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she who had lived so long, in the dull THE DOCTOR'S MIXTURE. round of that little viUage, a prosy, un­ eventful life, and for whom, in these latter BOOK II. days, events had been hurrying on with the strangest precipitation. Then, too, CHAPTER XIII. DEAWING ON. came on the uneasy feeling that the step IT was only two or three days before the she was going to take, sanctioned, as she marriage, when Katey found herself alone, beHeved it was, by the holiest principle of as she had longed to be, to get time to devotion, might, after all, turn out to be think over the new life she was about to doubtful, and even wicked. Was she enter on. Peter had gone out on business bound, in the cause of affection to her —that is, "up to the Bar'ks;" Polly was family, thus to sacrifice herself, her feel­ gone to the band, resplendent in spirits ings, her hopes, her life ?—was not that and raiment; a new officer had arrived, who life a trust given to her, not to be given had signified his approbation and adoration away thus carelessly to others ? in the most open manner, and the incon­ As she sat and looked across the swelling stant creature was laughing and blushing meadow of the park, she heard footsteps over those outrageous compliments which approaching, and in a moment saw Mr. the bold mUitary chevaHer thinks he can pay Leader with his steward, or keeper, coming to a handsome country-town girl. Katey, past her. Grreatly confused, she half rose left alone, stole out gently, and, sad at heart, to go. Mr. Leader, no less " taken back," wandered out at the back of the house, np coloured and stopped, and then took off his over a little stile, which led into green hat. meadows, part of the demesne of Leaders­ As she went away, she heard him calHng fort. Indeed, every patch of grass about after her. the place belonged to the great family, and, " Don't let me disturb you," he said, in in a primitive fashion, the natives of the a hesitating fashion; " it seems you wUl district strayed over it at pleasure. There soon have nearly as good a right to be here were all manner of soft lanes and paths as I myself. Tour people have deter- through woods, with some deer feeding, mined to carry this through in spite of and a stray seat here and there put up, us." not by the present dynasty, but by the Katey hung down her head, overcome honest squire who preceded it. There was with shame and confusion. There was a a great tree, one of those noble soHtaries of good nature in his manner quite unex­ a demesne which, whatever changes take pected, and contrasting strongly with the place, still preserve their solemn and ere­ contemptuous fashion with which she had mitical life, looking on with a grand con­ been treated by the rest of the famUy. She tempt at the decay or grandeur of those tried to speak; her lips moved; she sank who assume to be their owners. Under down on the seat again in a torrent of one of these disdainful old watchers Katey tears. sat down, very sad, yet glad to be alone— Mr. Leader was beside her in a moment. still bewildered, and hardly able to per­ " My poor child," he said, " don't! Com­ suade herself that she was not in a dream ; pose yourself. Surely I know this is no

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434 [October 8,1870.] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. {Conducted l>y fault of yours. For my own part, I have There was something very good natured always thought it a pity to oppose it; SK" though, at the same time, something ludi­ if you like one another—now, don't." crously helpleBs, in this candid confession " Indeed, indeed, I am very wretched," of weakness. But when Mr. Leader rose said Ki;tey; " if I only knew Avhat to do! to go away, and shaking 'her wa,rmly by My poor father and family—I have pro­ the hand bade her be of go©d chser, looking mised—and. Mrs. Leader was so cruel to round at the same time with^eafc caution, him." Katey was inexpressibly cheered, and went *' Oh, as for your father, I don't know home with a lighter heart. what to say. I am afraid he is not over­ The behaviour of the future bridegroom scrupulous. But it is very unfortunate. might, indeed, give her more cause for dis­ It is driving us out of this place. We are turbance. Within these few days he had going away to-morrow; and as for poor grown brusque and sulky, and, as we have CecU, I fear he will be made the victim, mentioned—deeply injured. This demean­ as Mrs. Leader is determined to have the our the Doctor had carried off by deep com­ entail cut off." miseration for his " ailments." He was "Tes, I know; I heard. But it is not delicate, would require great care and that. I dare not go back now. I know nursing from Katey, &c. what would be said then ! I know what is It was on the very evening of this inter­ thought of me, and what you think of me. view of Katey with Mr. Leader that young But I accept it all. Tou need blame no Leader came suddenly into the Doctor's one else but the scheming girl, who brought house, noisily and violently asking to see aU this about." its master. "Tou, scheming ! No, indeed, my poor " I must see him—just fetch him at child. But you must not be cast down, or once." take such an utterly gloomy view of the The Doctor emerged suddenly from his future. Now, sit down here, next to me. parlour. Now, don't—don't," as Katey was break­ " My dear boy, looking for me ? Just ing into fresh hysterical sobs. " Things step in here for a moment. There ! what are not so bad. Tou see Mrs. Leader has is it ?" peculiar views of her own about rank and " Here's a pretty thing! They're all getting up in the world, and I am afraid" gone away, every one of them, and left me —with a sigh —" sacrifices a little too here in the lurch! Tou said they'd give in much to them. Now I and my dear at the end. But they haven't, and here daughter care very little about that; all am I sold, and done in every way !" we ask is* to be happy, and to have our He was very excited, and the Doctor saw walks and Httle enjoyments. And I de­ " with half an eye" how the case was to be ' clare I don't know if we didn't enjoy our­ handled. selves more in the little house in London, " Well, let them go ! It makes no dif­ when I went to court every day. Now I ference to us. They'll come back fast confess to you, from the first day I saw you enough." coming out of the church, I took a fancy " Tes, to make me a beggar. I won't to you, for I was sure you were gentle and have that. I didn't bargain for that. I amiable, and that we should get on toge­ am not caUed on to sacrifice myself in this ther famously. But there's Mrs. Leader." way. Tou said it was aU to be made And he shook his head sadly. square. But it's not fair that I should be These were inexpressibly comforting taken in " words for Katey; the more comforting as The Doctor turned on him at once. they were unexpected. She took his hand " Taken in, sir ? Have I taken you in, '' and raised it to her Hps. sir ?" "Heaven bless you for this !" she said. " N—no—I don't say that. Oh, it's no " Of course, not a word to any one," he use going on that way with me; there's no went on ; " but I will make the best fight I one Hstening." can. Tou know, after a time it may all This was a case for blistering, a? the blow over; when there's no help for a Doctor would have said, or for surgery. ' thing, Mrs. Leader may think it best to " No, you don't mean me, and you make the best of it. I'll try and do what daren't. But you mean an inoffensive girl, I can, and, as far as injuring poor Cecil's that can't call you to account. That's prospects, wiU stave it off as long as manly—that's generous ! The girl that possible." you've betrayed—that you're dragging

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Charles Dicftens, Jun.] THE DOCTOR'S MIXTURE. [Octobers, 1870.] 435 down in contempt and servitude, and peculiar vehicle, slightly burnished up, setting under the tyranny of your step­ was seen in the inn-yard. His lordship mother ! Who wanted you here ?" added had shown a disinclination to assist at the the Doctor, going back to his old argu­ ceremony, fearful of committing himself ment. "I vow I am ashamed that the with the powers at Leadersfort; but the noble rites of matrimony should be de­ Doctor was so sarcastic, not to say jeering, graded by such a lath-and-plaster lover. on this tergiversation, plainly hinting at Tou'd better leave this. Don't attempt to the imaginary character of the business or go into her presence until you've learned appointment that interfered, that he found the rudhiments of generosity and loyalty. it difficult to refuse. Now that the family Go after your family if you like—it's had gone away he felt it an easier task. nothing to us. But if you're absent when The Doctor had exerted much the same you're due, look out. The fellow that pressure on other doubtful friends; but was pulled into quarters by wUd horses in truth worldly interest was on his side, had nothing like what you'll catch ! If I and made for him, for every one con­ was to be hung by the neck till I was sidered that young Leader would in due dead and buried, I'd have the blood of the course of time come to reign over the fellow that slurred my child. Then, sir, a estate. And thus at the club were seen roasting demon with a flaming trident other visitors and guests in full gala uni­ from the lower regions would be nothing