the simpletons into taking tickets for a passage in Regent's cloven foot had not yet worn away. his navigable baUoon or aerial ship. Then, A man was upon the throne. He made a de­ timeously, he ran away, and left them with theu- corous king enough in his old age, mainly through tickets, and an empty bag of oiled silk. There the infiuence of a pious and admirable wife; but were people who did not believe in steam. There his youth had been the converse of reputable. were others who did beHeve in it, but held that The sons of George the Third had not contri­ locomotives and paddle-steamers were only the buted in any great degree to the elevation of precursors of the end of the world. MeanwhUe, the moral tone of the country. The trial of Chat Moss had been drained by Stephenson, and Queen Caroline, and the private life of George Brunei was piercing the Thames Tunnel. But the Fourth, had done a good deal towards de­ nothing was settled. Nobody knew where any­ praving the national manners. There were no thing was to end. Steam and scepticism and 3'oung princesses save one, the Hope of Eng­ tractarianism and Murphy's weather almanack, land, whom her good mother kept sedulously the abolition of slavery and the labour of chil­ aloof from the polluting atmosphere of the age. dren in factories, lions and tigers at Drury Lane, The Duchess of Kent and her daughter went and the patents taken away therefrom, and from tranquilly about from watering-place to watering- Covent Garden too; commutation of tithes and place, and gathered sheUs and weeds upon the reform of municipal corporations, charity com­ sands, and visited poor people in their cot­ missions and the new Poor-law, chartism, trades- tages, and sat under evangelical ministers, and unionism and the unknown tongues; oceans of allowed the age to go by, and to be as wild and pamphlets; new clubs starting up aU over the capal dissolute as it chose. They hoped and waited West-end; pigtaUs, knee-breeches and hair- for better times, and the better times came powder beginning to be laughed at; the at last, and have continued, and wiU endure, ChanceUor jumping up and down on the wool­ we trust. sack like a parched pea in a fire-shovel, instead Party spirit ran high. We had been on the of gravely doubting and doubting for years, and verge of a revolution about Catholic Emancipa­ working no end of misery and ruin, as Chancellor tion, of another about Parliamentary Reform. Eldonhad done: all these things, with Irish out­ Everything was disorganised. There were com­ rages, colonial discontents and embarrassing rela­ missions sitting upon everything, with a view to tions with foreign powers (order reigned in War­ the abrogation of most things. Barristers of saw, and " Vivent les Polonais!" in Paris meant seven years' standing, fattened upon the treasures the erection of barricades and a tussle between wrung from the sinecurists, and the pension- the blouses and the soldiery), made up a chaotic holders of the old Black Book. Commissioners whirlwind of sand and pebbles and brickbats and inspectors became as great a nuisance and and scraps of paper, the whole accompanied by burden to the country as the clerks of the Pipe a prodigious noise, driving peaceably-minded or the Tellers of the Exchequer had been. people half blind, and half deaf, and parcel- Everybody had his theory for regenerating so­ mad, ciety, but lacked sincere faith in his own Francis Blunt, Esq., and Monsieur Constant, nostrums; and so, after a while, deserted them. had left Stockwell shortly after eleven o'clock. It was a reign of terror without much blood. The hackney-coachman had been weU paid, and /TO' rj\]^Q warfare was mostly one of words and prin­promised an extra fee for speed; but the era of ciples, abusive language being in vogue among rapid Hansoms was yet to come, and it was nearly perfectly unscrupulous party-writers. Reverence, midnight when the two jaded horses that drew

YOL. XL 254 7-± [March 5,1864.] ALL THE5YS ^ mUML 'Gouducted by the vehicle clattered over Westminster Bridge. then Dobree has most of my valuables; aud Mr. Blunt felt so exhausted that he was com­ then there are your wages. Constant." peUed to descend at a tavern on the Surrey side "And my commission, if monsieur pleases." of the bridge and refresh himself with a small "And your commission, most immaculate of glass of brandy. He re-entered the coach, making commercial agents. Five per cent, is it not? wry faces, and declaring the liquor abominable. You go abroad wdth me, Constant, so that you Constant treated the coachman to a glass of ale, know I am perfectly safe. By the w^ay, you but did not presume to accompany his master couldn't manage to take the hundred to the she- to the bar of the tavern. He partook, outside, wolf to-night, could you?" of a moderate sip of his ow^n from a small "Ready money is not very plentiful," returned pocket-flask. the valet, after some consideration; "but I "Why didn't you tell me you had something think I can contrive to obtemperate, by a to drink w'ith you ?" said Blunt, pettishly, as Httle finessing, to monsieur's demand. Might he saw his companion replace the flask hi a side- I, however, ask him to promise me one little pocket. thing ?" "I eould not venture to ask monsieur " " What is it, Constant: a rise in your wages ?" began the valet, gravely, "Monsieur's service is sufficiently remunera­ "I dare say you couldn't, Constant. You're tive/' answered the valet, and I beHeve he spoke a sly fox, and always keep the best of the game with perfect sincerity, "It is not that." to yourself. Here, give me the bottle. I have "What then?" need of a little Dutch courage to-night." "Not to touch the dice to-night. As an Mr. Blunt took a pretty heavy draught of the amusement, they are admirable; as a commercial Dutch courage, which was, indeed, the very operation, they are destruction." best French cognac. He took a pretty deep " Confound the bones, I know they are," Mr. draught of it, for a man of such delicately-strung Blunt, with some discomposure, acknowledged. nerves. "If I had stuck to the coups you taught me "Capital brandy," he murmured, smacking at Vanjohn, I should have made ten thousand his lips, "You have a talent for buying the this season alone, I never get that infernal best of everything for yourself. Why on earth box in my hand without coming to grief in some did you allow me to go into that atrocious gm- way or other. And yet what money I have palace ?" won!" " It is for monsieur to lead the way." " And what money lost!" " And for you constantly and carefuUy to avoid "Your answer is unanswerable. Yes; I will foUowing me, and to aUow me to fall into the promise you, I wiU keep my head cool, and Hons' den. Constant, do you know what I have won't touch ivory to-night." to do to-night ?" " You are going to Crockford's ?" " To be bold, and to win." "Must go there, you know. Shan't stopaa "You have taught me how to manage the one, hour. The only way of luring my pigeon out." I think I can depend on my own presence of "And then?" mind for the other. But do you know how " To the umbrella-shop, of course. The worthy much I want?" Count Cubford wiU expect his commission on "Monsieur's wants are extensive." the transaction, for permission to play Vanjohn "And so are yours, monsieur the sleeping in his sanctum. Everybody wants his com­ partner. Egad, unless I rise from the table a mission now-a-days. I wonder Langhorne, of winner of flve thousand pounds I am a mined the Guards, doesn't ask for fifteen per cent for man!" having introduced me to Debonnair," " Monsieur's creditors indeed are pressing." "You will be able to afi'ord it if you only "The creditors be hanged," Francis Blunt, follow the instructions I gave you. You—I Esq., returned, with much equanimity. " It isn't mean monsieur—must keep his head very cool, for them I shaU have to sit up tiU five o'clock and, as much as possible, his eyes fixed on his this morning. But there are debts of honour. opponent. Monsieur must never lose his temper, Constant, that must be paid. I owe Carlton and must never grow tired. Then, if he takes fifteen hundred, I owe the Italian prince, what's care, and Debonnair is gris enough, he will his name ?—MarigUano—a monkey, I must send win his five thousand and more before moru- that she-wolf of mine, a hundred pounds before ing,' to-morrow afternoon, or she wiU be crawling " I believe I shall. Five thousand pounds are after me as usual. And then my ready money is more than five thousand louis, most unsophisti­ aU gone, or nearly so, I don't think I've got cated foreigner. Where are we ? Oh, Charing- fifty pounds in my pocket, I've dropped over cross. We'U get rid of this ramshackle old tub sixty pounds at that school at Clapham, Rhodo- here. I shall go to the club, have a warm bath, something House, to pay for that little brat:— and then " by your advice, Monsieur Jean Baptiste, I teU " To St. James's-street ?" you, I must have five thousand pounds out " No, Gamridge's. After that, the business of of Debonnair before sunrise, or I am done. I the evening wUl commence. The night is young must have ready money to go abroad wdth, and yet. It isn't a quarter-past twelve."

"\ Charies DfettilMj ALL 'i'HE YEAR ROUND, [MarchS, 18G4.] 75

"I shall therefore have the honour to leave was perfectly pale and colourless. The great monsieur 05• ? art of figure-painters is, I have heard, dexter­ "Exactly, you wiU have that honour, most ously to represent flesh that has not an adventi­ courteous Constant. You may also have the tious teint basane in immediate juxtaposition honour of staying out as late as you like on this wdth white linen. For this reason the clumsy side of six: for I can't expect to be home before painters, when they give us a man or woman that time; but please sit up for me, that you may dressed in white, usuaUy make the flesh swarthy, know the results of the campaign. It may be or sallow, or sanguinolent. Rubens is consi­ an Austerlitz, you know, but it may turn out a dered to have been the only painter wdio reaUy Waterloo. Good night. I have no vices to triumphed over the difficulties of chair centre warn you against, for you don't seem to be Huge. His successors should have come to the j_ J troubled with any—or else you are up to them Hotel Rataplan and studied its proprietor. Ra­ all, and keep them very dark indeed." taplan was head cook in his own hotel, and wore And so saying, Mr. Blunt waved his hand to the orthodox costume of chef. His jacket, his his body servant, and strode away in the direction nightcap, his long apron, his duck trousers, his of PaU MaU. slippers, were aU white, and dirty w^hite. His The valet paid the coachman five shillings in face and hands were dirty w^hite too, and yet excess of his fare, at which jarvey drove away the contrast between his Hneaments and his rejoicing. His master had flung him his cloak habUiments was marked with satisfactory before leaving, saying that he would put on an strength. It was the texture, perhaps, that did overcoat, lighter in texture, at his club. Jean it. Otherwise, face and garments were identical. Baptiste Constant enveloped himself in this He looked like a pierrot who had grown fat. garment, but did not throw it into any melo­ No, he didn't, he looked like wdiat he was—a dramatic folds. It ceased to be the mantle of a cook. Byronic-looking patrician. It was now merely Rataplan's countenance was so seamed and the cloak of a highly accomplished gentleman's pitted with traces of the small-pox, that his valet, who knew his cloak and kept it. cheeks presented a not remote resemblance to I " Yes," murmured Monsieur Jean Baptiste Con­ one of his own colanders. He had very little stant very softly to himself, as he walked round hair, and that was grey, and cropped close to his the hoarding of those old Mews once occupy­ head a la malcontent, and all but concealed ing the area of Trafalgar-square, but then just in under his nightcap. Not a trace of beard or process of demolition, " it may be Austerlitz, whisker or moustache, did he show. Perhaps and it may be Waterloo—more than Waterloo the heat of the fire had dried up the capiUary —it may end in St. Helena and captivity, and forces, or the steam of many saucepans had acted death. Ah! je tiens Tenfant. Ah, that dear as a depilatory. He was splashed in many places old nabob at Cutchapore who writes such with ancient gravy, givmg him the appearance of pretty letters about his little niece. Ah! le a blotted skin of parchment. He wore ear­ beau jeu que le vingt et un, AUons voir la rings. He had a thin gold ring on his left Louve." hand to tongue; and, strange to tell. Rataplan U It was rather late at night to pay a visit to a wore over his heart a discoloured red ribbon she-wolf; but Monsieur Constant seemed bent sewed on the breast of his jacket, and which he on the enterprise, and diving into St. Martin's- declared to be that of the French Legion of lane, and through the mazes of Cranbourne-aUey, Honour. was very soon in Leicester-place, Leicester- "Received from the hand of the Emperor square. himself on the field of Arcis-sur-Aube," he was accustomed to say. "C'est la que nous avons CHAPTEE, VIII. THE HOTEL EATAPLAN. flanque une raclee a ces canailles d'Autrichiens. I DON'T know what has-become of the Hotel Et les Cosaques ! hein! c'est Desire Rataplan Rataplan in these days. The neighbourhood of qui leur donna a boire et a manger en I8I3. Ma " Laycesterre-squarr" is no more exempt from parole d'honneur, je les ai accommodes a toutes mutabUity than its Anglo-Saxon vicinage; and sauces ces Cosaques." Rataplan may have faded into decadence, or He declared that he had the cross of the i^ undergone an aristocratic change of name, or Legion itself, up-stairs in a box. He had not may have been swept away altogether. It is always been a cook. Desire Rataplan had not a matter of much consequence. I am treat­ served in the Grand Army. He had fought at ing of the year '36; and in '36 the Rataplan the Beresina. He had been at Leipsic, He flourished exceedingly, and was very much the only missed Waterloo because the regiment Hotel Rataplan indeed. to which he belonged had been stationed be­ Desire Rataplan kept it. He was a gross fat hind the Loire. "Et on m'a appele brigand Frenchman. He looked not only a landlord, de la Loire, moi qui vous paiie!" he would but a cook; and a capital cook he was. Who say. lards fat puUets should himself be fat, and Ra­ His regiment, he stated, was the Trente- taplan was larded all over. He was the most septieme Leger; but this his hearers would ob­ unctuous-looking man it is possible to conceive, stinately refuse to believe. That a soldier of aud his face, lie that of many other fat men, the Grand Army should become an hotel-keeper.