to form. As for the regiment, the good- me. No go ! Leave my house, sir, and don't natured Bouchier seemed to have placed attempt to set foot in it until you've re­ all its resources at the disposal of the paired the insult you've done to her. Not Doctor—orderlies, the officers, all were at a word. I won't listen to you, sir." his disposal. As a matter of course, Sim­ And the Doctor pointing sternly to the mons, the regimental chef, had undertaken. door, the young man, awed and panic- the entire management of the banquet, and stricken, slunk away home. The Doctor " proud to do it," says the Doctor. Oh, was right: that " surgery" had the best exciting morning ! delicious flurry ! More effect. than anywhere else inside the Doctor's mansion, where women were flying about, CHAPTER Xrv. THE WEDDING DAT. and up and down, rustling, and fluttering, AT last here was the morning, and the and clustering round the idol of the hour solemnity to which everything had been —the agitated victim, for such she was— made to lead with such labour and agita­ though, indeed, the excitement had happily tion. There had been little sleep the night banished all sense of sacrifice; she had not before in the Doctor's mansion, every one time, like many others in simUar situations, being in a sort of troubled nightmare. who are offered on the altar of wealth, or This fevered morning was long remembered old age, or gout, to realise the future, and in the Pindlater family, and, indeed, in the who can only think of the immediate ordeal little town. The symbolism of the event before them. was embodied in the nuptial greys, now se­ Polly, head bridesmaid, it must be said, cured for their proper office, with blue fore­ was no very valuable aide-de-camp, think­ head-bands and white satin rosettes flutter­ ing chiefly of her own charms and her own ing ; and the Doctor was seen from an early dress, and the effect on Captain Morgan, hour, in a blue coat with gUt buttons and the new and daring admirer, who had told a white tie, " charging" about the town, her in plain EngHsh yesterday, " at the backwards and forwards between the little band," that she was "too handsome to be inn and his house. Now dashing up to thrown away on a country town." Though M'Intyre's, and rushing in to fetch a flower; she was quite angry with him, she said, or now carrying off Miss Perkes, the head and wouldn't speak to him again, she was milHner of the estabHshment, sitting beside still dressing for him. Poor volatUe Polly, him; now up at the church, and followed she was gradually being educated in per­ by little boys: no wonder that he with the haps the worst of existing schools, a regi­ b'rouche and greys seemed to be the em­ ment, where she was rapidly learning bodiment of the whole solemnity. Take familiarity, and faster losing delicacy. all this display away, and the villagers The time was drawing on, and it only would not have had a good idea of the wanted an hour to the commencement of importance and magnificence of what a the solemnity; the Doctor was in his study Findlater wedding reaUy was. Groups giving his whiskers a curl, when Mr. stood at the corners, and Lord Shipton's Leader's confidential man, a shrewd and

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436 [Octobers, 1870.] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Oonductedby cautious Scot, opened the door hastily, and did Katey look so lovely. The cry now closed it sharply. was, where was Peter to attend her to the " My God, sir," he says, " here's a busi­ b'rouche, whose "head" was to be put up ness ! Mr. Cecil's taken ill!" to carry them to church. Already scouts " 111!" cried the Doctor, Hterally jumping had reported that Lord Shipton had passed into the air, " what d'ye mean ? By the by in his peculiar vehicle, and wearing, a powers " new pair of yellow thread gloves. " Oh, stop," said the man, coolly, "it'll In this fiurry a letter was brought in do you no good. I knew it would come directed to Katey, and the Mary or Jane to this, for he's been at it these three nights who carried it said, with great elation, it back." was one of the people from the fort who " Not a word—not a word, for your life," had brought it over. said the Doctor, in real agitation; "you "Why, it's Mrs. Leader!" was the de­ said nothing to those women—maids, and lighted cry. "Ah, Katey, love, she's given the rest'? No, I'm sure you didn't! See, way, and it's to congratulate, and she's my dear man, here's some soverens for you coming to the wedding !" —all I have now—look, go back quietly It was torn open and read. But it was —whistling, if you can—speak to that in­ not to the anticipated effect. It ran: fernal maid of ours, who'U be prying, and poking, and wondering what brought you. I wish to give you one last warning, and I'll follow after a decent second or two." beg of you to pause before you take an The man did as he was desired, and the irrevocable step. I tell you you shaU never Doctor, imprecating terribly on the whole force your way into our family. Tou may family, and on " that vile woman," more marry Mr. Leader's son, but you shall of whose work this was, got his little marry a pauper. Depend upon it, I wUl " case" and some medicines into his pocket, find means to punish and to crush you for and walked out whistling, with his hands daring to interfere with our plans. As you under his coat-tails. choose to degrade our family by forcing It was just what he had imagined. There, your low connexions on us, remember I on the bed, was stretched the young man, warn you that there shall be no mock re­ ex-actly as he had been seized the first day pentance or " making up" after awhile. he had seen him, his face stiff, stretched, Tou shall pay bitterly for what you have and ghastly, froth on his mouth, his hands done—taking in, with the low arts of your rigid. The servant bent over him and family, a poor, weak, helpless victim loosened his neckcloth. Instantly the Doctor came up to him, and, with an amazing Katey turned pale as she read, and promptitude, set to work. crushed the letter in her fingers. Then the "I'll bring him round, never fear," he colour came back to her cheeks, the light said. " Leave him to me. Get me mus­ to her eye. tard, and brandy, and every fiery thing " I do not deserve this," she said, proudly. that's in the house. Now, above all, not " She is a cruel, wicked woman. Perhaps a word for your bare life. I know the she may not crush me yet. Polly, not a mountains they'll be making of it, and it's word, dearest, to Peter. For your Hfe, only a trifie after all. I'll pull him round." darling, no. It will only put him out." But when the Doctor was left alone, it was But where was Peter ? Ah, it was too amazing with what vehemence, what frantic bad of Peter to be keeping them in this ardour, he went about his " phlugistic treat­ way, says the vivacious Polly. But here ment." " Oh, powers of Moses, that it was Peter hurrying up with an exhausted, should have come to this ! Oh, save us worried, and a scared look. and deliver us ! Was there ever anything " Here," he said, " time's up. Make as to equal this ?", How was it to end—what much haste as you can, and be off to the was to come of it ? And here were the church. I'll follow you." moments " slipping away as if they had " Ah, Peter, what nonsense ! Don't you been greased." know you're to take Katey?" " Not a foot. And don't you bother me, MeanwhUe the process of decking Katey now, if you don't want to drive me mad was going on, and nearly completed now. among you. No disputing, but be off." For her the minutes went by too speedily. There was a tone about this which At last she was ready: there was a deal of " abolished argument," as he would have embracing over that completion, and never said. An admiring crowd was at the door, =&. Charles Dickens, Jan.] THE DOCTOR'S MIXTURE. [October 8,1870.] 437 and they saw the two girls and their mother through he remained the same, scarcely get into the b'rouche and drive away tri­ articulating the answers; and then, when umphant The Doctor, wistfully and im­ they adjourned into the vestry to sign the patiently huddling them in, hurried back to books, the Doctor clutched his arm pain­ the bridegroom's house, at whose door was fully, and congratulating him noisUy, stim­ waiting a small brougham, lent by one of ulated him by a sharp whisper. People the officers. began to wonder and look strangely, but in a moment the Doctor had him in a Httle CHAPTER XV. THE WEDDING. off-room, where, from a smaU bottle in his THE church was crammed; the people pocket, he administered something. In­ standing on forms at the lower end, the deed, as the Doctor said later, it was won­ gaUeries crowded, and in the foremost pews derful that his own hair and whiskers did a number of the guests standing in lines. not turn grey from all that was on them. There was Lord Shipton in his new thread However, the happy pair were got into the gloves and his swallow-tail coat, Colonel b'rouche, the greys flew over the ground, Bouchier, and many of his officers, in uni­ and that sort of sauve qui pent, from the form, and Katey, aU white and veiled, church to the house, which at a wedding attended by her fair bridesmaids, kneeling. always sets in, now took place. What the Twingles, the organist, was playing the hapless Katey thought of her new com­ Wedding March of the immortal Mendel­ panion during that passage no one had ssohn Bartholdy, while from the vestry time to ask her. Here was the crowd door the face of the Rev. W. Webber round the house, for whom such a wed­ would peer out anxiously to see if the rest ding was a rare curiosity. They were now of the party were coming. It was very all hurrying back, the strange vehicle of odd. Many began to whisper and smile; Lord Shipton leading. What a day for Mrs. Leader was so clever; who knew but at that Findlater house ! And here was this three-quarters past the eleventh hour ! actually the band of the regiment drawn —the flutter and expectation increased. up in a ring in the road, ready to play in a Polly's head, with flushed cheeks, was complimentary fashion during the banquet. turned round to the door openly. But The Doctor had grown to be immensely hark now to the sound of wheels—hark popular with the men, who looked on him also to quick steps and shuffling upon the almost as one of their own officers. pavement. It was a bright sunny day. Long after Every head was turned as the Doctor the actors in it looked back, as we may sup­ hurried up, the bridegroom leaning heavily pose most actors of the kind do, through on his arm. But a bridegroom so ghastly, a sort of dreamy film that pervaded it— with such wild eyes, such sunken cheeks, every one being in a manner glorified out such decrepit form, that it was not surpris­ of their usual daily prosiness. To Katey ing that every one was amazed, and leaped it seemed a vision; she hardly knew what to the conclusion that he was wretched and was going on about her; she was handled, miserable, loathed the whole business, and and dressed, and embraced by her female but for the watchful custody of the Doctor, friends quite passively. Strange to say, would have escaped. Out came Billy Webber she took no thought of her husband; she promptly, and began. Katey, her eyes de­ seemed almost scared at that image, and, murely on the ground, never saw the perhaps, it was then that the first notion strange change in her lover, who was, in­ of the serious gravity of the step she had deed, in a sort of stupid trance all through, taken came back upon her. with staring eyes, his head dropping on his The dining-room was crowded, and breast, the Doctor jogging him now and gHttered with uniforms. Champagne was again. It was a strange ceremonial, as flying as if aU the boys' "pop-guns" in Mr. Webber graduaUy forged link after England were at work. There was a link of the firm chain that was to bind general flushing of faces and chatter of them. At last he had finished his task, tongues. Now Lord Shipton is on his feet riveted the last link, and our beautiful with a toast, which he trusts he wUl be per­ Katey was now MRS. CECIL LEADER of mitted to propose. His lordship becomes Leadersfort. flowery, and almost amorous in his praise All the time " the best man"—a brother of Katey and her sister, and owns he had officer—had kept close to the chief actor, long since irretrievably lost his heart to one on the Doctor's advice, giving him a sub­ of these lovely girls. He was not in the stantial as weU as moral support. All least ashamed to own it; he gloried in it,

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=& 438 [October 8,1870.] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Conducted by in fact. He grudged his friend, Mr. CecU, the door again; trunks coming down; and such a prize, &c., and so on, in a kind of the band braying away outside. The tedious rapture. Then came the Doctor's Doctor had been out among them with speech, marked by a certain tenderness bottles and glasses, stimulating them rather and melting softness. His jewel, his " peril" too much with that wonderful spirit he re­ —so he called her—was being taken from ceived from the west coast of Ireland, as­ him. Not that he begrudged her to the suring them rather indiscreetly "that the man of her choice, but he warned that man Queen should never hear a word of it." of her choice, whom he loved as his son, and Above, Katey was in the hands of her whom he would call his son now, that he maidens and friends robing her for travel. must foster and cherish the treasure confided There was a crowd in the street. Novy to him. He must enshrine it in a casket; let they were coming down. CecU Leads-, no cold frosts or biting winds come next or Esquire, comes out of his parlour, where he nigh it; take it out into the balmy sun, has been closeted with the Doctor, now and expose it to the soft breezes of summer. quite excited, his eyes dancing in his head, It was not for him to make allusions, but the Doctor's arm affectionately about him. it was a matter of notoriety that certain They were all crowding down the stairs to influences had been at work, certain stories see them off. Colonel Bouchier has half put in circiUation d'rogatory to him and to a dozen old shoes ready. The Doctor takes those nearest and dearest to him. Influences his daughter and whispers to her hurriedly: that had been digging, and mining, and " My pet of pets, our darling is a little countermining—well, he was not going to upset by the day's proceedings; so when rake up the past. There he was himself, y'arrive just give him this quieting medi- and those he loved dearer than his heart's chine, and he'll be all right. Maybe I'U blood, a standing refutation of aU that had look in in a day or two." been said, done, or attempted. There is embracing, kissing, huggmg. AU this time, bride and bridegroom had They have got in. A crack of the whip been sitting together, according to prece­ and plunging of horses' feet; away they dent, he still looking strangely up and go; a shower of old shoes. Faces look down the table, scarcely speaking. It was after them eagerly and affectionately as pronounced very odd, very queer, and the carriage turns the comer. Then the mysterious. It was strange, when being Doctor turns abruptly into his study, as if got to understand that he must stand up quite overcome with his parental feelings, and say something in reply to this drinking and there, when the door was closed, his of his health. The Doctor's eyes glanced face sank inwards, as though the springs at him nervously and anxiously. He had suddenly been relaxed, and he col­ glanced round him still more wildly, and lapsed, as it were, in his chair, uttering a it was only when Katey's gentle voice en­ long and deeply-sustained groan. couraged him that he stood up, and, in a " Chief Justice in glory!" he exclaimed faint, faltering voice, said he was obliged at last, "may Katey, my chUd, be forgiven to them all, did not feel very weU that for all this. All I have gone through this morning, and they must excuse him ; then morning was enough to wear my heart out. sat down. The Doctor drew a sigh of reHef, And the work's only beginning now !" and was presently behind him whispering, filled out something from a little decanter, and made him swaUow it. THE ITALIAN PEASANT All this seemed very strange indeed, and the good-natured Lord Shipton described it THE condition of the Italian peasant is aU at the club with exaggeration. " It in some respects worse, and in many re­ really looked as if they had braced him up, spects better, than that of his English just to get through, you know." brother. He has a better soU and a bettar " Get through!" said Mr. Ridley. " Why climate, to begin with; fewer wants, and a he's drugged the unfortunate lad !" greater capacity for enjoying life. He i» What was Katey thinking of all this often a poor man, but seldom a pauper, in while ? Did any doubts cross her mind ? the legal sense of the word. His appearance Not one. To the last she was to have that in England and elsewhere as an organ- marvellous faith in Peter, her own father. grinder is not a result of poverty, but of a She had not time to think or doubt. Here desire to escape from the conscription, or was the party all breaking up : cake being to elude the laws of his native country, cut with mystic ceremonies; the greys at which are very severe in certain cases,