y ^-

7G [March 5,1864.] ALL THE Y^EAS-ftO ^N©: •Conducted by

or a cook, w^as no such very astonishing thing; pretty little cottage piano in her own little but that so corpulent a man should have served sitting-room; and she played and sewed and in the light infantry exceeded reason and pro­ kept her eyes cast'down, with exemplary assi­ bability. He endeavoured to reconcUe assertion duity. with fact, by stating that he had been drum- Stay! The Hst of the famUy is not quite com­ major to the Thirty-seventh. But his audi­ plete. There was a very large poodle dog by the tors remained obstinately incredulous. As a name of Azor, who in youth had been a sprightly sapper and miner, as a heavy cuirassier, as a animal, capable of going through the martial grenadier of the Old Guard, even, they were exercise and performing numerous other tricks, wiUing to accept him; but they declined all by means of which poodles have ere this won credence to his ever having been a "light fame and fortune for their masters, on the public bob." stage. But Azor had grown lazy from long pos­ He appealed to his wife. " Madame Rataplan session of the run of his teeth, in such a land of was my comrade,'* he would say. "She was honey as the kitchen of an hotel. Formerly he cantiniere to the Trente-septieme. She gave her used to be shaved, but was now allowed to wear own tabatiere once to the Emperor, when he w^as the totality of his shaggy coat, so that he re­ out of snuff, Davoust has taken la goutte from sembled a small Polar bear quite as much as a her, over and over again. Monsieur le Prince large poodle. d'EckmulU was very partial to Madame Ra­ FinaUy, there was at the Hotel Rataplan a taplan." prodigious old woman, who was called La Mere To which, Madame, who was a meek brown Thomas, Nobody could tell with precision who little woman, usually habited in a chintz bed- she was. Some said she was Rataplan's grand­ jacket and a petticoat of blue serge, as though mother. Others, that she was madame's aunt. she had never had time thoroughly to equip her­ She w^as evidently a kinswoman, for she tutoyed self in feminine attire after resigning the tunic the whole family, called Rataplan mon bichon, and pantaloons of a cantiniere, would reply: and his wife ma biche, and occasionally boxed the "T'as raison, mon homme. C'est moi-z-aussi ears of Adele. La Mere Thomas was of im­ qu'a servi le Grand Homme." mense, but uncertain age. Her complexion was They were aU frantic in their fanaticism for of a fine mahogany colour, and she wore a mous­ the memory of the great man. In a dozen rooms tache that might have been envied by many a of the Hotel Rataplan, his portrait was hung. subaltern in the Life Guards. On her chin, too, There was a plaster statue of him in the haU; there sprouted sundry hairs, which, but for her an ormolu bust over a clock in the coffee-room. otherwise jovial appearance, would have given Rataplan would have called his hostelry the her an uncomfortable family likeness to one of Hotel Napoleon, but for the entreaties of his the witches in Macbeth, La Mere Thomas wore wife, who represented that the establishment a crimson and yellow pocket-handkerchief bound was of so humble a character, that to affix the lightly round her head and tied in a bow in front, name of the Great Man to it would be desecra­ another silk handkerchief crossed over her ample tion. He did a very comfortable business under bosom and tied behind her very much in the the more humble sign of the Hotel Rataplan, style adopted by the engaging damsels resident however. in the neighbourhood of Ratcliff Highway, a M. Rataplan had two children. Desire, his large gold cross at her neck, a skirt of some son and heir, was away in France, head waiter indescribable fabric and of no colour at all- at Calais, until in the fulness of time it should be people said it had originally been a flannel his lot to assume the direction of the establish­ petticoat pieced with a soot-bag—and carpet ment in Leicester-place. " I should have placed sHppers, like an upholsterer's assistant. She him sous les drapeaux, to serve his country as a snuffed continually from one of those little tin soldier," said the paternal Rataplan, "but what boxes with a perforated top, like those which are is that flag, what is that caricature of the tricolor used to keep gentles for fishing iu. She was the I see now! night porter at the Hotel Rataplan; and tra­ vellers, whom she had let in very late, declared Helas! soudain tristement U s'ecrie : that she habituaUy smoked a short pipe after C'est un drapeau que je ne connais pas. Ah ! si jamais vous vengez la patrie, two in the morning. Her conversation was not Dieu, mes enfants, vous donne un beau trepas!" copious. Her EngHsh was monosyUabic, and not abundant, although she had been at least He was very fond of quoting Beranger's Vieux ten years in this country. She was a hearty old Sergent, although he certainly looked much more soul, however, and very fond of beer, which she Hke the foolish fat scullion in Tristram Shandy, drank by the quart. than a reUc of the Empire, He had a daughter, Such was the Rataplan famUy. They were a Adele, aged seventeen, whose only duties imtil good-natured group, aU very fond of one another, she was old enough to be manied were, as her and quarreUing very seldom: as is the fooHsh parents understood those duties, to keep her maimer with these French people. eyes cast down, and to divide her time between The hotel was conducted without the slightest needlework and the pianoforte. She had a ostentation, but was, nevertheless, a sufficiently tambour-frame in the office of the hotel, and a prosperous speculation. It was eminently French. X Charles Dicke; LL THE YEAR ROUND. [March 5, 18G4.] 77

Turning from Leicester-place into the hotel, you I have forgotten to state that from basement might have fancied yourself at once in France— to roof the Hotel Rataplan smelt very strongly not necessarily in Paris, but in some provincial of tobacco-smoke. town. The hall was flagged with the same dirty marble, decorated with the same sham bronzes, and hung with the same array of shriU tinkling SPORT ON THE NAMELESS FJELD. beUs. The walls were gay with the same erfe highly decorated placards relating to chocolate, TALK of laughini^-gas ! It is nothing to the com plasters, bills, elastic corsets, and hotels at effect the bracing air of the Norwegian Fjelds Geneva, LiUe, Dunkirk—or, continentaUy else­ has upon the frame. Whether the amount of where. There was a little poky office, with oxygen one inhales up there, produces a too pigeou'holes for the lodgers' candlesticks, and great wear-and-tear of the system, is a physio­ numbered plates and hooks for their keys ; a logical question I don't feel competent to enter green-shaded lamp on the escritoire; limp, green, upon; but I incline to think the reverse to be shagreen-covered registers to keep the accounts the case, when the quantity of carbon assimilated in; a long low arm-chair covered with Utrecht in the shape of provisions is taken into account. velvet, for Mademoiselle Adele ; another, higher On the Fjelds a man is always hungry. If and black leather covered, for La Mere Thomas. ever I were reduced to such straits as to be Madame Rataplan was seldom seen in the upper obHged to devour my shooting-boots, in default regions. She was, in fact, head chambermaid, her of better diet, I could do so up there wuth greater assistant being a dirty Irish girl, with a face like complacency and relish thau elsewhere, a kidney potato, and many chilblains, who got on I am what is termed an "old liand" in very well with the Rataplans principally for the Norway, and have been in the habit of spending reason that they were aU Roman CathoUcs. The my summers there for a number of years; and when I have had my fill of catching salmon, salle a manger was a long low room, uncarpeted, and of eating them (and when the mosquitoes and the floor beeswaxed; furnished with the have had their fill of me), I repair to the usual array of rush-bottomed chairs, the usual Fjelds to pay my attentions to the grouse and litter of half-emptied wine bottles, dingy napkins reindeer. Norway is the safety-valve for all my in dingier bone rings, knives that wouldn't cut, ailments. Whether it is the air, or the sea- forks lacking their proper complement of prongs, passage, or the "roughing," or the sharp copies of the Siecle and the Charivari seven exercise, certain is it, that when I get back to days old, and a big mezzotint engraving after England, I feel better in body and in mind. Horace Vernet, representing Napoleon rising This last year, 1863, our party consisted of from the Tomb. Everything w^as very French four. Tents, canteen, rods, dogs, and guns indeed. Everything was very dear indeed. There were all packed up, and w^e had secured berths w^as a table d'hote every day at half-past six, on the old Scandinavian. at which the cookery was admirable and the Let us hasten over that horrid North Sea, wines were detestable. The hotel was gene­ and pass over all the troubles to which flesh rally full of foreigners. The Rataplan clientele is heir on a rough passage, as quickly as resi abroad was extensive; and foreign visitors to possible. It was as bright a day as you could England were accustomed to declare that, al­ wush to see, when we found ourselves on board though the hotel accommodation of perfidious the " Skibladner" at Eidsvold, the southern end Albion was in general execrable, that offered by of the beautiful Miosen Lake. Of course the the Hotel Rataplan was passable, mais diablement first thing we did there, was to light our pipes •cher. They did not seem to be aware of the with some of the " Bedste Tabak subter possibUity of any hotels existing anywhere in Solem," otherwise called Petum, costing the London out of Leicester-place, or at least "Lay­ respectable sum of not quite tenpence the cesterre-squarr." Norwegian pound. I take it for granted that the Miosen Lake Rataplan, then, prospered. He only kept one has been so frequently described, that further laii;aiiic. waiter: a young man from Alenpon, named remarks on it would be superfluous. So, in­ Antoine, with a red head and a face like a fox. stead of the scenery, I will devote a few lines rtpipa^ This serviteur appeared by day in a waistcoat to some of our fellow-passengers. with black caUco sleeves and baggy pantaloons The boat was crowded. St. Hans' Fair in sjA' of blue canvas terminating in stocking feet. Christiana was just over, and the timber-mer­ At table d'hote time he attired himself in the chants were returning to their homes from the black tail-coat and white cravat de rigueur, and metropolis. A jolly set of feUows those Bonder carried a serviette in lieu of a feather broom were, and, to judge from the quantity of under his arm. He was very good natured, and, champagne they consumed, I should say, well save on the question of the reckoning, passably off. Among oui'passengers was an EngHsh girl, honest. He had taught the Irish servant girl to who in company with her elderly parent, was play piquet with him, and, W'hen any of the going to fish salmon on the western coast. lodgers wanted a little quiet gambling, Antoine She wore a felt hat, with a feather stuck in it was always ready with a portable roulette box on one side in the most jaunty manner, and with an ivory baU. He did not appear to cheat a dark blue yachting jacket wath brass buttons until he was found out. and pockets, and a dress of the same material

y 78 [March 5,1S64,] ALL THE r^ttftmrrj> [Conducted by reaching a little lower than half w-ay down a the individual denounced, but perhaps they were pair of the neatest legs I ever saw. These dear intended for the benefit of futiu'e English tra- legs were cased in bright sealing-wax red stock­ vellers. But Iwas glad to see, on returning by ings, shooting boots with brass eyelet-holes, the same route, that some others of your coun­ near and brass-bound heels. Add to her other trymen had felt disgusted at his remarks, for I charms, that she could " snakke Norsk," and found at one place, entered below one of his say "Tak," and "Veer saa god," with the complaints, 'This old grumbler ought to have prettiest air imaginable. remained at home ;' and at another, ^ I have to As she and I were both bound on the same complain that I found no toothpicks at this errand, namely, to kiU salmon, we soon entered station;' and ' Mr. does not seem to have into conversation. She had never fly-fished enjoyed his trip overmuch.' " before, though she averred she could throw a "I rather thhik I know the man you mean," fly pretty well. I was curious to learn how I said. she had acquired the art. But now the boat had arrived at Lillehammer, " I used to get Bob, the gardener's boy," she so bidding adieu to our friends, we hastened up said, " to stand at a respectable distance, and to the inn. Early next morning we started then I would make casts at him till I could for our fishing quarters, where w^e remained touch almost any button on his waistcoat. When three wrecks, meeting with fair success, at the I had practised throwing, long enough, I would end of whicli we found ourselves only too glad cry, "Now, Bob, hook on !' and so Bob fastened to go up to what I shall call Nameless Fjeld, the end of his line round a button, aud, ima­ where I had had a small shooting-box knocked gining himself a salmon, rushed off as fast as he up. I purposely omit the name of the Fjeld, as I could. 'Now, Bob, up stream; now jump!' have a great desire to keep this bit of ground to and then I lower the end of my rod." myself. Pardonable selfishness I "Quite right," I said; "I see you know all It is not my purpose to enter into a detailed about it.'^ account of our manner of living up there. Nor " And then, when we were both fairly out of how we feasted like princes on trout, cha.r, ryper, breath, I would call out, ' Now, Bob, come aud venison, cloud-berries and cream from a neigh­ be gaffed !' And so ended my morning's prac­ bouring ' Soeter;' neither will I recount all our tice !" sporting adventures, and how Bogus would s^eni If there had not been so many spectators, I all his time in going after an imaginary bear, would have offered my services there and then which of course he never saw, and which, I be­ to act the salmon. I'm sure she could have lieve, nobody ever did see; IwiU merely recount hooked me easy enough! the deeds of September 4th: a day ever memo­ There was one old Norwegian on board, and a rable in the sporting annals of Nameless Fjeld. cynical dog he was. He could speak English It w^as our custom to divide our forces so pretty well, and seemed rejoiced at having the that only two went out reindeer hunting, while opportunity of speaking it with a native. The the others remained near home, to pay their following is the " burthen of his tale" put in attentions to the ryper and ptarniigau, and to better EngHsh than he used: catch trout and char, with which the small tarns " What a queer lot of fellows you EngHsh and " becks" abounded. This day it was are," he said, after we had spoken together for Bogus's turn to go reindeer hunting with me. a while, " coming all this way to catch fish, and It was as lovely a morning as ever hunter saw, to hunt deer. Besides, you do a wonderful lot when we left our quarters at four in the morn­ of harm to our peasantry." ing. We bent our steps to a part of the Fjeld "How so!" I said. "We pay pretty well where the other two had seen a large herd of for cur amusement," deer the day before, but had been unable to get "Much better stay at home," growled my near them. friend. "You are so inconsistent; at one time After a long and tedious walk, halting every you overpay, at another you underpay. If few minutes to sweep the horizon with our some of you are munificent, others are mean and glasses, we arrived at the spot where we ex­ stingy to a degree. Our simple-hearted people pected to find them. Not a horn could we see. can't understand such treatment. You do them But there were signs that there had been a as much harm by paying grandly, as by paying large number there only very recently, for w^e meanly." could see where they had been cropping the I could not but acknowledge that there was a Alpine ranunculus, their favourite " bonne- truth in his remarks. bouche." The dog began to sniff about, and, "To give you an instance," he added; "last after satisfying himself that there was nothing year I met one of your countrymen, and he cer­ close by, seemed as if he caught scent of them tainly maintained the character you bear of being at a long distance, Thc boy who accompanied a nation of grumblers. At every station at which us held him lightly iu leash, and we determined he stopped, some complaint was entered in the to^ follow him in any direction he might choose. road-book. Now Mie had been kept waiting We walked on, perhaps for an hour, when aU ten minutes for horses,' or ' he had been charged at once we detected the herd at about three an exorbitant price for a cup of coffee,' or English miles distant. 'the station-master was an extortionate rascal.' We could see them quite plainly through our Of coiHse, all these remarks were Hebrew to glasses, and counted more than a hulidred; N iUb Charles Dickeiis. ....^ THE YEAR ROUND. [March 5, 1SG4.]