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tSmrles Diekens, Jun.] THE ITALIAN PEASANT. [October 8,1870i] 439 though much mUder than they were a few fields. They are as much a part of the years ago. Most of these vagabonds have landscape as the trees themselves. Their run away from home, leaving behind them defect is that they take root. Tou may cut parents or families who are respectable; them down, or they will die in their places, or, if young, have been sold or " farmed as their fathers did before them; but you out" to master organ-grinders, with or cannot induce them to leave the country, without their parents' consent, at so much unless it be for criminal or political reasons. a head, or in gangs of six or eight, like Let us take a glance at the EngHsh pea­ convicts. It is quite a mistake to suppose sant, and compare his qualities—good, bad, that these wanderers are the outpourings or indifferent—with those of the Italian of the ItaHan streets. They are generally contadino. vagrants and beggars—^perhaps criminals— We all know the defects of the English because they have come to England. In swain ; how rude he is, how unwieldy, how their own country they have the means of unable to compete with mechanics in the subsistence. • ili i'i race for wealth. In nine cases out of ten Many of the oi^an-grinders of London he is a mere drudge, a thing and not a are peasants from the mountain districts man, part of the machinery of a farm-house; of Italy. They speak a language of their in some cases a pauper, and in others a own—a patois made up of the waifs and slave—if people can be ealled slaves who strays of various dialects—a kind of Babel have the right to die of starvation and of sounds which would be unintelligible the liberty to go to the workhouse! But, in the cities and large towns of their in spite of his defects, and the defects of native land. Most of the image-men are his position, he is a more substantial being Tuscans, or inhabitants of Lucca and Mo­ than his Italian prototype. He has greater dena. The hurdy-gurdy boys are Savoy­ powers of endurance, and he endures with ards and Piedmontese. The pifterari, or a better grace. He is thankful for small Italian pipers, some of whom have bagpipes mercies; he works and plays with a will; Hke the Scotch Highlanders, are SiciHans and he starves in a good-humoured sort of and Calabresi; but in some rare instances a way, as if he thought his time were come. Roman or a Tuscan minstrel is to be found But send him abroad, put him on his own in the streets of London dancing a jig or land in a new country, give him in Aus­ singing a plaintive song in pure ItaHan. tralia or America the chances which an Most of these adventurers Hve and vegetate ItaHan peasant has at home, and ten to one in the dark courts and alleys of Clerken­ he will prosper, .and bring about, or help well and Soho-square—^haunts of vice and to bring about, the prosperity of others. misery, where Italy may look for her For the English working-man is never more exiled chUdren any day in the year, and at home than when he is abroad. He claim them, too, if she have a mind (which knows that he is a man as weU as an Eng- she has not), together with all the organ- Hshman ; an inhabitant of the earth, not of grinders or others who infest the metropo­ a part of it; a native of the land on whose Hs. One and aU are peasants, or relatives possessions the sun never sets. Not so the and friends of peasants; people who began Italian peasant. For him Italy is everything, life as farmers or farm-servants—landlords the world nothing. If he transplants him­ of wretched hovels—landed proprietors of self, he languishes. He knows no history fields and cabbage gardens. but the history of Rome, no sun but that The peasantry of Italy may be divided which shines on his father's fields. He into two great classes: the contadini and likes money well enough, but he would the paesani, or the upper and lower classes rather Hve on a crust of bread or chestnut of peasants. The cultivators of the soil flour in his own land (chestnut porridge is are an independent race. They are the the great staple of food in Central Italy) fellow-labourers of the ox, but they are not than Hve on milk and honey in a foreign ploughmen or peasants in the EngHsh clime. He owns, or partly owns, the field sense of the word. They associate with he cultivates. He is never very rich, and dogs, horses, and sheep; but they are their never utterly destitute. He may send his own masters. They are the chUdren of wife and children out to beg, or become a Nature. They call themselves the citizens beggar himself when work is slack and the of the woods. They are proud and igno­ winter harvest—that of the chestnut-tree— rant at the same time. They have a has been gathered in, but he has always a flower's right to grow on their native roof to cover him, a household fire from heath, a lark's privUege to sing in the which no landlord can expel him,^ a hut

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440 [October 8,1870.] ALL THB TEAR ROUND. Oonductedby which he has inherited with his name, and Lombard gentleman. He can improvise which is as much a part of his identity as poetry, or, I should say, poetical phrases, the snaU's sheU is a part of its body. better than a lawyer can defend his cHent, The contadini of the North of Italy or a doctor talk to his sick man, in many of make, as a rule, very good farmers. They the northern towns. Nay, it is scarcely an are more industrious than the peasants of exaggeration to say that the lower classes Naples, and better educated than the men of Tuscany are born in the purple of Hte­ who work in the fields and vineyards of rature, just as the birds of the forest are Tuscany; but they are not so refined as born songsters. They talk correctly as the latter, and they speak ItaHan as the fish swims properly; as fire bums people speak a language they have ac­ with a due regard to the rules of che­ quired by study. To them the lingua mistry without knowing them; as leaves Toscana—the national speech of Italy—is fall to the ground in obedience to the law a foreign tongue. They learn it—they of gravitation. Tou may find peasants do not inherit it; they are Italy's foster- and charcoal-burners in the midland pro­ children. Thus it comes to pass that they vinces of Italy whose knowledge of the are obliged to become scholars, or at least Divine Comedy and the Two Orlandi (Or­ the pupils of a schoolmaster, before they lando Furioso and Orlando Innammorato) can put themselves into communication is as profound as that of an ItaHan Htte- with the authorities. Their local speech is rato ; nay, it may be, profounder, for whUe not recognised by the law. Sermons are the latter has often a large Hbrary to faU preached, proclamations are issued, law­ back upon, the peasant is confined to his suits are carried on, in a language which is ancient epics: the books he has learnt by as strange to them as the English language tradition, as a child learns fairy tales, by used to be to the inhabitants of the interior word of mouth and memory, and not by of Wales. Nor is this the case solely with book or pen, though now and then his the peasantry; the middle and even the natural powers are eked out by a Httle upper classes are sadly at a loss sometimes learning. The majority of the peasants to express themselves in proper language, are, of course, ignorant of these chefs- so that they are often compelled to speak a d'oeuvre, and those who can read by the foreign tongue (say French or German), in card do not always read poetry : the ReaH order to make themselves understood in di Francia, the story of Bertoldo arid Ber- polite society. French is becoming quite toldino (a kind of prose epic), and the. the rage in Lombardy and Venetia, where legends and litanies of the saints, being ladies and gentlemen of good position do among their tavourite books. not scruple to speak bad French in prefer­ The ItaHan peasantry contribute very ence to good Italian; perhaps because they largely to the miUtary resources of the fear the provincial accent wUl slip out! I country. They supply the great bulk of have said that the peasants of the North the soldiers; they are the raw material of Italy speak patois; but when, they which the Italian government employs to read and write (as they often do) they fight its battles and defend its frontiers; read and write Italian, and not Piedmontese, turning them in some cases into heroes, or lingua Lombarda. This is the sense in and in others into powder machines—^war­ which the northern peasantry are better ranted, gun in hand, to go off at a mo­ educated than those of the midland pro­ ment's notice. Do not let it be supposed, vinces, though, according to all accounts, however, that these sons of the soil are they are less nobly gifted by Nature, and exceptionally brave and warHke; that they spring from " barbarians," and not from take a particular delight in fighting, or in the ancient Romans: some say from the achieving military glory. They are simply Goths and Vandals. The peasants of Tus­ poor (poor at least in ready money), and cany pride themselves on having a gentler cannot buy themselves off from the govern­ pedigree. Their patois is the language of ment. If soldiering were a matter of scholars. Dante wrote in it, Galileo choice, it is doubtful whether the king thought in it, Italy is being governed by would receive as many recruits from the it at the present day. The shepherd-boy peasantry as would suffice to equip a single who tends his flocks on the mountains of regiment. The contadini are a peaceftd the Val d'Amo, and knows nothing of race: docUe and patient to a fault; capable books except that they have been forbidden of great acts of self-denial, but not addicted by the priest, talks more correctly and pro­ to rebeUion or to poHtical or social risings, nounces his words better than the average either in detence of a right or in revenge Charles Dickens, Jun.] THE ITALIAN PEASANT. [October 8,1870 ] 441 for a wrong ; a very different class of men not exist in an enlightened age. Ivy looks to the peasantry of Kent and the bluff best on a ruin; ballads do not flourish in yeomanry of Torkshire. The Italian con­ an age of newspapers. Perhaps it is be­ tadini enter the army because they are cause ballads, being in one sense an inferior obliged to do so. Every strong and hearty kind of newspaper, are driven out of the lad, whether he be peer or peasant, is liable market by the real article. Look at edu­ to be claimed by the conscription as soon cation, what it is doing in Italy; how it as he attains his nineteenth year, provided is breaking the soU (like a large steam he be not maimed, or below the average plough), and preparing the country for a height, or proved to be the only support