some of them splendid large fellows. As bad mined to try and find my way home as well as I luck W'ould have it, there was a large extent of could. Piling up stones over the venison, to marshy ground to cross before we could get protect it from the foxes and gluttons, which near them. Over this we wormed ourselves would otherwise have devoured it, horns and along, snake fashion, mostly creeping, but occa­ all, I set off, singing, " Tilfjelds ! tilfjelds ! hvor sionaUy taking advantage of some huge boulder den vUde Ren,"—I got no further. Talk of behind which we could stand up erect with im­ old Scratch, and he is sure to appear. There punity—no small relief after crawling for a was a fine old buck not more than fifty yards ol^. couple of hours, He was standing quite alone; for, late in the I had calculated we must be within two hun­ season, it is usual for the large bucks to sepa­ dred yards, but when we came to look for them rate from the main herd. I raised my rifle and not one of them was to be seen. let fly. "Fine sport this," growled Bogus, in a sup­ "Meget godt skudt," cried a voice, as the pressed tone, and looking savage. beast gave a salto mortale and fell dead. The "Glad you think so," was growled back in man had arrived with the horse, and had vnt- return, while I w^as still sweeping the horizon nessed the operation. So, returning to w^here with my glass. " By Jove! there they are ! the other three lay, we placed them on the pony's Close beneath us, all lying down. One, two, back, and a^ain started home. three. Down! Keep that dog quiet; that old It seemed as if I was destined to have sport buck smells mischief. Well, thev are bavins: that day; for, ou descending into a dell, three their siesta, so I vote we have our 'elevens,' as more deer slowly trotted across my path at a the servants say at home. We will wait tUl distance of sixty paces. Again did the original they get up." The basket was unpacked. I savage nature take possession of me, and' my had gone back a little way to get a drink from rifle covered the leading buck nicely. But—and I a clear stream that came bubbling down the have never since regretted it—a feeling came over Fjeld side, and was stooping down to have a me that we had committed enough havoc fer ^jViloljlKt good pull at it, when crack went Bogus's rifle. one day, so I stoically threw up my gun. to the " Confound the feUow !" I thought, " there's infinite disgust of my companion, who cursed and the result of keeping the hammer down; swore as a Norwegian peasant only can. there's an end of our sport." But there he It was one in the morning when we arrived was, standing up and yeUing like a mad Indian. at home. I had had nothing to eat all day, for Crack w'ent the other barrel. In vain I looked Bogus had forgotten to leave me the provision- round to see the deer on my flank. But as he bag, so, as may be imagined, I had a ravenous was loading again, I hurried up to him. While appetite. I had been gone something had startled the "Why, old fellow," said he, "we thought animals, he said, and they had suddenly got you were lost, and as the trout were nicely done, up. Of course it was absurd to wait for me, it was a pity to spoil them by waiting for you in so he had taken aim at the nearest buck and vam. fired. He felt sure he had hit, but the smoke "Always thoughtful!" I replied; "but make had blown back into his eyes, and prevented him yourself useful for once, and get me something from seeing. to eat, if you don't wish me to begin on you. "But what made you shriek in that insane Then for a pipe, and the grog. And then I'U teU manner ?" I asked. you all about it." And I recounted to them my " Oh, that was a dodge old ' Ole,' my hunter adventures, as I have done here, and I put a white in Valders, taught me—at all events, it suc­ mark against Sept, 4 in my journal. ceeded, for they all stopped as if terrified, and I know I hit with my second barrel." " WeU ! let us see," MY ACCOUNT WITH HER MAJESTY. At about one hundred and seventy yards from where we had stood, we found two deer lying I NEVER laid by a penny till the Post-office dead, side by side. The conical bullet had Savings-banks came up. Not that I mightn't gone through the heart of the first, and pierced have done so, for I earned good wages, and after the neck of the second, which now lay gasping paying all the expenses at home, I had always in the agonies of death, plenty of loose cash to spend. I was never "Hollo," I cried, "you're in luck to-day— without money in my pocket; but always at the 10 there's another deer lying dead there on your year's end I had spent all I had received. I right." knew verv weU that I misrht have saved a mod And so there was; his second bullet had also bit, without cutting down the weekly allowance brought down a deer. Three deer in two shots. to the missus for the house, or stinting mvself " Well 1 I had better get off home with the of any reasonable enjoyment; but I had never lad and send a horse back to take home the begun the thing, and when I thought about quarry, whUe you remain to flay them," said doing it, I was at a loss how to go about it. Bogus the triumphant, after a pull at the flask. What I used to do, when I had a little lump of So off he went with the boy, while I proceeded money over and above the expenses, was to put to my task after the most approved fashion. But it away in a drawer, and lock it up; and I used it was beginning to get late, and a storm was to say to myself, "I won't touch that money, brewinsr:' so after waiting and waiting, I deter­ but I'll put more to it from time to time, and 80 [March 5,1864.] ALL THE YEift" flOmfD, [Conductedby when it amounts to a hundred, I'll do some­ when she was helping me to a suety dumpling, thing with it—put it in the bank, or invest it in she says in lier usual demure way, "Don't you a buUding society, or something of that sort," think, George, it would be a good thing to puta But, somehow, the money didn't grow as I ex­ little money away in the savings-bank ?" "Well," pected. You see, I always had the key of that I says, "it wouldn't be a bad thing, Susan." drawer in my pocket, and at any time, if I ran "No," she says, "I'm sure it wouldn't, and if a little short, through being rather free with my I was you I would make a beginning." " Well," mates or going upon the spree, I had nothing I says, " I would, if I knew how to go about to do but go to the drawer and help myself. I it." " There's no difficulty about that," Susan hesitated over it sometimes, but never for long; says; "you've only to go to Welbeck-street, the draw^er w^as so handy, and I used to say to and put a little in, and they'll give you a book, myself, "If I take a sovereign it won't reduce and there you are." "Very well, Susan," I the money much, and I can put it back again says, "I'U take your advice, and go to Welbeck- next w^eek. But it generally happened when street to-morrow." next week came that it wasn't convenient to put I was as good as my word, and next day, at the money back. And so I went on going to the dinner-hour, I walked up to Welbeck-street the drawer for sovereigns and half-sovereigns, to put in three pound ten, which was all that until the bit of money dwindled down so low was left of the fifteen. But, lo and behold! that it wasn't worth keeping. It's the same when I got to the bank it was shut, and for the with drink. If you make up your mind that moment I thought it had broke, or the manager you won't taste a drop for a week, and stick to bolted with the funds, or something; but on look­ it, you are all right; but only be persuaded to ing about I noticed a brass-plate on the wall make a beginning—to take one glass, just one, with information about the bank hours, and from and you take another and another, and then it's that I learned that the bank w^as only open three all wTong. It's the same, too, I dare say, with days a week, from ten to two in the morning, swindling and robbing your master : once make and from six to eight in the evening. I had a beginning, and on you go, like rolling down come on the wrong day. I was a good bit vexed One-Tree-hill on Whit-Monday, the further you to have all my trouble for my pains, but Susan, go, the faster you go. when I told her, took it quite quiet, and says, Susan used to say to me, " George, how's the "Never mind, George, you can go again on money getting on?" And she used to say it Saturday, wlien the bank is open." Well, I in a sly, sarcastic sort of way, meaning that I fully resolved to go, and on Saturday morning I was spending it, and that it was going very took the money with me, intending to walkover fast. I know it was, but I didn't Hke to ac­ to the bank after my work. However, just as I knowledge it, and alw^ays said: "Oh! it's all was leaving the shop at six o'clock, who should right in the drawer, there, what's of it." I meet but an old mate of mine, that I hadn't "Well, George," she would say, "you put seen for years. Nothing would do for Dave but away ten pounds about a month ago, and as I must go and have a glass with him. Well, Christmas is coming on, it will enable us to you know, you can't refuse to drink with a mate, buy all W'C require, and give a little party to especially when he's been away in Birmingham our friends." "Yes," I would say, "but you for ever so long, and got a holiday on purpose know, my dear, that I have had to pay So- to come up and see his friends. So in we goes and-so, and So-and-so;" and then I'd name to the Yorkshire Grey and has a glass of rum- certain bills, and the subscription to my lodge and-water each, and you know how the time —for I'm^ an Odd FeUow—and add it up and slips away when old triends meet as have been subtract it from the ten, and Susan, not long parted. Dave had so much to tell me being good at figures, would be quite puzzled, about Birmingham gun-barrels, and I had so and give the sum up in despair. But she much to tell Dave about Clerkenwell w^atch- found me out more than once. One day, when springs, and one thing followed another, in­ I came home to dinner, she says to me, cluding glasses of rum-and-water, that it was a "George," she says, "you left the key of the quarter to eight in no time. It was no use; I drawer on the mantelshelf this morning." She couldn't get to Welbeck-street in a quarter of didn't look at me, but went on carving the an hour unless I took a cab, and it didn't seem boiled rabbit. My wife is odd that way, and natural like to fake a cab to go to a savings- not like the generality of women. Nagging is bank with three pound ten; so I stopped with not one of her faults. She doesn't say much, Dave and had another glass. but sho thinks the more. So, when she told When I went home and told Susan, she didn't me about the key in that quiet way, I knew she say an angry word, but just remarked that I had been to the drawer and counted the money. was very unlucky. You don't know how That's where I don't hold with Bluebeard. He aggravating Susaii is in that way. I'd ratlier might have tried his wife with anything but a have tongue-pie a good deal, than that sit-and- secret; it is dow^nright unreasonable to expect say-nothing, but think-the-more way of hers. a woman not to be curious. I merely said It's more aggravating than saying the thing " Oh !" in an indifferent kind of a way; but I right out; for you can't tell what an awful am sure my looks convicted me. However, character a quiet woman thinks you are. For Susan did not make any remark about the my part, I'd rather have teacups. However, I money being nearly ali gone, but, by-and-by. was resolved to show Susan that I was in

«r Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [March 5, 1S64.] SI

earnest, and on the following Tuesday I got to at the grocer's, and I belonged to a goose-club the bank in good time. I didn't find it such an at the Yorkshire Grey. We began to pay in easy matter though, to put my money away, even sixpence a week very shortly after Midsummer, now when I was there with it in my hand. There and, a few days before Christmas, Susan brought was such a lot of people in the bank that there home a parcel of groceries, and I got a goose, was no getting near the counter for full a and a bottle of gin, and a bottle of rum. We quarter of an hour, and when at last I did get didn't miss the money paid every week in six­ to it, the clerks didn't seem inclined to take pences, and when the things came home, they any notice of me. Two or three times I said seemed like a gift. I said to Susan tliat I to one of them that I w^anted to put in three thought this was better than putting money in pound ten, but he paid no attention, and always the savings-bank, w'here there was so much turned to somebody else. An old woman with ceremony, and Susan thought so too. But half-a-crown cut me out first, and then I was when Susan's brother, John, who is a cashier at a elbowed aside by a charity-boy with a shiUing large linendraper's, came to dinner on Christmas- all in coppers. They were regular customers, day, and we told him how w^e had been saving, and used to the banking business, I suppose, and he burst out a-laugliing. " What are you laugh­ I wasn't. However, I got it in at last and ing at?" I says. "What am I laughing at?" received my book, and I do assure youI felt a load he says, almost choking himself with a mouthful taken off* my mind. When I showed the book of goose—" why, at you." " What for," I says. to Susan, she said, "That's right, George, and I "For being so jolly green," he says. "Jolly hope you'll go on with it." I fully intended to do green!" I says; "is it jolly green to lay by so then; but it's easy to intend, and not so easy money for a rainy day? — leastways, for to carry your intendings out. It's like sitting Christmas-day, w^hen a famUy requires extras?" over a fire on a winter's night, and saying, " Fll "FiddlesticksI" John says. "Let me ask you get up early to-morrow morning and do over­ a question, George." "Twenty," I says; "go time ;" but when the morning comes, and you ahead, John." " Well," he says, " when did peep out between the clothes and see the frost you begin to pay into the goose-club at the 0, um 0^ upon the windows, it's very easy to find an ex­ Yorkshire Grey?" "At Midsummer," I says. f,a!ils cuse for lying a Httle longer. "And you paid in sixpence every week for twenty-six weeks?" "Yes," I says, "I did." The evening song and the morning song don't " Which made thirteen shillings, George ?" often agree. So it was with my saving. I had "Exactly," I says. "Well," he says, "is the always a pretty lively recollection of the trouble goose and the liquor worth it ?" " Judge for it was to walk all the way to Welbeck-street yourself, John," I says, " Could I have bought after my day's work, and then to have to push such a goose as that you are now partaking of my way through a crowd of old women, and for less than eight-and-six in the shops ?" wait my turn at the counter. It's not worth "No," he says, "I don't think you could." doing for a few shillings, I used to say to my­ " Very well," 1 says, " whcre's your fiddlesticks, self ; I'll wait untu there's more of it, and then and how do you make me out jolly green?" put it in in a lump. So I put the shillings away "Why this way, George," he says: "in the in the drawer until such time as they should first place, you've been losing the interest upon grow to be pounds; but owing to the key being your money for six months," "That's not always handy they didn't, and what with club- much," I says. "No," he says, "perhaps not; nights and sprees now and then, it never came but that's not all. I'll be bound to say, George, to be enough to be w^orth while taking down to if you'll only be candid enough to confess it, Welbeck-street. When Christmas-time came, that every time you went to the Yorkshire Grey all I had in the bank was the three pounds ten to pay in sixpence to the goose-club, you had a I first put in. However, that was something, glass of something?" "I don't deny it," I d€ and as I was rather short just then, it would come in handy to get the Christmas extras. says; "you can't well go to a public-house Three days before Christmas I went down to without having a glass," "Sometimes two," the bank to draw the money out, j)romising he says. "Well," I says, "sometimes two; Susan to come straight home with it. You perhaps three, when I happened to meet a may judge how mad I was, when the clerk told friend." " Then, let us say, George, that every me that'l couldn't draw the money out Avithout time you w^ent to pay in sixpence to the club, giving a week's notice. Here was a pretty go ; you spent, on an average, another sixpence on Susan at home w^aiting for the money to get in drink," "It might be about that," I says. the tea and sugar, the plums and currants, and "Very well then, George, upon your own 0 what not, and the cash not to be got until after showing, your goose, and bottle of gin, and Christmas, "This sort of saving won't suit me," bottle of rum, have cost you six-and-twenty says I to myself; "there's too much ceremony shiUings, to say nothing of your loss of time, about it," 1 had to borrow the money from one and the injury to your constitution through of my mates to get the Christmas dinner, and at drinking more than was good for you.' I the end of the w^eek I drew my money out of never thought of it in that way, John," I says. Welbeck-street, and paid him back; and that "No, of course not, George," he says; "for was the end of my account at that savings- bank. if you had thought of it in that way, you wouldn't have been such a fool as to do it." Next year, Susan belonged to a pudding-club "But you'll admit," I says, "that Susan has