new harvest! But in removing the rub­ and comfort of a widowed mother. Of bish; and obstructions which beset its course the peer is bought off from the rank path, it removes many beautiful things; and file; he is enabled to enter the army not alone the weeds of ignorance and as an officer if he be so inclined, but once superstition, but the wild flowers of tradi­ the fine paid he is exempt from the con­ tion and poetry. And these are the sights scription, and the government must look which one sees in Italy in this year of elsewhere for his substitute. The peasantry grace: the lazzaroni of Naples swept away, are thus caUed into requisition twice over or forced to become honest members of —once for themselves, and once for their society; the gondoliers of Yenice reformed, fine-paying neighbours. But they reap and educated, and properly controUed by many advantages from their forced service the authorities; the brigands of Calabria in the camp: they learn Italian; they be­ and the Roman States shot or imprisoned come civUised; they go back to their as convicts; the pifferari and wandering native villages (at the age of twenty-five), minstrels—poor peasants, with their wives with an acquired taste for books and letter- and famUies, who used to sing so prettily writing, and are looked upon as gentlemen at the wayside shrines and in front of the — perhaps as heroes — by their old asso­ pictures of the Virgin Mary—sent to the ciates. reformatory or the workhouse. But it is A considerable number of the non- impossible not to regret some of the old readers in Italy are good story-tellers customs and traditions which are being and reciters of ballads, and some of them destroyed along with these errors and make what is called poetry on their own abuses. account. This is particularly the case in Tuscany and Lombardy, as weU as Naples the South and in some of the central pro­ and the Roman States, contain many of vinces, where education of a practical kind the secluded spots above aUuded to, " spots" has (until recently) been much neglected. composed of villages, and even smaU towns, Where schools flourish, home-phUosophy, where newspapers are unknown, books a sometimes called mother-wit, is generally forbidden rarity, and candles (tallow, wax, found to be on the decline. Old women and composite) highly esteemed as articles lose their importance ; old men look to of reHgion. The peasantry of these places their sons and daughters, and not to the are stUl in the sixteenth century. Every priest, for instruction. No more peasants, man, woman, and child places lus and her brooding over the old classics, make a re­ conscience in the hands of the local priest. putation as local poets; no more viUage Soul money, or a tax on dead people, is sybils thunder forth anathemas in blank levied, and paid with cheerfulness. Taxes verse, or lull their chUdren, or their are raised on sin, indulgences (or permis­ children's children, to sleep with cradle- sion to sin) are bought and sold in secret, songs in seventy or eighty verses, inter­ and people are taught that the wages of spersed with Litanies and Ave Marias. sin is not death, as stated in the Scrip­ To find such customs now-a-days you must tures, but absolution and eternal Hfe. The go to secluded spots, far away trom the fact is the ItaHan peasantry are the great track of the schoolmaster; to romantic bulwark of the Church of Rome. When hUls and vaUeys where the priest is stUl these fall off the pope may begin to supreme; to villages suspended trom the despair; but so long as these remain crags like eagles' nests, and supposed (but faithful—that is to say, as long as they not proved) to have been built at the remain ignorant and superstitious—^there breaking up of the Roman empire by wUl be no prospect of a change of tactics feudal chiefs, or robbers, who were making on the part of the priesthood, either as war on their sovereign. It would almost regards soul-money for the dead, or sin- appear as if poetry of a certain class can­ money for the Hving, or the worship of 5= y^ •V X

442 [October 8, 1870.] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. .[Conducted b; graven images throughout the length and poor like to sell them to the rich, and a loaf breadth of the land. is considered quite a treat by the chUdren Among the most horrible of the super­ of the peasantry; nay, it is one about which stitions of the peasantry, is the belief in the many hard-working people know nothing at advocacy of little children—babies, who aU except by hearsay. This state of things die as soon as they are baptised, or as soon would be simply intolerable to the peasantry after baptism as is consistent with a belief of the North of Italy. The northern con­ in their entire innocence and purity. tadino is accustomed to butcher's meat on Children who die young are called "advo­ six days in the week. On Friday, as in cates," or awocati, because they are said to duty bound, he fasts; that is to say, he go to heaven without passing into purga­ eats fish, and as much miscellaneous food tory, and plead for their parents and rela­ as he likes, taking Friday's allowance of tions at the right hand of God. Many old meat on Sundays between mass and ves­ women (chiefly grandmothers), and not a pers. The breakfast of the Lombard pea­ few fathers and mothers, have been con­ santry consists of porridge made of Indian victed of compassing the deaths of children, corn, baker's bread, with cheese or butter, not wickedly or maliciously, but in a pious. and other simple viands, which, in some God-fearing sort of way, in order to have cases, are accompanied by wine (home " friends in heaven" when their time made, or bought from some neighbouring comes. Do not suppose that they murder farm), to enable them to endure the fatigues the chUdren. Nothing of the sort. They of the field. The air is keener than in the simply let them alone and keep the doctor South, and the men and women of Lom­ at a distance. If they are ill they say the bardy and Venetia, being hardier and hand of God is upon them. If friends in­ more industrious than the Italians of a terpose, and insist on something being softer cHme, require more food to keep done, they mutter a Latin prayer, and re­ them alive. sign themselves to what they are pleased In certain parts of Italy, principally in to call the " wishes of the Almighty." I the midland provinces, the young men of have known cases where mothers have the peasant classes " emigrate" for a few prayed that their innocent little children weeks or months in the beginning of might die during iUness, and cried bitteriy winter, and repair to Corsica and Sardinia., when the coffin was being carried out of and certain marsh lands on the ItaHan doors. But such cases are not frequent. coast of the Mediterranean caUed Maremme, The peasantry of Lombardy and Ve­ where there is work to be done in the shape netia are more prosperous than those of of draining fields, cutting down trees, Central Italy. At any rate, they eat and making and transporting charcoal in the drink more copiously, and are able to afford forest lands, and mayhap buUding bridges themselves greater luxuries. They earn and roads. These " emigrants"—if they more, and they spend more than their can be called by such a name—generaUy southern brothers, and their food is not take then- departure in the month of No­ always coarse and unpalatable. Thus, in vember, after the gathering of the chestnuts. the central districts, among the hills of The women and old men, and the well-to-do Tuscany, Lucca, and Modena, the contadini young men of the peasant classes, stay at eat nothing but necce and polenta, which home to superintend the smoking of the are the Italian names for chestnut bread autumn fruit—the chestnuts being placed in and chestnut porridge. A little salt, a a kind of loft, with holes in the fioor, above great deal of water, and a few handfuls of the metato, or kitchen fire, which has no chestnut flour thrown into a large caldron chimney or outlet of any kind except the (suspended from the inside of the chimney window and door-—and a kind of luU takes by a chain with a hook to it), form the place in the active Hfe of the peasants. ingredients of their morning meal. The The old women take to their distaffs; the same mixture, cooked in a different way— younger women sew and knit, or resume baked between two bricks, or rolled up their studies in embroidery and straw (and boiled) in a towel, like a plum-pud­ plaiting; while the young men aforesaid ding—serves for a dinner, and provides (in make a pretence of looking after the the shape of leavings) for a supper later in fields and forests, where a stray nymph or the day. The peasantry of the Tuscan two is generally to be met with drying Alps rarely, if ever, eat meat, except on clothes, or picking up sticks for the kitchen Sundays and the holidays of the Church. fire. Winter is a season of compai-atiye Eggs and milk are luxuries, because the security for these young women, who m =^ Charles Dickens, Jnn.] IN FLIGHT FROM PARIS. [October 8,1870.] 443 summer rarely, if ever, venture out alone may be attributed to them, just as boors —not even a stone's throw from their are Hkely to be improved by being brought father's house. The " roughs" are all into the society of ladies. away ; the boisterous young men are hard at work in the marshes. A little friendly PEACE AND WAE. intercourse and homely affection is thus TWO ATJTUMS 1ASD8CAPEB. allowed to spring up between the youth of I. THIST yellow leaves are waving in the sun. both sexes, who meet at the metato fires in Thin red leaves tremble on the garden wall, the long winter evenings and tell stories A cold dew beads upon the last pale rose, and sing songs. When the spring returns That e'er another hour will shake and fall. the " emigrants" begin to make their ap­ Gay past my window, heedless of next frost. pearance again—perhaps as early as the Flit the bright coloured wandering butterflies; The stillness and the calm of Autumn time March violets—either one by one, or in Upon the changing misty woodland lies. batches of six or eight, as the case may And on the yellowing bough of the ash-tree be. The little robin with a ruddier breast The peasantry of Italy are not much Sits singing now with heedless child's delight addicted to dancing, except in Carnival, Of Autumn's soothing hours of ease and rest. and the priests denounce it as a peccato Peace and Content, like children hand in hand. Walk by the woodside through the rustling leaves; mortale, or deadly sin, when they have Nature seems dreaming of the golden age, the chance. A village fete in most parts of When joyous days but led to merrier eves. Italy is a day on which there is nothing to ir. Another scene, and in another land, do, when people walk about in their best A sullen sky of boding thundercloud, clothes, eat and drink better than usual, That broods upon the long, long poplar rows, and go to church three times instead of And gathers hill by hill withm its shroud. once: once to mass, once to vespers, and Under the vineyard, torn in gaps with shot,' Nestles a cottage, once so trim and neat; once to funzione in the evening. But now across the shattered smouldering floor The distinguishing features of a village There are the crimson prints of trampling feet. " wake " in Italy — a harvest home, a And by the riven wall that's in a flame, vintage feast, or a veglione in the dead of There lies an old man, with his long grey hair winter—are eating and drinking, inter­ Steeped in his children's blood. 'Twas well he died mixed with singing (sacred and profane), Before he saw red Murder riot there. And in the distance through the sloping vines, and the offering up of prayers. Many The bayonets glance, and one quick angry drum lads of fifteen can rhyme and versify in Answers a calling bugle; and a horse. the most surprising manner, now and then Now riderless, flies fast from where the foemen come. extorting praise (and money) from tourists, IN FLIGHT FROM PARIS. few of whom are, perhaps, aware that the improwisatori of Italy are in the habit of GENERAL TROCHU'S announcement that using the same phrases over and over again, the gates of Paris would be closed on as people teU a Joe MiUer, or a favourite Thursday, September the 15th, at six pun, in different houses. o'clock in the morning, and the warning The Neapolitan peasants are, or used to of the British Embassy addressed to British be, quite famous for their extempore songs subjects, informing them that if they pro­ — many of them very elaborate — which longed their stay they did so at their own they sang to their own music, Hke the risk and peril, made such English as re­ wood-cutters of the South of France, al­ mained in Paris reflect a Httle seriously luded to by Madame Sand in her story of as to whether they had not better take the Maitres Sonneurs. I have heard of their departure. To say the truth, there ItaHan peasants who could write verses were not many of our countrymen stiU about their friends and acquaintances who remaining. Faces of residents, to which were working in the fields, and sing them one had become well accustomed, had been (instead of working themselves) in a clear, for some time missing. Just before and soft, theatrical voice. I have heard of after the disaster of Sedan, the period of other peasants (also Italian) who could greatest panic of flight had set in, and play the flute or flageolet, and dance as produced sights not to be forgotten by nimbly as a ballet-man; and of others those who witnessed the state of any of the who could fence and play at chess. It will raUway stations of Paris during that period. be said (not without reason) that these A perfect avalanche of fugitives and their accomplishments are not likely to be of baggage fell down on all the termini of much use to a hard-working clodhopper; the lines leading to England or Belgium but a certain civiHsing or refining influence —^it was, indeed, at every station, confusion

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AAA [October 8,1870.] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Conducted by worse confounded. The sergens de ville and sputtering by our side, nor by the feai- having now disappeared from the scene. of street-fighting, and ultimate sack by the National Guards were posted at every Prussians, nor by the fear of street-fighting entrance to the stations, and endeavoured, with the Spectre Rouge and possible sack with fixed bayonets, to restore some sort of by the " Reds", whose appearance we have order amid the writhing, struggling masses been taught to look for at every critical who hustled together in desperate rivalry moment. Those who love Paris—and who to reach the office for their ticket, and not does not love Paris who has resided there only filled the station itself, but battled and for a few years ? — might possibly he wrestled on the steps and in the streets out­ willing to run the risk of a little danger, side. Some, in order that they might fight and even to take up the revolver and with gi'eater freedom, abandoned their bag­ Chassepot to do her service in emergency; gage altogether, while others sat themselves but how long was it going to last ? The down upon their boxes in the street, and most ardent Parisians were looking for- waited with a calmness like despair for some ward to a siege of some two or three abatement of the desperate conffict which months, in which case one would surely was going on inside. A restaurateur in the find oneself cut off from aU home com­ Rue d'Amsterdam told me he had noticed a munications. To the Parisian who has family sit in this fashion, perched on their all his household gods, and goods, and boxes, for fifteen consecutive hours. At one means of subsistence within the walls of time the press was so great that the com­ the city, this is a lighter matter than for a panies refused to take any baggage at all; stranger, for whom the occasional postal but the owners of baggage fled all the same, deliveries and the receipt of remittances is leaving it behind them Hke an army in a necessity: and as to remittances, how rout. The wild heaps of boxes and port­ were they to be cashed ? A friend of ours manteaus of every dimension, every shade was going about the day before we left of trimness and shabbiness, which were trying to get an English bank-note changed, stacked in aU directions, were something and all in vain; so that it was possible you hideous to behold; you walked between might find yourself with a goodly balance walls of baggage, and mountains of it rose at your English bankers, and a neat packet beyond. Full half of it wUl never again of cheques and bank-notes in your desk, find the owners, for there was a very and yet be in danger of dying of starvation. general absence of addresses. In fact, The investment of so large a city as Paris each of the termini was for the space of a must always have a weak spot in it, that is . few days a very chaos of disordered bag­ true; but who could tell whether your gage, around and about which struggled letters would have luck enough always and jostled a panic-stricken crowd of ges­ to find out that weak spot, and to manage ticulating men, and haggard women, and to get through ? Regretfully, therefore, and crying children, fleeing from the coming with some sense of cowardice, we deter­ Prussians. In the course of three or four mined to turn our back for a whUe on the days, however, the worst of the panicof flight beautiful city. To see our friends once more, was over, and the railway companies, who and to make some personal arrangements seemed for a whUe to be paralysed by the before submitting to a possible two or three enormous amount of extra work thrown months' siege, might surely be allowed us; upon their lines, recovered themselves, lug­ for if the fates permitted, in three days' gage was again taken and labelled, and time we intended, assuredly, to be back the stream of fugitives grew less and less, again in our haunts, and among our old until the stations presented at last a more Parisian friends, prepared to give them deserted appearance than usual. General such moral or other support as circum­ Trochu's announcement, however, revived stances might require. anew the impetus of flight; but as the As we heard that the bridge over the more panic - stricken had already taken Seine at Asnieres was to be blown up punc­ wing, the latter part of the exodus took tuaUy at eight P.M on Wednesday evening, place with greater quiet and regularity. by the order of the omnipotent General To a good number of the strangers who Trochu, and as we had resolved on going thus went off at the last houi', the ques­ by the Dieppe and Newhaven route, we tion of going or staying was one of con­ betook ourselves to the Gare Saint Lazare siderable difficulty to decide upon. We our­ at twelve o'clock on that day. There were selves were not only influenced by the fear not many traveUers in the train, and of of finding an uninvited bedfeUow in the my four companions in my compartment, form of a bombshell some night whizzing I must say there was but one who had not =^ Charles Dickens, Jnn.] m FLIGHT FROM PARIS. [October 8,1870.] 