^^rtmm y m ^ 82 [March 5, 1864.] ALL THE YEAK RUUNU [Conducted by- had her money's-worth at the grocer's, and not department." "WeU, it's very condescending paid more than she ought?" "I'm not going of him," Susan says, " for so little." " Well/^ to dispute that," he says; "but you must re­ I says, " it's a guarantee that it's all right, member that the grocer has had the use of her and there's his signature, ' Geo. Chetwynd.'" money, and supposing he had failed about the "Cheatwind!" Susan says ; "are you sure it's beginning of December, what would have be­ all safe, George ?" " Safe as the b^ink," I says, come of Susan, and all the other Christmas- "and safer; for the Queen, thc two Houses of club geese? I'm surprised at a sensible man Parliament, and all the taxes, are security."^ like you, George, doing such things, when I quite took a fancy to the Post-office Savings- there's a Post-office Savings-bank close to your bank when I found how simple the machinery door." " But," I says, " there's so much was. It was almost as handy as the drawer, to ceremony about savings-banks; they're only have a bank round the corner where you could open certain days a week, and the hours are in­ buy your tea and sugar, and put your money away convenient for a working man, and " "You all at once, and without ceremony. I was as don't know anything about them, George," he pleased with it as a child with a pretty toy, and says, taking me up short; " for the Post-office I liked the importance of receiving letters every Savings-banks that have just come up are open now and then "OnHerMajesty's Service." Susau every day from ten to four, and you may put used to put the letters on the chimney-piece for monev in, and draw it out, whenever you like." people to see. It w^as soon the talk of the " Well, John," I says, " PU see about it." neighbourhood that I was holding a corre­ I did see about it, and found that one of the spondence with the government, and it was Post-office banks had been opened at Bardsley's, reported that I was going to be appointed the tea-grocer's, in the next street. Bardsley's watchmaker to the Queen and the royal family, is our post-office and money-order office as well; I passed the post-office twace every day on and walking up the shop through an avenue of coming home to dinner and going back again sugar-loaves, I found a clerk reading the news­ to work, and to walk in with my book and put paper. away a few shillings, was just like dropping in to " I want to put some money in the new bank," the pubhc-house to have a glass of ale. And I says. always the next day, whether it was pounds or The clerk never said a word, but placed a shiUings, I had a letter "On Her Majesty's Ser­ printed paper before me to sign. I read it vice;" and Susan would meet me at the door over and signed it, thereby declaring that I and say, " George, here's another letter from was not directly or indirectly entitled to any the Queen," and then we'd sit down after supper deposit in that, or any other savings-bank, and and count it up, and see how much I had at my that I submitted myself to the rules of the Post- banker's. I found putting money away in the office Savings-bank. The clerk then handed Post-office Savings-bank so easy and so pleasant me a small paper book, about the size of a penny Hke, that I rather overdid the thing, and put memorandum-book, only it had a white cover more money away than I could spare. So one with the royal arms at the top, and was printed day I ran short, and had to draw out. It was all over with riUes and regulations. almost as easy and expeditious as drawing a cheque upon one of the big banks. At the post- " Sign your name on that line, across the inside of the office they gave me a slip of paper with a form cover," the clerk says. I signed of withdrawal upon it, and addressed in print it, "That's your signature," he says, "for to the Postmaster-General on the back. I had drawing out, and you should be particular always nothing to do but fiU in the number of my book, to use the same one." the amount 1 wanted to draw out, sign my I then handed the clerk five shUlings as my name, double the bit of paper up, and shove it first deposit. He took the money, wrote in the in the post. It only took me about a minute, book, "Number 857. 1862. Jan. I. 5," for the paper was ready gummed for sealing, put^ the post-office letter stamp for the day and no stamp was required, it being marked ou against the entry, and the thing was done. 1 the back," On Her Majesty's Service." It was don't think I was more than five minutes in the two^o'clock on Tuesday when I posted the letter. shop altogether. The very next evening, when At four o'clock next day I had an answer in the Susan and I were sitting at supper, the post­ shape of a printed form, very similar to the notice man came to the door. Susan answered him, paper. I had nothing to do but sign it and present and came back with a letter in her hand. "Lor', it at the post-office, and the money was handed George," she says, "it's a letter, 'On Her to me, the clerk marking off the withdrawal iu Majesty's Service ;' whatever can it be about ? my book. I shouldn't wonder if it was the water-rates, for vou know the man has called three times, It's my belief that saving is a habit, like and^: " smoking, or taking snuff, or like extravagance. "There, let's open it," I says, "that's the If you begin it and go on with it for a little best way to find out what it's about. It's all time, you come to have a sort of passion for it. riglit, Susan," I says; " it's a letter from the Whenever I had any spare cash, I was off to Postmaster-General." "And whatever does he Bardsley's with it, and often when I thought of want?" Susan says. "Oh, nothing," I says; withdrawing some I didn't do it, saying to my­ '• he only writes to say that five shillings liave self, "Oh, I can give notice to-morrow, or the been placed to my credit in the books of his next day, or any time I Hke;" and so perhaps I Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND, [March 5,1864.] S3

"li waited and tided over the temporary difficulty, dent. If there's a phUanthropist that's hard up and didn't withdraw at all. for an object, I don't know what he could do About the beginning of December, in 'Sixty- better than go about distributing tracts setting three, when I went to put in three pounds, the forth the rules and regulations and advantages clerk wouldn't take it, " What's up," I says; of the Post-office Savings-banks. "going to stop?" "No," he says; "but if you look at the rules and regulations in your book, you'll find that you ain't aUowed to put AMONG PIRATES. in more than thirty pounds a year," That, I beHeve, is to protect the regular bankers, and it MY friend MICHAEL ANDEKSEN, late carpenter may be quite right, but I don't exactly see it. of that ill-fated bark the FLOWEHY LAND, is a I know this, that before the new year, when I man of few words. These being, for the most might begin to put in again, I had blewed that part, Norwegian, he has a certain difficulty in three pound wthich the clerk wouldn't take. If making his sentiments clearly intelligible to the it did any good to the regular bankers, it cer­ British mind, and this difficulty is enhanced by tainly didn't do any good to me. However, at the effect produced upon the poor fellow's ner­ the end of 'sixty-three, I had fifty pounds at the vous system, both by the murderous scenes he Post-office Savings-bank, and I might have had has witnessed, and his subsequent compulsory sixty, only I took a hoHday in August, and went association of three wrecks with the piratical down with Susan for a week to Margate, where gang who had murdered the captain and others, we were rather free. And here I found out and seized the ship. Nevertheless, in the course another advantage of this wonderful Post-office of an hour's visit he lately paid me, with refer­ bank. Susan and I went boating, and raffling, ence to obtaining a passage back to Christian- and driving in chaises, and ran short, and were sand, Michael related enough to make his expe­ likely to be in a fix, until I looked over the rience worth recording in the "story of our rules and regulations in my bank-book, when I Hves from year to year." learned that I might withdraw my money at any It is no exaggeration to say that, for the whole Post-office Savings-bank in the kingdom, by period I have mentioned—three weeks—the giving notice to that effect. So I sent up the man's life hung upon a hair. In his condensed usual notice of withdrawal to London—I keep evidence given at the recent trial, Andersen a dozen of them stitched together in a cover, stated that while standing at the top of the aud call it my cheque-book — stating that I cuddy-stairs, and bending over the mangled w^anted to withdraw the money at the post- body of the mate, he was himself struck with office at Margate; and, almost by return, back a handspike on the back of the neck. This came the withdraw^al paper, and I had nothing blow, which struck him half senseless down the to do but go to the post-office and get it cashed. steps, a fall of six feet, was no doubt intended And the forms don't cost you a farthing; there's to have been deadly. Lighting upon the no postage to pay, and when the time comes for neck and shoulder, it only occasioned him a you to send up your book to the chief office in few days' stiffness and pain, and warned him London for the interest at two and a half per of the critical tenure on which he retained his cent to be calculated and added to your account Hfe. —which is the anniversary of the day on which the first deposit was made—the Postmaster- There seems to have been little general in­ General sends you a big envelope for the pur­ tercourse among the polyglot crew, but, fortu­ pose. nately for Andersen, he had established a sort of friendship with one of the Manilla mis­ out, Altogether, it's the best regulated thing I creants— Lyons — who ultimately came forth ever came across, and if it doesn't make people as the leading spirit of the murderous con­ save, nothing wiU. But it does, I'm sure. spiracy. To this man's persistent interposi­ Look at Bardsley's shop now, to wdiat it was. tion, Andersen, the second mate, and the Why, that httle box with the pigeon-hole, boy Early, were unquestionably indebted for ," h where they used to do the post-office order their lives. business, has swollen into a great banking de­ Of these three, my friend Michael stood in partment, and there's Bardsley himself, with a the most imminent perU, The second mate was clerk to help him, at it aU day long, with pUes needed to navigate the vessel. The boy—are- of bank-notes and bowls full of sovereigns served and timid lad—was held in contempt. No beside them —just like Twining's, or the carpenter was needed, and the very appearance Bank of England itself. Bardsley's proud of of poor Andersen at any part of the ship gave it, too; I know lie is, He's never behind such umbrage to the mutineers, that, in spite of the counter now, the opposition of his friend "Joe Lyons," as leaves that to his serving tea and sugar; he men; he's a banker. he called him, no day passed without its being bless you, young resolved to kill him before its close. So long as lot I don't beHeve I should ever have saved any­ " Joe Lyons" was present, Michael was com­ thing if these Post-office Savings-banks hadn't paratively safe. The ticklish part of it was come up; and I'm sure if it was generally to survive during his patron's unavoidable dis­ known how handy and convenient they are, appearances. To facUitate this process, the thousands like myself would take advantage of latter imparted every day to his friend a regular them, and soon learn to be careful and provi- lesson in deportment, suggested by the existing [Conducted by 84 [March 5,1864.J ALL THE YEAR ROUND. ' feeling of each individual miscreant respecting attendance as a witness; and, while so engaged, him. was provided with a lodging at the house of a "Keep clear of Lopez, this watch," Lyons policeman; but, the trial over, he was turned would say; "if Santos or Marsaliiio speaks to adrift; and had it not been for the refuge offered you, don't look so cursedly sulky; they're all by the SaUors' Home, and the khidness of a right just now. FHng that knife overboard, you charitable gentleman who was present at the trial, (something'd) booby ! Do you want it in your would have been left in a state of actual desti­ own ribs ? Now, mind this; if you see Blanco tution: his clothes, money, box of tools, &c., lounging about you with his hands in his pockets, having gone down with the scuttled ship. As sheer wide of him, d'ye hear? Don't go below the vessel was insured for four or five thousand for a moment to-day; they don't like it. Keep pounds, it might have been imagined that the out of all dark places, and, when I'm on deck, owners would have taken the poor man's case take your snooze," into their consideration. Such—though not conveyed in that precise Narrow as Michael Andersen's escape has language—were some of the directions Michael been, it w^as even surpassed in narrowness by had daily to observe, and were sent well home that of a gentleman—Mr. S,—to whom a most to his memory by the supplementary informa­ extraordinary adventure occurred about twenty- tion his instructor had almost always to add— five years since, but which, never finding a place that his life was to be taken that day, should in the Annual or other registers of the time, the slightest pretext be afl'orded, and that even may scarcely be remembered, the manner of the deed, by knife, handspike, Mr. S., who had held an appointment in slung shot, or flinging overboard, had been de­ India, and married, while there, a half-caste cided on. Malay lady of great beauty, embarked with his With wits sharpened by this intelligence, wife at Singapore, on board a large country Michael did, under a merciful Providence, ship of eleven or twelve hundred tons burden. weather the dangerous storm: preserved, as In the same vessel were placed a large number we know, to aid materially in the conviction of Chinese convicts, going to fulfil their respec­ of the merciless band, even of him who saved tive sentences at different depots. Now, instead him; but whose conduct, with this exception, of providing for these desperadoes a regular unhappily, presented no other feature of ex­ escort, it pleased the authorities to assemble a tenuation. sort of " scratch" pack, composed of Sepoys, According to Michael, this deed of piracy and pensioned and returning home, and of men murder—one of the foulest in our annals—had who had been policemen, but who no longer its origin solely in cupidity. The vessel, a well- were. found bark, of about five hundred tons, had They had been but a few days at sea, when more than the usual number of hands on board. Mr. S. was awakened one night by a disturbance The crew w^re aU, with one or two excep­ on deck, and, rushing up, found a regular tions, practised seamen, who knew their duty, battle going on between the convicts (who had and, in spite of the variety of languages, did it risen) and their inefficient guard: apparently to well. the disadvantage of the latter. Mr, S. quickly The unfortunate captain, Michael declared, returned to his cabin, and was groping for his "was a very nice man." So also was the arms, when the captain rushed in, fired liis pistol captain's brother, who had been a master through the skylight, and crying out that the carpenter, and in whose employ Michael had Chinese were masters of the ship, darted up purposed to remain, at Singapore. the steps, threw himself overboard, and was There was, according to Michael, little or no drowned. ground for discontent on board—some occa­ A few minutes of suspense foUowed, when a sional harshness of expression on the part of party of convicts came below, and, without the captain not being worth taking into account molesting Mrs. S., ordered her husband on —but an impression had got about among the deck. Compelled to obey, he found the deck men that the ship's freight included a quantity deluged with blood, and the victorious convicts of specie. It appears to have been a fact that the compeUing the survivors of the British crew captain had with him certain bags of medals, or and Sepoys to " walk the plank," metal counters, burnished to look like sovereigns, Presently, it came to Mr. S,'s turn. Instead, and worth about a penny each. The sale of these however, of falling at once into the sea, he, with impostors, in many parts of the metropolis, but great muscular etlbrts, clung to the plank, and especially near the river, is so common as to refused his fate. In vain the murderers tried run no risk of deceiving the most innocent to prod him with pikes. He dodged their purchaser. Nevertheless, to their unlucky points successfully, until, at length, a Chinese,, presence in the "Flowery Land," was probably creeping forward on the plank, aimed a blow at due the catastrophe which befel that unfortunate him with a sabre. In avoiding the stroke, Mr. ship. S. lost his hold, and feU into the sea. Poor Michael, after all his dangers and It was midnight, the sea was full of sharks, escapes—not to mention the assistance he Mr. S. could not swim a stroke, the ship was in afforded in bringing the criminals to justice— complete possession of the convicts, a thousand ran some risk of perishing by starvation in mUes from land. Could any position seem more Hberal England. He was indeed paid for his hopeless ? Yet Mr, S. lived to relate the story J /