445 a shamefaced air, and that individual was gers got in and out, and talked about a civil engineer, instructed by the Pro­ market prices; women got into our car­ visional Government to go and look after riage, and gossiped, just as if we were in a the fortifications of Le Havre. The rest time of profound peace; and babies in the of us—I read it in the faces of my com­ train screeched and squalled just as usual, panions—aU had a twinge of remorse at for no apparent reason, except, perhaps, to turning our backs at such a time on the assert that a baby's prerogative is to cry as city which had harboured us so long. much and when it pleases, to show its in­ Nothing more than ordinary happened at fantine sense of its autocracy and irrespon- our starting, until we reached the fortifica­ sibiHty. The general tone of the provin­ tions, when we aU strained our necks out of cials we met with was hearty and confi­ windows to see how the railway had been dent ; they did not seem a whit discouraged flanked by new stone waUs, and was ready by disaster; they counted on the defence to be banked up with earthworks at a of Paris as a means of bringing the German moment's notice. The train moved slowly invasion to a standstUl, while the provinces over the moat on a temporary wooden should have time to organise themselves, bridge, and then we passed into the mili­ and throw armies in the rear of the in­ tary zone outside the fortifications, which vaders. The spirit of the inhabitants about was a desert of houses in ruins, and of Dieppe, which we reached in due course, heaps of bricks and mortar, as far as the was, we were told, exceUent. The look, eye could reach round the fortifications on however, of many of the people whom we either side. Such a scene of desolate ruin, met about the streets and in the restaurants made solely for a defensive purpose, has and cafes was by no means encouraging. never, perhaps, been witnessed before. The greater part of them were evidently re­ Further on we passed a military camp, with fugees from Paris, and a blank, crestfaUen sentinels on guard. The soldiers looked air was their chief characteristic; they had not very trim, and had a sad, worn look, fied from the duty and peril of defending which the first tap of the drum, as it the metropolis, and had evidently faUen sounds the pas de charge, wiU, doubtless, terribly in their own esteem. change to one of better augury. The next The afternoon had been dark and lower­ two or three stations had loopholes for ing, and towards night the rain fell in tor­ musketry cut into their side waUs; then rents. A pleasant night this to be prowl­ everything wore its usual air, and we fell ing about Dieppe tUl three A.M., at which into infinite talk about all the means of time the steamer was to start for New- defence which the city could make use of, haven. We resolved, therefore, after dining and which it had put in practice. This at one of the table d'hotes of the town, and man had seen the big steel cannon dragged looking in at the Cafe Suisse, to go at once up to the top of Montmartre, with twenty- to the boat, and take our berth, and wait four horses to each cannon; that man de­ there calmly for the hour of starting. We clared that there were three mUlion kilos walked, then, down the plashy quay, to the of powder in the city, and Chassepots and spot where the white funnel of the steamer tabatieres enough for aU its defenders; loomed drearily through the rain, and de­ one argued about the fascines which were scended the ladder from the quay on to the to be steeped in petroleum, and thrown rain-sodden deck of the steamer. into the moat, and set on fire wherever the But, alas ! we had reckoned without our. Prussians should approach the ramparts; host, or rather the host of fugitives whom the other knew that half Paris was under­ we found on board the boat. The chief cabin mined to blow up the enemy if he should was so crammed with occupants, that not get on the walls, &c. Of all the four, the only was not a single berth unoccupied, but civil engineer, bound for Le Havre, was there was not sitting room even to be found the most sober in taUc, and the best in­ on a single bench. A pleasant prospect to formed ; his idea was that the Prussians have to cross the Channel in a standing certainly would march upon Havre, and position, amid a host of refugees in every that the German plan assuredly was not to stage of sea-sickness, or to content ourselves make close siege of Paris, but to block up with a cold seat open to the weather on the all her communications, and to try to take bi».ss-bound stairs ! The engineer had, we her by famine, while they themselves made heard, just disposed of his cabin forwards all the richest provinces of France con­ for the smaU douceur of a sovereign, and tribute to their support. After a short this was the last available sleeping accom­ time our journey became as monotonous as modation on board the boat. We departed all raUway journeys are. Country passen­ then with bag and baggage moodUy from the

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446 [October 8, 1870.] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Condacted by boat, and determined to wait for another passengers, one could weU see that stores twenty-four hours for the next steamer. of jewels, trinkets, and valuables were being The next day (Thursday) was of brighter carried away from the impending faU of the aspect; the sun shone out cheerfully in the Gallic Babylon, and one was irresistibly morning, and we had the opportunity of reminded of the flight of the multitude studying the faces of refugees under a more from Pompeii when the portentuous black propitious sky than the day before. Our feel­ cloud big with ruin was hanging over the ings towards them, however, were slightly terrified city. changed, for we now looked on each in­ Nevertheless, careworn and downcast as dividual as a possible competitor in the was every face, one noticed a temporary struggle for berths which was sure to ensue gleam of satisfaction come over it, when long before three A.M. on the next day. the foot was surely set on the peaceful soU Warned by experience, we went on board of England. May aU the sad-hearted im­ at tenp.M., and even at this time the steward migrants find among us a kindly welcome, looked upon himself as treating us with until they can return in security to their especial favour in finding us sitting room much-loved country, no longer profaned by by the side of the saloon table, where he in­ the tread of the invader ! structed us we might, when supper was over, lay our head on our aiins on the maho­ gany, and try to sleep tiU the hour of start­ A LITTLE MORE PROVERBIAL ing. Five hours of sitting in this stiffing PHILOSOPHT. and fetid atmosphere seemed to the jaunty steward rather a light and airy way of NON vale un acca—not worth an H—is a spending one's time. However, recalling to saying in Italy, where, to account for it, mind the bargain which had been struck Baretti tells his readers, " We have no with the engineer of the vessel of the pre­ aspiration" and the " dronish letter" means vious night, we requested to be put into exactly nothing at all. communication with that grimy dignitary. Precisely the same meaning is with us, A bargain was soon made, and we were in England, when we say. Not worth a rap, forthwith ensconced in a little den of our and, although the idioms of the two nations own, which was indeed a haven of peace, do not run quite paraUel here, they do run amid the wild fight for accommodation paraUel in many proverbial instances. We going on fore and aft throughout the boat. say, for instance. One swaUow does not The whole cargo of passengers was about make a summer. The Italians put it, Un five or six hundred, and never since the fiore non fa primavera—one flower does not boat was launched had she had to bear so make a spring; and the force of both is miscellaneous and mournful a crowd. made clearer by the contrasting. If the There were people of every condition cap fits wear it, we EngHsh people say. and every nation, though the French of Chi ha spaga, aggomitoli—he who has pack­ course predominated ; and women with thread may wind it, insinuates an Italian,^ tribes of chUdren of all ages, from the babe varying it, at times, with a deeper cut at the breast to the chUd who was ceasing stiU, to Chi e in difetto e in sospetto—he to be a child. There were Spaniards, Jews, who is in fault is in fear. They who come ItaHans, WaUachs, Austrians, &c.; bankers' late must kiss the cook, Baretti tells us was clerks, musicians, itinerant jugglers, actors our wit, in his time, to tardy comers. Chi and actresses, dealers in articles of virtii, tarda arriva, male aUoggia—a late amver is photographers, idlers, and members of every lodged badly, is the corresponding whip to imaginable trade and profession. On our promote punctuality in Italy. To kiU two emerging upon deck in the morning we birds with one stone is considered by us found amid the crowd a face we recog­ a masterpiece of completion. Batter du« nised; close behind our friend stood two chiodi ad una calda—to strike, that is, men in livery. This was M. , of one forge, two nails at one heating, denotes the of the leading banks in Paris, and the two same cleverness to an ItaHan. Meddle men in Hvery were servants of the bank. with what concerns you, is a saying of ours The three had been sent over together to that might be thought emblematic of only^ convey to London and place in security aU British caution and reserve. The sam^ the valuable papers of the bank—amount­ sentiment, however, prevails in impetuous ing to Heaven knows how many mUlions Italy. Metter la falce neUa biada altrui— of francs; and from the jealous watch kept put the scythe in other men's corn, is the over bags and little boxes by many of the version there; and so is, rhymingly, i Charles Dickens, Jun.] MORE PROYERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. [October 8,1870.] 447