Charlea Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [MarchS, 18G4.] 85 at a London dinner-party to a friend of the not be induced to award against the actors in writer's. that cruel deed of piracy and murder any other In falling, he caught a rope towing over­ verdict than " manslauG-hter 1" board. By this he hung, invisible, hearing successive victims fall, and distinguishing be­ tween the dead and living bodies, by the absence, FAIR DENMARK, in the former case, of the last frantic struggle for existence. At length, his chilled fingers MOST people have their Ultima Thule on the lost hold of the rope; but, at tliat instant, it oc­ map, beyond which all is shadowy twiHght, curred to him that he had heard it affirmed that terroe incognitse, peopled by ichthyophagi, an­ if one who could not swim would only throw thropophagi, or "men whose heads do grow be­ himself boldly on his back, keeping his head neath their shoulders." " Spain's an island," well down, he might float for an indefinite said one of the lights of the harem. To the period. He did so, and floated; but every now general reader, as well as to the general tra­ and then his legs would sink lower and lower, veller, Denmark, as a whole, is an unknown tUl at length one of them struck a hard sub­ region, beginning with its entrance-hall (by stance. Strange as it may appear, it is a land), the Duchy of Holstein. positive fact that he had unconsciously drifted The portal to the Danish kingdom for visitors into one of the ship's boats, which, half sub­ from Western Europe (still by land) is Ham­ merged, was towing astern. Once aware of burg, a city unique after its kind—a Babel his position, he was able to support himself without its tower, a Babylon without its fall. without difficulty tUl morning broke, when he Other towns and other provinces have bowed was discovered, brought on deck, and, to his their heads to monarchic sceptres; Hamburg utter astonishment, allowed to go to his cabin retains its ancient constitution aud its privileges unmolested; not, however, untU he had seen as a free city. Its bourgomaster still bears the the unfortunate EngHsh mate, who had taken title of magnificent, and its senators have a refuge in the rigging, brought down, ham­ right to be addressed as their wisdoms. Amidst 'm strung, and left to bleed to death. the confusion of tongues which stuns the ear, The ship was now put about; and, under the the language of trade is universaUy understood; RJE charge of a native pilot, w^ho had been spared "money" is the password from one end of the for the purpose, shaped her course for China. town to the other. The Hamburgian babies Mr. S. was confined to his cabin, and though, learn to lisp it soon after they come into the naturally, a prey to considerable anxiety, was world, the old men mutter it in their dreams relieved from any immediate fear of death, inas­ before lying down to take their final sleep. They much as one or other of his captors came every are prudent, and would give offence to no man. day to inquire what he would like for dinner ! Once upon a time, a journalist had the boldness In due time land was sighted, a bold headland, to state that French gunpowder was better than round which the pUot declared they must steer, Prussian, The censor of the press struck out although there presently appeared also a broad the sentence, seeing that Prussia cannot be fine channel, dividing the headland from the main­ supposed to be, in any respect, inferior to land. In spite of the man's repeated assurance France. Another writer translated a speech that this was full of rocks, the Chinese, doubting of the King of Sweden, in which he mentioned his good faith, compelled him to lay what seemed Asiatic cholera. The word " Asiatic" had to be to them the shorter course and enter the chan­ suppressed, because Russia might take umbrage nel. Scarcely had they done so when the ship at it. Despite all which, the men of Hamburg stranded, A hasty council was held, at which are honourable, amiable, hospitable, and will it was resolved that half the party should escape honour a letter of introduction as readily as a to land, sending back the boats for the other bill of exchange. half, who should then follow ttieir comrades, Almost touching Hamburg, is Altona, the having first murdered Mr, and Mrs. S., and fired capital of Holstein, the second city of the Danish the ship. dominions, and the dullest in the universe. It The former part of the programme was duly rivals London, nevertheless, in having a hand­ executed, and the boats were returning, when some street called Pallmail, The scenery of the three masts of a British sloOp of war became Holstein, without aspiring to the picturesque, iDsfei visible, not a mile distant. She had seen the is pleasing in its character. The farms, with .p course of the devoted ship, and, knowing what their neat hedges or low stone fences, have must ensue, gave chase to pick up the pieces. almost an English look. Gentle knoUs occur Her boats were already out, and no sooner now and then, interspersed with little sheets of • came within haU than Mr, S. made known the water. The clumps of beech around these state of affairs. In a moment, the Chinese were smaU lakes are vocal with the nightingale. In on their knees praying for their prisoners' inter­ general, there is little wood; but wherever it cession. The sloop's boats, properly armed, went occurs, from its consisting of trees with glossy ashore and captured every individual of those who foliage, it teUs weU in the landscape. had landed. The whole were reconveyed to Sin­ In fact, the land is a very good land. The gapore, and probably not the least remarkable neatness of its little towns is very striking. Of feature of the remarkable story is, that for some these, Braunsted and Neumunster are worthy reason best known to themselves, the jury could of especial mention. With their pavements as

.^^^ ^ 86 [March 5,1864.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND, [Conductedby accurate as mosaic, houses of bridit compact hood of Kiel where a couple of hundred cows brick, avenues of elms forming sheltered walks are kept, and in whose storerooms a thousand from end to end, and streets dehghtfuUy clean, cheeses, ready for export, may be seen at one they greatly remind the traveUer of the highly- time. Though Kiel is somewliat sunk from its polished little towns of Holland, importance as the capital of the Gottorp portion The system pursued in fiUing up vacant of Holstein (formerly belonging to the imperial clerical charges is, as nearly as can be, that of family of Russia), yet, in consequence of a brisk uncontroUed popular election The parishioners commerce and some manufacturing spirit, the meet at the church on a day of which due inti­ inhabitants have long been reputed wealthy. mation has been given by the ecclesiastical judi­ On doubUng the Point of Falster, after leaving catory of the district. The only iiUiabitants of Kiel, the steamer takes you between Zealand the parish w^ho do not attend on these occasions and an archipelago of islands scattered about ou are the proprietors of the larger estates; they either side — poor little islets scarcely rising absent themselves lest they should be suspected above the water's edge, covered with scanty of influencing then tenants in behalf of some grass and a few hovels, whose peasant inhabi­ particular preacher. The candidates are gene­ tants lead a life much akin to that passed on rally those young clergymen of the neighbour­ shipboard. The wind dashes the spray of the hood with whose pulpit ministrations the people waves against their huts. The sea roars by day are best acquainted. The names of these around the family table, and by night beneath being duly proposed, every male parishioner the pillows on which they sleep. The sea is who has received the sacrament votes for the their element, their delight, and their sorrow, person he prefers, and the appointment is given their wide world, their boundary. Casting their to him who unites the greatest number of nets therein, they reap their harvests. voices. The system appears to work well, It is a popular tradition that some of these there. There are few instances of serious divi­ islets were made by enchanters, who wished for sions among the people, and as few in wthich the greater faciUties of going to and fro, and dropped best qualified candidate is not selected. them in the sea as stations on their way. At Pretty little Kiel, in a snug baylet on the certain spots they are so close to each other north coast of Holstein, receives, if not its vi­ that the sea no longer resembles a sea, but a tahty, at least a great part of its animation, mighty river Hke the Rhine. You distinguish from the fresh blood which flows through it in the shore on either side; you can count the the shape of strangers. The steamers arriving dweUings; and on Sundays, when the boat runs from Copenhagen import objects of constant in­ along the coast of Falster, you can hear the bells, terest. Faces are seen in its peaceable streets and can respond to the hymns chanted inside which nobody has ever seen before, and dialects the churches. are heard whose interpretation would puzzle its A little further on, the natives will take you learned university: which university, by the way, to the prow of the vessel and point with pride includes imprisonment amongst its modes of to a tall white mass of rock surmounted by discipline. He is no myth, that traveUing stu­ several sharp peaks, and crowned with trees. dent of dramatic notoriety, who, when asked by What a geologist would call calcareous rock, is country acquaintances where he resided, frankly not a rock, but a beautiful young fairy who gave his address, "at the University Prison, reigns over the island and its surrounding Heidelberc^." waters. The naked cliff is her white robe, But Kiel is best known to German idlers from which falls in graceful folds to the sea, and is its attractions as a watering-place, notwithstand­ diapered by the glancing sunbeams. The pointed ing the rivals it has to contend with. Cux­ pyramid is her sceptre, and the belt of wood her haven, Nordeuei, and Heligoland. But though diadem. From the summit of the Dronuings these rivals stand on the North Sea, whose Stol (the Queen's Seat), she surveys her em­ waters are reckoned more restorative than those pire and protects the fisherman's barque as of the Baltic, yet Kiel attracts a fair proportion watchfully as the merchant vessel. Thus does of the thousands who annually flock from all the popular imagination poetise material objects. parts of Germany to some other part of Father­ Passing along the shores of a lake, it hears the land. water-sprites singing in their grottos, and be­ Holstein, for its present annoyance, is the holds the mermaids rising to the surface, Gaziug joint which unites to the great German body the at a hill of chalk, it discovers a queen there, and long straggling arm known as Continental Den­ calls it the Moensklint (the Maiden's Rock). At mark. The little duchy, hitherto best known for Moensklint the sea resumes its open character, its agricultural fame, holds also a conspicuous and the coast of Kioge almost seems to retreat, place in the annals of the royal houses of Europe. to make way for the vessels wliich incessantly Its princely line has given kings to most of the pass. Thence to Copenhagen the sea is covered thrones of the north, and if they all begin to with ships. Here, as elsewhere, the Baltic squabble about it, there is no knowing where coast is full of traditions, some impressed with lei the quarrel will end. A different supply con­ true reUgious feeling, others bearing the trace sists of cart-horses, the Holstein breed main­ of paganism. taining its reputation as amongst the fittest for In these islets everybody is acquainted with the draught in the world. The dairies are also in history of elves and giants, with magic swords, and high repute. There are farms in the neighbour­ treasures guarded by dragons. They are the resort X Charlea Dickens.] ALL IHE YEAR ROUND. [March 5,1864.] 87

of mermen, with green beards and hair like sea­ approaches her to take her orders. She then weed streaming over their shoulders, who sing half uprises in her oaken chest, and asks, "Is at evening amongst the breakers to entice the my church still standing?" " Yes," replies the maidens, and bear them off to their crystal grots. priest, "Would to Heaven," she answers, " it They hide sorcerers who, by force of enchant­ had fallen to the ground!" She then sinks ments, raise tempests to wreck the boats of the back with a deep sigh, and the lid of the coffer fishermen, against whom they bear a grudge. is closed again. They have ghastly huntsmen, condemned for A poor sailor, who lost his son in a ship­ their crimes to an endless chase through thicket wreck, went mad for grief. Every day he gets and marsh. Priest Island recals a saintly legend. into his boat and sails away to the open sea. There dwelt on it a priest named Anders, revered There, he rolls a drum with all his might, and by every one on account of his virtues. He was calls to his son in a loud voice, "Come, come; very poor, being possessed of one penny only. come out of your hiding-place! Swim hither, But when he wanted anything, he sent his penny and I will put you beside me in my boat. If to the dealer or the labourer, who invariably and you are dead, I will give you a grave in the devoutly returned it, with the addition of the cemetery, a grave among the shrubs and thing required. The island stUl retains its name, flowers. You wiU sleep better there than but has, unfortunately, lost the marvellous penny. beneath the waves." But he calls aud looks out At another part of the coast, a church sunk in vain. At nightfaU he returns, saying, to the bottom of the sea, after being profaned "To-morrow, I will go further; my poor boy stj by impious men. By night, you may hear the did not hear me." ^j; unhappy wretches chant the penitential psalms, Most of these legends are melancholy in their intermingled with sobs and waUings. When the character, and turn upon the different phases of sea is calm, you may see through the transparent famUy affection. For instance: Dyring went waves the lighted candles before the altar. For to a distant island and took a handsome girl to their sins, they are condemned to bitter imprison­ wife. They lived together seven years, and she ment in this sunken church until the day of presented him with seven children. Then death judgment. came into the country, and carried off the wife, In the same neighbourhood, the sailors have so fresh and so rosy, Dyring went to a distant often beheld, in the midst of tempests and by island, married another girl, and brought her the glare of lightnmg, a strange built vessel home. But this one was unkind and hard­ hoisting an unknown flag. The captain and his hearted. When she entered her husband's crew one day committed a great crime; and they house, the seven chUdren wept; they wept and are to wander over the waves, without halt or were anxious. She repulsed them with her foot. repose, till the end of the world. When these She gave them neither beer nor bread, and told poor maritime wandering Jews perceive another them, "You shall sleep on straw, with nothing to vessel at a distance, they send off to it letters cover you." She extinguished the great torches, for their relations and friends. But the letters and said, " You shall remain in darkness," are addressed to persons who have not existed The children wept very late into the night. for centuries, and to streets with names known Their mother heard them, where she lay, under to no living creature. the earth. " Oh !" she cried, " that I could go In Falster Island there was once a very rich and see my Httle chUdren!" She prayed and woman who had no children. Wishing to devote prayed till she obtained permission to go and see her fortune to pious uses, she buUt a church, her little chUdren, on condition that, at cock­ which, when finished, appeared in her eyes so crow, she would leave them. So the poor mother beautiful, that she felt herself entitled to ask a raised herself on her weary legs, and climbed recompense. She therefore prayed to be per­ over the stone wall of the burial-ground. She mitted to live as long as her church should stand. traversed the village, and the dogs howled as Her desire was granted. Death passed before her they heard her pass. She reached the door of door without entering it. He knocked at the her former dwelling; her eldest daughter was doors of aU her relations and friends, but did not standing there. show her so much as the tip of his scythe. She " What are you doing here, my child ?" she lived unscathed through aU the wars, through all asked. " How are your brothers and sisters ?" the plagues and pestilences, through all the " You are a fine grand lady, but you are not famines which ravaged her country. She lived my darling mother. My mother's cheeks were so long, that she had nobody left to talk with; for white and red, whUst you are as pale as death." she always talked of such ancient times and ways "And how can I be white and red, after that nobody could understand her. But when reposing so long in my coffin ?" she asked for extension of life, she forgot to She went into the cliamber; her little chUdren ask for a continuation of youth and middle age. were there with tears on their cheeks. She took She received what she begged for and no more. one and combed it, smoothed the hair of another, She grew older and older. She lost her strength, and caressed a third and a fourth. She took her sight, her hearing, and her speech. She the fifth in her arms and opened her bosom to then had herself shut up in an oaken coffer and it. Then, calling her eldest daughter, "Go carried to the church. Once a year, at Christ­ and teU Dyring to come here," she said. When mas, she recovers the use of her senses for an Dyring came, she spoke to him angrily, " I hour, and every year, at that hour, the priest left you beer and bread, and my children are 5^ 88 [March 5, 1864.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conductedby hungry and thirsty, I left you blue cushions fore we land, tell me who is that bold cavalier and coverlids, and my children sleep on naked who rides to and fro along the bank ?'' straw. I left you tall flambeaux, and my "You are welcome, princess," replied Ebbe­ children are in (darkness. If you often make son; "but do not speak so loud. It is King me thus return by night, misfortune will come Valdemar of Denmark, come to offer three of it." At this the mother-in-law exclaimed, crowns to his bride." " Henceforward I wiU be kind to your children," " Shame on you, noble Ebbeson! Have you And from that day, whenever the husband and deceived me ? Has King Valdemar of Den­ wife heard the dogs growl, they gave the children mark only one eye ?" beer and bread; and when they heard them howl "King Valdemar is a hero worthy of the and bark, they went and hid themselves, lest they blood of Orlog; he has reconquered for Den­ should see the dead woman come back again. mark aU the land to the north of the Elbe. ^ Such The Kgempeviser are songs and stories written glory must needs be purchased by something." in the national language of Denmark,^ They The wedding was brilliant, and the young contain, amongst others, the touching history of couple loved each other from the bottom of their Queen Dagmar (Aurora, or Daybreak), who, for hearts. It was a happy time for all in Denmark. seven years, was adored by the king and his Queen Dagmar took care of the honest peasant; people, and who died in May, 1212. Her he lived without burthen, and in peace. She arrival in Denmark is thus related : was the sweetest flower in Denmark's garden. King Valdemar and his noble. Strange Ebbe- son, are sitting in the castle hall, and are dis­ coursing together, DR. PEREGRINE'S PAGE. "Do you hear, noble Ebbeson, what I tell you ? I. You will set out for Bohemia, from whence you IN one of the earlier volumes of my diary I will bring me back my young bride." find the following passage : Noble Ebbeson, of handsome mien and elo­ " Tuesday, January I7th, 18—. This morn­ quent speech, replied, "If I go to Bohemia, ing, at half-past three A.M., poor John Bentmore who will accompany me ?" expired. Conscious to the last—full of self-con­ "Choose first," replied the king, "the young demnation for errors which were more those of Lord Limbek and Olaf Glilck; choose the rich judgment than intention; pious, earnest, humble- Seigneur Peter Glob and others, according to minded, he died, bitterly accusing himself of your liking." having injured his boy's prospects. A touching At their departure, the king accompanied end. I promised to befriend his child. How them to the shore with a numerous and brilliant shall I fulfil that promise ?" suite. For three weeks they saUed over the Of all my humble proteges, John Bentmore azure waves, and when they caught sight of the was the most grateful, and the least satisfactory. land of Bohemia they gaily saluted it. They He was emphatically an unlucky man. Nothing cast anchor, furled their sails, and landed. The prospered with him. He had tried everything. retinue was dazzling to behold, preceded by the Service in all sorts of capacities. He had been noble Ebbeson. a greengrocer, a lodging-house keeper; a "God be with you. King of Bohemia ! You traveUer for a wine merchant; a traveUer in are a prince worthy of all honour. King Val­ the grocery line; foreman to an upholsterer. I demar of Denmark sends me to you; he loves got up a subscription for him, and fitted him out your daughter, and demands her hand." for Australia; but in less than two years he was The king then entered his palace to consult back again, with little besides the clothes which, with the queen. "There are some noble seig­ to use his own expression, he stood upright in. neurs from Denmark, who are come to take our By-and-by he set up for himself in the up­ daughter away. If mighty Valdemar desires to holstery trade with capital borrowed from one espouse her, we will leave her to these brilliant of his old employers. He had been brought up lords, and give a rich dowry with her hand." to it, his father having been an upholsterer; They dressed the princess in blue silk and led and he ought to have understood it himself. her into the great hall. "Here is the princess But his ill luck, or rather his want of business herself, so beautiful in modesty and virtue." habits, pursued him stUl, He employed the best They then brought the chess-board and the table men; he bought the best materials. Yet, his of massive gold, that the noble Ebbeson might wood always warped; his blitids never worked play with tlie princess and converse with her properly; his carpets wore white; his very alone. At the third move they were agreed; nails never held. He was wont to admit him­ noble Ebbeson had won a good wife for his self with a sigh, as he wiped the perspiration king. The silken carpets were spread on the from his brow, that "there was a many ground, and a long train accompanied the prin­ complaints. He didn't know how it was, but cess to the place of embarkation. She bade there was a many complaints." adieu to her dear parents, and they blessed her At last he sunk under his ill fortune. On his from a distance. She was gentle and delicate. death-bed he accused himself bitterly, and She arrived by the island of Maiioe, to the west bewailed the destitute state of his son, whose of Schleswig, The King of Denmark made his future prospects naturally formed his chief horse prance on the shore of Ripen. anxiety, I had much ado to reconcUe him to "Noble Ebbeson," asked the princess, "be­ the idea of the boy's seeking his Hving (at any

^ X I Charles Dickens.j ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [March 5,1SC4,] 89

rate in the first instance) by servitude, and I I took him to Mr, Moreen, whom I had long undertook, before I sought a service for Arthur, been in the habit of attending professionaUy, to induce Mr, Moreen, the upholsterer—with and who I believed had a real regard for me. whom John Bentmore had lived twice as fore­ I would make an attempt in that quarter. After man—to employ him ; but John's hopes on this all, it could but faU, head were slight. " He won't do it, sir," he !Mi'. Moreen was a huge, sturdy, ruddy-faced said, with a sigh of self-reproach; " and I don't giant, w^orking hard, living generously, doing deserve that he should. He's a just man—Mr. business, as business should be done, in a busi­ Moreen. And I—I owe him money. I owe liim ness-like way. He piqued himself on the quality a large sum of money, and he's not one to over­ of his materials, and the excellence of his work­ look that. If indeed he would let the boy work manship, and was wont to look with an eye of for him any number of years without wages, something like contempt on any work but his aud so pay liim off what I owe, that would be a owm. Though as straightforward, shrewd, and blessed thing! but he won't do it 1 he won't do experienced a tradesman as London ever pro­ it, sir, I have enraged him; and Mrs, Moreen duced, he was completely under the thumb of —she can't overlook his having lent me the his wife. He came down to us now, from the money; not but what it would be the best comfortable meat tea he had been enjoying with thing they could do to get paid; for Arthur Mrs. M. (as he respectfully caUcd her) and the would do his duty by them, Pm sure of that. children, wiping the crumbs from his mouth as He's very different from me, you see, sir—a he entered. He smiled on seeing me; but cast deal better. He's got twenty times my head for a sharp glance of something like disfavour on figures, and book-keeping, and that. He'll make my companion; who, pale and slender, looked a first-rate man of business, wUl Arthur. They above his station in his new mourning suit, re­ say at his school, that he's an uncommon turn lieved by an inch or two of his father's gold for mathematics. It is a pity, ain't it, to make chain, that peeped from his w^aistcoat. I said a menial of such a lad as that ?" it had been his late foreman's last wish that his And the father looked proudly and fondly at his son should be brought up to the trade he had followed himself, and that he had not been with­ ^! boy, who was seated in the hospital window intent upon a book; and a single tear rolled out hope that Mr. Moreen would permit the down upon his pillow. boy to be in his shop, at least for a while. The hour came at last. He fixed on his boy The upholsterer heard me attentively to the a glance of loving recognition, and the tender end. He was not one to speak hastily, nor yet light faded away; in its place there came a film, one to mince matters wdien he did speak. He and aU was over. knew his own mind, in general—when Mrs. M. II, was not by. Arthur Bentmore had not completed his thir­ " Sir, I wouldn't have a son of John Bent- teenth year when his father died. He was taU more's in my shop, not if you was to pay me for his age, with small and well-cut features. The all he owed, and fifty pounds more to tlie back mouth was full and handsome; but the com­ of that, I've had enough of the father; I pressed lips, and square chin, indicated firm­ don't want no more of the lot. That boy'll be ness, whilst the singularly prominent eyes had just like 'em all—turn out as bad as the rest. in them a thoughtful abstraction unusual in one John Bentmore used me ill, sir. I trusted him, lokte so young. I had learnt from Mr. GiUies, his and he deceived me. He deceived me." schoolmaster (whom I had met more than once " Not wilfully !" I interrupted. " When he by his father's bedside), that he was studious and borrow^ed that money, he intended to repay it." persevering, though not particularly clever; and "I trusted him, and he deceived me," Mr. from the father himself, that he was dutiful and Moreen resumed, not condescending to notice obedient in no ordinary degree. But my own my interruption. " He promised in black and observations had served rather to puzzle than to white, that he would pay back that money enlighten me, although at one conclusion I had before the year were out, and he never paid me arrived, namely, that he was reserved even to se- a shilling of it—no, nor meant to it. There's cretiveness. His nature seemed to be one of those no honesty in the blood, that's where it is! which, to open at all, must be wrenched open. there's no honesty in the blood! Eighty-seven His father's affairs were set in order wdth as pounds nine shUlings and threepence that man Httle delay as possible. When all was sold, owed me, and I shall never see a farthing of it. scarcely enough remained to pay the funeral No, sir, T thank you ; but I'll have nothing to and other necessary expenses ; nothing whatever do with his boy." towards defraying Mr, Moreen's debt. I had "Father would have tried to pay you, if he clothed the boy in decent mourning, and paid had lived, sir !" Arthur's young voice was heard his small arrears of schooling myself, taking to say; " I know he would have done his best him for the moment into my own lodging ; and to pay you." now I felt it was time to think of putting him I glanced at the boy. He was pale, and the in some way of earning an independent liveli­ perspiration stood in beads upon his ^forehead. hood; but it was not w-ithout the utmost diffi­ His eyes, full of an eager and glowing light, culty and considerable exercise of patience, that were fixed intently on the upholsterer. My I wrung from him the confession that he would heart bled for him. It was cruel to speak thus rather be an upholsterer than a servant. of his dead father in his presence.

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" Not he !" Mr. Moreen replied, putting his if they had had any, laying themselves out to be hands into his w^aistcoat-pockets, and jingHng imposed upon in a hundred ways, on all sides. his loose silver, with a dogged kind of careless­ Their butler, Mr. Tapps, having decanted their ness, " Not he 1 'tw^asn't in him. 'Twasn't in wine, and imbibed the greater part of it, for two- him, no more than 'twas in his brother Charles, and-twenty years, was looked upon by them as a who died some eight or nine years ago, deep in priceless treasure. Their coachman, a corpulent debt. He was another of the same sort—always but lenient man, aUowed them the use of their borrowing, never paying nobody again—ahvays horses for an hour or two occasionally, when in trouble and difficulties—and prison (with a his wife thought it good for him to drive; nor strong emphasis). It's in the blood. There's was there a pair in all London that could match no backbone among them ! And the boy's one his for sleek and decorous slowness. The lady's- of them, 0/" course !" maid had ruled her mistress with a yard measure He jerked out these sentences with strong of iron for thirty years, and was looked upon by contempt, making short pauses between each, that lady with a truly filial respect. The cook that seemed to add tenfold weight to his words. had grown fat on the'proceeds of that wdiich she I felt indignant at the cruelty of such re­ sold out of her luxurious kitchen. The house­ marks, before a lad whose parent was scarcely yet maid and scullery-maid miglit as yet be con­ cold in his grave. "Mr. Moreen," I said, "you sidered babies in the service, having been only have a perfect right to refuse to employ the lad, three and four years in the famUy; but, influ­ but you have no right to wound him, by casting enced by the general tone of the establishment, bitter reflections on the memory of his father." they were of course prepared to remain there " Sir," said Mr. Moreen, taking one square (if spared, and not taken possession of by the brawny hand out of his pocket, and stretching it baker or the greengrocer) half a century at least. towards me with a gesture of power, "I speak as I Every one of the domestics spoke of the house, find. You forget as I'veboys myself—amanyboys," an-•-'d' aU it contained, as theirs. It was "our He heaved a sigh, that seemed to come from plate," "our carriage," our dinner-parties," some cavernous depths, and made a kind of "ouruniforms," "our court dresses,"and our draught in the shop. " I've no less than five of diamonds." 'em, and Mrs. M. expecting again in Oc­ The first thing done by the treasure, Mr. tober. Sir, them boys look to me to be fed Tapps, on the new page being respectfully pre­ and clothed, and put in the way of feeding and sented to him by his mistress in my presence, clothing their own selves. I've enough to do was to alter his cognomen to that of Jeames. for them. They're brought up strict, and honest, He could not be expected to call him any other. and hard, they are—not taught to give them­ Of course not. Jeames were the proper name selves airs—not dressed like young Eton gents. for a page, and had been ever since he were a What they wears is paid for, honest and reg'lar. page himself. "And if you does as I tell you," I should scorn to borrow money for my boys," said Mr, Tapps, with dignified emphasis, turning He turned away, and bending a little forward, to the ci-devant Arthur, and mingling encourage­ seemed to be examining a piece of old oak fur­ ment with the stern dignity of office, " if you niture that stood near. But his thoughts were does as I tell you, and minds nothing nor nobody evidently not with that. A moment afterwards else, you'll do well enough in time, I des-say," he resumed in a somewhat deprecating tone, as During the page's probation, the reports of though wiUing to justify himself to me, " You his conduct were excellent. Mrs. SuUivan had see, sir, I've had Httle comfort since the day nothing to say but in his praise, Tapps, the when that money was borrowed, Mrs. M., treasure, spoke highly of him. Tapps was en­ she'll never overlook it. Nev-er overlook it. tirely satisfied. He had broken wonderfully Not if she lives to a hundred. She has her little crockery for a raw lad in his first service, ideas, has Mrs, M., and her opinions. Strong. and there was a marked improvement in his She was always against lending of it. Many a double knocks. time she says to me, says she, ' Mark my w^ords, I was sitting one morning in my consulting- M, Don't you trust that Bentmore—he's a room, having just dismissed the last of my gra­ slippery fellow,' If you please, sir," said Mr, tuitous patients, when my page (I called him Moreen, suddenly taking his hands from his my page, from having put a guiding hand to his pockets, and changing his tone to one of un­ destiny) called upon me. He looked thin and common briskness, by way of changing the sub­ ill, and paler even than usual. ject, "if you please, sir, w^e'U say no more about " Nothing w^rong, I hope ?" I said, thinking it. Only I won't have nothing to do with his lad." that the boy grew too fast, and that he ought to And so we parted. be well nourished, and not overworked. " Nothing, sir. I came to speak to you on a in, little matter that " A page's place was soon found for Arthur He paused. Bentmore : and a good one. One of my patients "What is it?" willingly engaged him, inexperienced as he was, "WeU, sir, I came to ask you—that is (cfo- after hearing the particulars of his story from recting himself, as though he had not been me. Admiral and ^Mi's. Sullivan were kindly, sufficiently respectful)—I made bold to come liberal people, living alone, spoiling their ser­ and ask you, if you would kindly take care of vants, as they Avould have spoilt their children this money for me, sir ?" X :\ Charles Dickens.j ALL liiE YEAR ROUND. [March 5,1864.] 91

He took from his waistcoat-pocket something of doing, would be to take the Httle earnino-s wrapped in a piece of old newspaper, opened it, of a poor hid like you." and spread it on the table. There were three " I can't take back that money, sir." half-crowns, one shUling, a sixpence, and three­ There was a pause. pence in coppers. That amount was also set " Shall I ask Mr. Moreen to consent to re­ down on a little square of white paper, in clear ceive it, as a proof of your honest desire to pay figures, which I supposed to be his. what is owed?" " Certainly," I said. " I will keep this for He became excited immediately, you, if you wish it. What is it for ?" '^ Oh pray ! pray don't do that, sir! I shall be He was silent. sorry I told you at all, if you do. Pray keep it " Is it for any particular object ?" for me, sir; just as it is. Only keep it for the pre­ neaj! "Well—yes, sir," sent, and say nothing to him—nothing to him." " Perhaps you w^ould rather not tell me ?" He seemed to lay the matter so much to heart, He considered a moment, and then answered that, after a few more ineffectual remonstrances, that "It is towards paying that debt." I consented to humour him. So I sealed up " That debt! What debt ?" the money in his presence, writing on the out­ "Father's debt to Mr. Moreen, you know, side that it was a deposit of Arthur Bentmore's. sir. Father ow^ed him eighty-seven pounds nine I did not forget to tell Mrs. Sullivan that I shillings and threepence," he said. was less satisfied with her page's looks, than I looked at the little heap of money on the she was with his conduct; that he was growing table, and involuntarily smiled. too rapidly, and was more emaciated than I " My good boy, you don't hope that you can liked to see. He should be generously fed, and pay such a sum as that ?" above aU, not be stinted in his sleep. She agreed "I mean to pay it, sir," with me as to the alteration of his looks;— "You may mean to pay it, and it shows an said she had herself felt uneasy about it; had honesty of intention that I cannot too highly intended to consult me in the matter; and sum­ commend ; but you can't pay it, my boy. Nor moned The Treasure to our conference. would Mr. Moreen dream of expecting you to Tapps had volumes to say on the subject: do so. It w^ould take a lifetime of service to no boy, especially a growing boy, couldn't ex­ pay off such a debt as that. Let me see. What pect to be strong, that didn't take kindly to are your wages ?" his beer; wthich Jeames, he never had from the " Eight guineas a year, sir, tw^o suits of livery, first. Jeames was a strange boy. There was no and one working suit, one hat, and eighteen­ knowing where to have him. He never took a pence a week for beer," drop o' beer from one month's end to another, ace lie t: "Tell me what put this idea into your head?" didn't Jeames ! Why not. Dr. Peregrine asltel;? " Mr, Moreen, sir," would ask ? which of course—why not ? Why! "Mr. Moreen! Have you seen him, then?" he actuaUy preferred water ! But some was like "No, sir; not again; but you remember, sir, that; and a great misfortune too. It wasn't he said that " The boy paused, and taking for the saving neither. Jeames was a strange a step forward, added very low, as though what party. In fact, Mr. Tapps had never known but he was about to utter was too dreadful to be one other like him—and he was a very strange spoken aloud—"that there was no honesty in party indeed. the blood—no honesty in the blood, sir !" Time passed on; and I felt so entirely at I felt a greater interest in him at that moment ease about the boy—so satisfied that he would than I had ever done before. It was evident to now do well without any help of mine—that I me now, that the boy had strong and deep feel­ troubled myself but little about him. He had ings, though from some cause he never gave been out of town with the family, and had grown them jcxpressiou. so tall, that he overtopped Mr, Tapps; a liberty " Now, don't let those words rankle in your which must have seemed strange to the well re­ mind, Arthur," I said, kindly, laying my hand gulated mind of that individual. His mistress upon his thin shoulder; "Mr. Moreen was had been obHged to promote him from buttons angry when he said that, and not without cause, to a regular livery ; and in the social intercourse as you know; for your father—well! Your of the servants' hall, he was now " our footman." father did him an injury. People say things Thus satisfactorily closed his second year of ser­ when they're angry, that they don't hold to vice ; but with the opening of the third, came the afterwards. We all do." startling intelHgence that he was " leavuig to "Mr. Moreen loill hold to it. He beUeves better himself!" it, sir. He said we were a bad lot, all of us. I did not attend Lady Fetherstone, Arthur's He said I should tui'u out as bad as the rest. new mistress, and, therefore, saw less of him He said there was no honesty in the blood," than before; although I did occasionally catch The boy stUl spoke low, but with rapid utter­ a glimpse of him on the box of his lady's old- ance, and as though he had repeated those words fashioned barouche, during my professional pro­ again and again to himself scores of times. gresses : till at length the closed shutters of her "Take back this money," I said. ''I wiU ladyship's house in Bumption-street, indicated answer for it that Mr. Moreen would wish you that she, her companion, her lapdog, and the to do so. I know him better than you do; and rest of the establishment, had adjourned for the I am certain that the last thing he would dream autumn to Tunbridge Wells.

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IV. his errors. When I entered the kitchen to pre­ One morning in the foUowing June I was scribe for her—having been informed by the awoke at about half-past six o'clock, by a under housemaid that she was at the point of peculiarly sharp ring at my professional door­ death—I found her with a very red face, in the bell. I had been up all night with a patient in midst of an animated argument with Jeames as dangerous circumstances, and had scarcely been to the proper management of gravy. asleep a couple of hours; but I could not be When the latter was interrogated as to the insensible to the shrill urgency of that appeal. butler's habits of life, some curious particulars I was wide awake m a moment. There was a came out. It appeared that the man never did any­ short pause, a muttered colloquy between my thing in the house except wait at table, and housemaid and some one else; she knocked at occasionally open the door in the absence of the my door (I slept on the ground floor), and, open­ footman. *He was very rarely at home; often ing it, showed a pale and startled countenance, spending entire nights out, and returning about " Sir! sir I" she said, in hurried tones, six in the morning, when he was always let in by " Arthur Bentmore is come for you directly—a Arthur, who, summer and winter, rose at five. dreadful thing ! the butler at Lady Fetherstone's When pressed as to his own reasons for rising has destroyed himself!" so early, he hesitated at first; but at lengtK I w^as soon at the scene ofthe catastrophe. I replied that he always occupied himself about found a policeman already there in charge of the his own affairs before six o'clock, when he body, and, perceiving at once that life had been considered his day's work for the family ought extinct some hours, 1 lost no time in going up to to begin. Did his mistress know of her butler's the lady. She had recovered from her swoon, but proceedings ? He could not say. Mr. Jacobs was in a fearful state of nervous excitement, and (the butler) had a key of the house door. He for some time it was unsafe to leave her; for had mentioned to him that he did not wash to the shock seemed to have partially unsettled her have this spoken of, as it might occasion un­ reason. After a whUe, however, the remedies I pleasantness ; and he should be sorry to lose employed began to produce the desired effect, the convenience. and I had the satisfaction of seeing her at last Was he aware of Mr. Jacobs's practice of gradually sinking to sleep, with her hand betting ? He was. Had he ever been induced clasped in that of Arthur's former mistress, Mrs. himself to do the like? No answer; and the Sullivan. question was, after a little discussion, withdrawn. The scene in that house was a shockini^ one Had he had any suspicion of the butler's losses to witness. The mother and sister of the at Epsom ? He had had. suicide hung over his mangled remains with But, in spite of the quiet and self-possessed tears and groans of anguish ; whilst the servants manner in which Arthur had given his evidence, of the establishment, distracted at the tragical and its undoubted truthfulness, there was yet end of one with whom they had lived in daily something about him which (although I should companionship, were totally unable to afford have been at a loss to define it) occasioned in them any comfort. my mind not only an uncomfortable impression The cause of the catastrophe was soon but that he knew much more than he chose to divulge too clear. The misguided man was known to have of the butler's affairs, but that he w^as also, to been long in the habit of betting; and it came a certain extent, a participator in the practice out, through a friend who had chanced to call at that had led to so fearful a result. I could the house, unaware of what had happened, that hardly explain, even to myself, why I was he had lost so large a sum the previous day at convinced of this; but my impression grew in the Derby, as to make it easy to understand strength, the more I saw of, and conversed with that he dared not face the ruin such a debt him. ^ He did not indeed deny, though he never must bring upon him. positively admitted, that he had betted; but I was in and out of Lady Fetherstone's house many little circumstances that I not only constantly that day. Her staunch friends, Ad­ observed now, but remembered to have noticed miral and Mrs. Sullivan, insisted upon it. Thus since his removal to Lady Fetherstone's I had ample opportunity of observing the con­ (amongst others, a remarkable shabbiness iu duct of Arthur, under circumstances not a little such articles of his attire as he had to purchase trying to one so young. Of all the inmates of himself), tended to convince me that he had that house, he was the only one who seemed to been led to indulge in this dangerous practice, retain composure, or common sense. Nothing and was greatly straitened in means in con­ tends to re-settle nerves that have been un­ sequence, usually excited—especially servants' nerves—so ^ I had much serious talk with him at that much as the sight of a calm aud matter-of- time ; speaking with an earnest authority which fact attention to the small duties of life. Mrs. I felt our mutual relations not only warranted, Cook began by taking no notice of what Jeames but caUed for. But although he listened with was about, and continuing her spasmodic heav- respectful attention, and an appearance of being ings and groanings ; but after a Httle she could impressed by what I said; and although he once not resist watching to see how he did what she voluntarily promised me never to bet in future ought to have been doing: from watching she (lie did not say agavri); he was stiU silent and un­ got to correction and advice; and finally she communicative, and therefore, to a certain de­ condescendingly approached, and began to rectify gree, unsatisfactory.

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I was much pressed for time at this period, it distinctly, as he said, " I do want it, if you and preoccupied with anxious and difficult cases; please, sir. You remember my father's debt to but the thought of Arthur Bentmore was seldom Mr. Moreen." long absent from my mind. His pale miserable " Certainly. FuU well." face actuaUy haunted me. His father had "I wish to pay it; and I make bold to ask confided him to my care, and I trembled for his you to go with me when I pay it, sir." future. I saw him on the brink of ruin— He made a step forward, and laying an en­ perhaps of destruction—yet I was powerless to velope on the table, " There," said he, " are avert either, Meanwhile, a change took place eighty-seven pounds, whicli, with the silver and in his position and circumstances, which tended coppers you have there, makes up the sum rather to increase than to diminish my anxiety owing on his account. He obtained the late butler's I w^as so much astonished as to be for the place. moment incapable of reflection. But soon, to V. amazement, succeeded another feeling. The old One fine clear winter's day, some fourteen painfuj^fear shot through me. I fixed my eyes months after the death of Mr. Jacobs, as I was steadUy on his. standing with my back to the fire in my consult­ " Arthur! how came you by all this money ?" ing-room, Arthur Bentmore, dressed in neat He put his hand in his pocket and laid before plain clothes, entered, hat in hand. me a paper containing an exact account of every He had grown very much during the last shUling he had ever saved in service, and how twelvemonth ; but he was thinner and paler than he had saved it. I had ever before seen him. He was literally This paper recorded a daily, hourly series of cadaverous. sacrifices throughout the long course of four Our first mutual greetings over, he informed years; begun at the age when self-conquest is me that he had come for two purposes : the the hardest, self-indulgence the most natural; first, to announce that he was about to leave continued with unchanging resolution in spite Lady Fetherstone. of every trial, every temptation; persisted in to I started. About to leave Lady Fetherstone ? the very end. So good a service ? so generous a mistress ? who He spoke only once; as I was approaching valued him, as I had reason to know, very the end of his extraordhiary memorandum; but highly ! Something of undefined apprehension it was simply to explain that Mr. GUHes, the shot through my mind. schoolmaster, had put this money, at various But he went on to explain that he had times, into the savings-bank for him, and had not felt well for some weeks; had been de­ thus reaUsed a small increase, which, with the cidedly worse quite lately; and he was con­ fourteen shillings overplus in the account—the scious that he required rest—rest, entire and month's wages and beer money that would be complete. He was sorry, very sorry, to leave due to him next month—and a few shUUngs of Lady Fetherstone; she had been most kind to presents he had accumulated, would go to main­ him; but he should be laid up if he remained. tain him whUst he should continue out of He had told her how it was ; and she had quite service. He might, he observed, have paid ofi' acquiesced. He was to leave in a month, if her this debt a little sooner, as I could see; but he ladyship could suit herself. He required, as it considered that he should do wrong to leave were, tiD—to take breath. He drew—not with­ himself entirely without money. out a visible effort—a long breath as he spoke; I heard him, as he spoke, but I scarcely and I mentally resolved that as soon as his time heeded him. My mind—my heart were too was up, he should come to my house and submit full. I was thinking of the suspicions I had to regular professional treatment from me. harboured against him—of the wrong I had But w^hat was the other purpose for which done him in my own thoughts; and he, all the he had come? whUe, biding his time; leading a life of such He put his hat down on the floor, "You unexampled self-denial! To him it seemed, have by you, sir," he answered, "some money however, that he had done no more than was of mine." natural to be done in similar circumstances. " Money of yours!" "You know, Mr. Moreen said, sir, that there " Some sUver, sir; only a trifle; nine shiUings. was no honesty in the blood ! no honesty in the U-- I brought it, if you remember, w^hen I was a blood I He said father was not honest: that we lad; one morning in summer; and you put it was aU a bad lot together. Now, I knew that in your desk, to keep for me," father was honest. The debt had been his I remembered perfectly now the secret drawer greatest distress in his last hours. I had in which I had placed it. Yes; there was the reason to know that; for many and many a sUver; almost black from age; three half-crowns, time he charged me to pay it; and so to clear two shiUings, and a sixpence, with the three­ his memory. How, theu, could I do other than pence wrapped up in a paper by themselves. pay it ?" As I pushed the little heap towards him, I said, VI. with'a certain anxiety, "Surely, my good Mr, Moreen had risen materially in the world. Arthur, you don't need such a sum as this." He had increased in both bodily and worldly sub­ He met my gaze without flinching; yet a stance. But though a man, solid tn every sense shffht tincce of colour rose to his cheek, I saw of the word, and with—well! we will say—some ^ 9i [Marcli 5, 1SC4.] ALL THE YEc)i ^ PnTJ¥Tl. *^CondConductedbi y money in the funds, Mr. Moreen still stuck to " No ! no!" I said, interposing, " A.rthur has the old shop. come to-day about a little matter of business In the doorway of this old shop stood Mr. with you, Mr. Moreen, if you have leisure to Moreen now, as Arthur and I drove up in the attend to it." modest brougham, which, in those days, I hired "With me?" for my professional visits. He was respectfully Again the upholsterer looked at the young seeing a great lady out; he fiourished his rule man. This time more attentively; and in one by way of saluting me, and added his usual re­ moment he was a different person himself. It spectful bow and smile, but did not speak till had been chat; good-humoured friendly chat, the coroneted carriage with its high stepping- between us hitherto; now it was business. bays had dashed from the door. "That's the "I suppose it's the old story," he said, laying countess — that is," he said, as we entered. down his rule, and putting his hands in his "She comes here most days, and stays—well! pockets, as if to guard what he might possess I suppose she stays an hour or more, choosing, there, " The old story ! Wants employment! and changing, and ordering of the carvings But " for the old 'oak sideboard she's a havflig put He shook his head. It was a most expres­ together. It'll be a splendid sideboard when sive shake. done. A surprise, too, for his lordship. But, "I am not come to ask for anything," Arthur dear me, she gives herself a deal of trouble more Bentmore said, quietly. "You remember the than she need to ! She will have this, and she debt my father owed you, Mr. Moreen?" won't have that, and she thinks she'd fancy the "I—should—think—I—did!" the upholsterer other! It would be better left to me—better answered, very slowly, laying marked emphasis left to me. But these great ladies, d'ye see, on each separate word, " I'm more likely to they're—they're wilful (with a strong emphasis remember that debt than I am ever to get a on the word); I suppose they've got nothing else farthing of it, by a precious deal! Eighty-seven to do." pounds nine shillings and threepence. That was He winked at me with that clear, honest, the amount. Mrs. M. and I had more words blue eye of his, and laughed with the low, lazy, concerning of that debt than we ever had 'bout internal chuckle common to such large men; anytliing; I think she's never forgotten it. Nor and when I observed that it w^as not your great she's never discontinued throwing of it in my ladies only that were wUful, he laughed still teeth. She were against my lending of it from more. " Ha," he said, " all women was wilful, the first; and that (turning to me), that give not a doubt about it." her a handle, d'ye see, against me. Of course. A half-bantering, half-serious conversation She'd no opinion of John Bentmore. Never had." followed, with mutual friendly inquiries as to He had become confidential again. He never health, and so forth; then there was a pause, could help it, when he spoke of his wife. And and, for the first time, he looked at my com­ he always jerked out his sentences, and made panion. But his glance was momentary, and had long pauses between, when that dreaded indi­ nothing of recognition in it. vidual was in question. It was like an occasional "I see you don't remember this young man," brief letting off of steam lest the engine should I said, " yet he is an old acquaintance of yours, burst. Arthur Bentmore." Arthur waited patiently, without attempting "Indeed?" to interrupt him, He turned and surveyed him watli an easy _"WeU!'' said Mr, Moreen at last, jingling good-natured glance. " Young Bentmore ! In­ his sUverwith both hands ; "what of that debt? deed. ! He have grown precious tall—a good You're not- " he burst into a low laugh of bit taller than my John, and they're about the exquisite enjoyment. " You're not—come to—to same age, I think. But he don't look strong. pay it ? Are ye, young man ?" I'm afraid you don't have your health, young He turned to me, his blue eyes sv/imming in 'mk man! Let me see," Mr. Moreen put his rule tears of rapture at the extravagance of his owu meditatively to his lips, pursing them up as humour, and laughed tiU his face grew purple. though about to whistle. " Didn't I see some- "I am come to pay it," Arthur Bentmore thhig in the papers about young Bentmore, a replied, slowly; and, opening the parcel he had year or a year and a half ago? A inquest, or all along held tightly in one hand, spread out something ? x\h! true ! / recoUect. Butler, on a buhl table that stood near the fruits of in your fam'ly (turning to Arthur). True— four years' self-denial. true! Yes, I remember. And you give your There was a dead silence. evidence very proper. Mrs, M., she read it Not for a twelvemonth—not for a lifetime— all out loud to us at tea; seeing of your of fees—would I have lost that scene. name, and what the coroner said and all. But ^ Mr. Moreen's laugh had stopped. He stood I hope," added the upholsterer, suddenly silent; vacantly staring at the money. changing the expression of his good-humoured At last he turned to me, face to one of stern severity, and laying a long, " Of course, doctor, you lent him this !" he square, powerful forefinger upon Arthur's coat; said gravely, and with frequent pauses, as though "excuse me, young man, but I hope you don't refiecting ; " but I couldn't think of it. Cert'ny bet yourself! Bettinir wUl never come to no not. On no account. I couldn't think of good; be sure of that." taking such a thing from you," X Charles DicSerr 7.TX TTIE YEAI R ROUND. [March 5,1864,] 95

"No one has lent me this money," Arthur holsterer began to return as it were to himself. said ; " I have earned it all. Doctor Peregrine He relaxed his hold; and taking out his pocket- knows it; Doctor Peregrine will tell you how handkerchief, wiped his eyes and face, it was earned. Sir, when I was a little lad, you " I ask pardon, sir," he said, turning to me, told me here—in this very shop — standing and speaking in a low and apologetic tone ; " I where we now stand—that my father—God ask pardon, I'm sure; but I'm—I'm—I never bless him!—was not an honest man. You said was so—I never see such a thing as this before. there was no honesty in the blood. You said I It took me unprepared, you see. I didn't look should turn out bad, like the rest of us ! I was for such a thing. Not at aU, And to think— but young then—only thirteen. When you to think that them words of mine should have said those cruel w^ords of my dead father, I cut so deep—a poor young lad Hke that—that's resolved that I would never rest till I had paid where it is, you see." Then, turning to Arthur, you, and proved them false. It has been hard " You're a grand fellow, sir!" to do; so hard, that it has changed my whole Strange—the effect of that "sir" in Mr. nature, I often think. No one knows what I Moreen's mouth, as addressed to Arthur Bent­ have gone through—not a living creature but more. How well I understood it: better than myself! but I would have gone through fifty he did himself. It was the involuntary, uncon­ ^k times as much to pay that debt! I thank God scious homage paid to the honesty of that that I have Hved to pay it, and to clear my stripHng, by the sturdy tradesman who valued father's memory." honesty above aU earthly treasures. I write this now; I write the words I heard " But you know I can't take it, sir 1" Mr, him speak, but I can no more give a notion of Moreen suddenly exclaimed, when he had be­ their effect than I could if I had never heard come more cool; recalled to the consideration them. He, at all times so subdued, so self-pos­ of the money by the sight of it spread out on sessed, so impossible to rouse, was suddenly the buhl table. "I can't take them earnings transformed into another creature. Form, voice, and savings of that lad's. It can't be. The countenance—all changed. His words came thing ain't in nature. Mrs. M, herself, she forth rapidly. The pent-up emotions of those wouldn't hear of it." four toiling, self-denying years, found a vent at This was the signal for fresh excitement. A last. keen dispute followed this declaration, duiing "And now, sir ! now 1" Arthur cried, raising which it was difficult to say which showed the his thin hand with a gesture that thrilled through most determined spirit, Mr, Moreen or Arthur. ;, fs my very heart; " believe me, who have never But it w^as clear to me that the latter must in wilfully uttered one false word from the hour the end prevaU, when you did us that cruel wrong—my father VII. was an honest man. I say it in my Maker's As soon as his month's notice to leave Lady presence. Perhaps in his!" Fetherstone's service had expired, Arthur Bent­ Arthur stopped short; for he found himself more came to my house to be attended profes­ suddenly seized by the powerful grasp of Mr. sionaUy, and, if need be, nursed. It was high Moreen, and whirled, rather than drawn, to the time he should do so. He had tasked his con­ window, stitution too severely. He had grown too fast, " Well, but you know," said the upholsterer, worked too hard, and slept too little. Now that drawing him nearer, and then holding him the excitement was over which had hitherto further off, as you would a picture you w^ere borne him up under every trial, he coUapsed. examining in different lights ; but all the whUe There was a reaction. clenching him in his tremendous hand as in a When at last I had the happiness of seeing him vice. " You're a grand fellow, you are 1 Fou really restored to health, I proposed to him to re­ pay your father's debts, do ye? But you're a main with me as my servant. The plan was pre­ grand feUow ! What ? You laid by to pay me, cisely what he wished. But after six months' trial did ye ? all these years 1 Why! you are a of him, I made up my mind that I must give him grand fellow 1 Tou did it, did ye ? And I notice. It went against my conscience to keep said you weren't honest. WeU! I wish I'd him. As a servant, Arthur Bentmore was been 1 wish my tongue had been cut out entirely thrown away. He was intended for before I said it. But you know you are honest. higher things. He had a mind capable of it You ! a Httle lad as you was. Tou pay the old mastering almost any subject, and would do 0 man's debt. Yes ! you have—you have paid it. honour to any position. Ever since the day of Oh! but you're a grand fellow." that last memorable visit to my consulting-room, Ringinsr the chanees on these w'ords—unable his reserve with me had entirely disappeared. to express the feelinscs that w^ere burstins: his His confidence had been indeed hard to gain; heart- •upheaving his oroad chest—choking his but once gained, it w^as given wholly, and for voice—the tears rained down the honest man's ever. He felt towards me now, as towards a cheeks, and he knew it no more than did Mrs. father, I had entered into, and sympathised Moreen, sitting afc work with her girls above with, the strongest feeling of his nature ; I had stairs, rejoiced for, and in him, on the one great Mr, Moreen's emotion had the natural effect occasion of his life; and from that hour he was of calming Arthur's. The poor lad was passive bound to me by the strongest of all ties, in his grasp. But after a time the worthy up­ I had mentioned his touching story to persona

'^ y ^-i-pnarch 5, 1864,] 96 ALL THE YE who had it in their power materiaUy to befriend visit lasted, and shed tears when he recurred to him; and the result was that he obtained the lad's early abstinence from beer. That point a situation connected with one of our most touched him more than all. " Yes !" he would important raUways. He continued three years exclaim, " I don't know as I ever said words Pve in that situation. In the fourth, he was pro­ repented of so much since. I have repented of moted to a more responsible post on the same 'em. Bitter. Thev'U sound to me, when I'm railway. From this time his rise was singularly a dying—I know that. And he going on deny­ rapid. He made money. Being in the way of ing of himself his little drop o' beer—a growing chap like that, that wanted it." hearing of good investments, his keen sense and t. excellent judgment enabled him to avail himself In the course of this iUness, he confided to of them. He bought land in the outskirts of a me, that although Mrs. M. had been struck great manufacturing tOAvn, built good houses on with admiration at the noble conduct of the boy, f2i Tt, and sold them at an enormous profit. With she yet had not at all agreed with him, as to this money, he entered into still larger specula­ the propriety of refusing the money. She took tions (invariably judicious and safe), and in a a more business-Hke view of the transaction. short time realised a considerable capital. At The debt was a debt, she considered, and ought thirty, Arthur Bentmore was one of the men to be discharged. They had no more right to in that thriving town whose word carried the rob their own children of the money, than they most weight with it. He remained single till had to deprive the lad himself of the satisfaction he was five-and-thirty, and then brought to pre­ to his feelings of paying it. '\ There wouldn't side over his comfortable home one of the three be no merit in what he done, if he was to get daughters of his own parish clergyman: a pretty, it back again," said Mrs. M. unpretending, affectionate girl, who had been " I don't agree with her there, sir," said Mr, brought up in a pious and provident household, Moreen, speaking low and confidentially, as and was sure to make him a fond and grateful though to differ from Mrs. M. even in the ex­ wife. At forty-seven, he was mayor of his town, pression of an opinion, were too dangerous a and had two sons and three daughters, pro­ matter to be overheard; "the merit's the same mising and healthy. in what he done, anyhow, it seems to me. But During all these years, he and I have kept Mrs. M., she's so first-rate here, you_see!" up a constant and affectionate intercourse. He tapping his own broad forehead, " and she judges is now a director of more than one railway, and of things more by the headpiece than she do by he comes frequently to London, sometimes alone the feelin's. Tm not equal to her in that—ob, —brought there by business—sometimes with no v^ his wife. On these occasions he always dines When he heard that Arthur was about to_ set with his old friend Gillies—whom he has made up a house of his own, he entered into a little comfortable for life—or with me. And there is plot with me, to furnish the living rooms gratis; nothing delights us so much as these quiet and never was man more thoroughly happy than dinners. Mr, Moreen was during the mysterious consul­ "It all seems as though it were but yester­ tations and arrangements necessary to effect this day," he would say, as we sat together over object. I persuaded Arthur to visit me in our dessert, and he looked across the table at London, whUst he went down to the manufac­ me with those large wonderful eyes of his, that turing town in question, to superintend every seemed gazing far back into the past; " I often detail. He spared neither trouble nor expense. think I am a page again, and dream it too, Nothing was, nothing could be, too good for that sometimes. My wife says I still add up grand fellow ! And the w^ay in which he revelled shiUings and sixpences in my sleep." in Arthur's astonishment and admiration, when With Mr. Moreen, grow^n very old aud infirm, on his return he discovered what had been done, and retired from business (though he still lives was worth going miles to see, in the old shop), Arthur Bentmore has kept up not only an acquaintance, but a steady friend­ NEW WOUK BY MR. DICKENS, In Monthly Parts, uniform with the Original Editions of ship since those early days, "Pickwick," " Copperfield," &c. Arthur had not long quitted my service, when On APPJL 30th wiU be published, PART I„ price Is., of the upholsterer was laid up with an unusuaUy severe attack of bronchitis. He w^as always A NEW WORK BY CHARLES DICKENS very hippish when iU, as many such strong IN TWENTY MONTHLY PAKTS. :*,tll giants are. But his mind, though morbidly sen­ With Illustrations by MARCUS STONE. sitive from the state of his body, was full of London: CHAPMAN and HALL, 193, PiccadUly, Arthur Bentmore, towards whom he reproached himself with having acted the part of a brute. Now ready, bound in cloth, price 5s. Gd., He would talk about him to me as long as my THE TENTH TOLUME.

•^itlie. Now Ready, securely hound in neivly designed covers, and gilt edged, p)rice Three Pounds, the TEN VOLUMES of ALL THE YEAR ROUND, completed since the Miscellany tvas commenced. With a Genercd Index to afford easy reference to eveiy article in the Woi^Jc. The Right of Translating Articles from ALL TBE YEAE ROUND is reserved by ihe Authors.

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