Di quel che non ti cale, cessary labour in collier England. The Non dir nfe ben nfe male; Italians have many ways of expressing the a very free translation of wMcK miglit absurdity. Dar I'incenso a' morti—give run: incense to the dead, is one of them; On things that not to thee belong, Lavar la testa aU' asino—wash a donkey's Utter no judgment, right or wrong. head, is another; Preach to leeks, is a The individaal we call a meddlesome Matty third; a fourth is. Sell sun in July; and is stigmatised as Chi entra tra carne e ngua then there follow, Mostrare altrui lucciole —one who gets in between the flesh and per lanterne—show glowworms by lantern- the nail; an indication of sharp, but petty light ; Gittar la treggea a' porci—^throw a annoyance, that has force enough decidedly. sugar-plum to the pigs ; Fish for the pro­ Short reckonings make long friends, is a consul (whatever the sly meaning of that vital item in English dealing. So it is of may be) ; Make an almanack for the past Italian. Patto chiaro, amicizia lunga, is the year; and Pound water in a mortar. Old variation of it; a clear agreement, a long birds are not caught with chaff", we de­ friendship. Another mercantile belief of clare. Yolpe vecchia non cade nella rete ours is that we have one county in which —an old fox does not get into the snare, we may expect sharper dealing than the is the equally early version of the Italians. rest. The Italians keep pace with us, even Every rose has a thorn, say we of rose- here. Tuscany is their sharp country, as bearing England; and Every bean has Yorkshire is ours, and they say : its black; and No sw,eet without sweat; Chi ha a fare con Tosco and, in another vein. There is a skeleton Non vuol esser Iosco; in every house. Chi ha capre ha corna —have a goat have a horn, has the same which may be, as another specimen of free pictorial meaning in Italy; and so has translation: Non c'e mele senza le pecchie—there is From a Tuscan would you buy ? no honey without flies; and Ognuno ha'l Go not with a purbHnd eye ! suo impiceato all' uscio—eveiy one has his Better a bird in hand than two in the bush, rogue at the door. Call a spade a spade, is we say cautiously. E meglio oggi I'uovo, che our way of expressing a preference for plain non domani la gallina—better the egg to­ statements. Chiama la gatta gatta—call the day than the hen to-morrow, is the same cat cat, is the same idea expressed by an wisdom with the Itahans; and they have Italian. Every crow thinks her own young another reading of it in Meglio e pincione one white, is our acknowledgment of self- in man, che tordo in frasca—better a chaf­ exaltation. In Italy it runs, Ogni cencio finch in the hand than a thrush on the vuol entrare in bneato—every rag wishes bough. Time works wonders, is English to get into the wash-bucket. shortly expressed experience. Col tempo To be hand-in-glove with one, is a mode e colla paglia si maturan le nespole—with we have of describing familiarity. The time and straw one may even ripen med­ Italians say, Esser di casa piii che la lars, is said to impatient folks in Italy. granata—to be more in the house than Curses, like young chickens, come home to the broom is; they say, also. To be as roost, says Lord Lytton in his Lady of close as bread and cheese. Eine feathers Lyons. Le bestemmie fanno come le pro- do not make fine birds, say we ornithologi- cessioni—blasphemies do the same as pro­ cally ; Freno d'oro non fa miglior eavallo— cessions, that is, come back again to the a golden bit does not make a better horse, place whence they start, is an old saying is the richer dictum of the Italians, inhe­ la Italy, there being an older one still, cor­ rited, doubtless, direct from imperial and responding to it, in Latin, In proprium pagan Eiome. To be between two stools, redeunt impia dicta caput. means with us to be in an unenviable Great cry and Httle wool, is our comment situation; it used to run, to be between when we find people over fussy; or we scoff hawk and buzzard (when a clawing by one at a mole-hill made into a mountain, or at or the other would be inevitable) ; Essei.' much ado about nothing. The Italians kick un cacio fra due grattuge—to be the cheese at the infliction quite as angrily. Ogui brus- between two graters, denotes the same colo ti pare una trave—every straw-chip miserable pKght in Italy. The same seems a plank to thee, they mutter; or graters (or presses, perhaps, would be a Fa d'una bolla un canchero—make a water- better word), furnish the Italians with blister into a cancer. To carry coals to another illustration. Grattugia con grat- Newcastle, means to be guilty of unne­ tugia non fa cacio—press to press makes no

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448 [October 8,1870.] ALL THE YEAR BOUND. fConducted by

cheese, they say, dolefully or contemptu­ changed by an Italian into Non e tempo di ously, as the case may be; and an old dar fieno a oche—to-day is not the time to \ English parallel to this was, Two half-moons give hay to geese. 'Tis opportunity makes will never make a bulwark. Blood is the thief, we say, as additional reason for stronger than water, we feel still: the Ita­ locking up things securely; AU' area aperta lians change it to Mi strigne piu la camiscia il giusto vi pecca—at the open coffer even che non la gonnella—my shirt binds closer the just man sins, expresses the same belief to me than my gown ; an even more sug­ of the ItaHans. A cat may look at a king, \ gestive rendering of which, Near is my we say contemptuously, if we are reproved shirt, but nearer is my skin, used to be for a suspicion of insolence; Un cane heard in England formerly. It is hard for guarda un arcivescovo—a dog may look at thee to kick against the pricks, has been an archbishop, is the defiance of the eccle­ repeated by us since the New Testament siastic-ridden Italian. He has overrun the has been translated into our mother tongue; constable, was applied to a spendthrift in Duro e scalcheggiare contra lo sprone— our debt-hating England; Avanzare i piedi it is severe (or painful) to jerk against fuor del letto—put the feet outside the the spur, is the more every-day allusion bed, is the queer equivalent in Italy. He of the Italians. Do as you are bid, is thought the streets would be paved with scarcely a proverb with us, but it very gold, denounces extravagant expectation often leaves our lips; Legar I'asino dove here; Le vigne vi si legano coUe salsiccie vuole n padrone—tie the ass where the — vines are tied together at that place master wishes, entails the same unques­ with sausages, is told to whomsoever is tioned obedience in Italy. Have two wdse enough to beHeve it by an ItaHan. strings to your bow, we say, as a caution; Hunger is the best sauce, we say, when Tenere il pie in due staffe—hold the foot we care not whether the coming dinner in both stirrups, is the same good (albeit is roast beef or Scotch haggis; Appetite ' impossible) advice of an Italian. He is a non vuol salsa-—appetite wants no sauce, jack-of-all-trades, we say of a person who expresses the same eagerness in Italy. can do most things handily; E un uomo Then we say. Half a loaf is better than da bosco e da riviera—he is a man of the no bread, and the Italian agrees with us woods and the river, denotes the same by saying, A tempo di carestia pan vec- convertible utiHty in Italy. To count our cioso—in scarcity time vetch-mixed bread chickens before they're hatched, is con­ (which, naturally, would be despised after sidered comical anticipation of good for­ a bounteous harvest); and he calls a tune in England; Vender la pelle dell' good appetite generally Salsa di San Ber­ orso—^to sell the skin of the bear, before, nardo—St. Bernard's sauce. It was like of course, you have shot at and effectually a wet blanket over us, we say, when killed him, is laughed at as heartily in some too ceremonious or unapt thing spoils Italy. I have scotched the snake, we say our cheerfulness; Ragionar de* morti a here, when we are sure our work is over; tavola—to talk of the dead at table, com­ Ho fato il becco all' oca—I have put the plain out, under similar circumstances, the beak to the goose, is triumphed by an susceptible ItaHans. When the candles are Italian. Every little helps, we say, when out all cats are grey, or Joan in the dark we are not over-particular as to our mate­ is as good as my lady, is EngHsh, and rials ; Ogni acqua immolla — aU water smacks of mediaeval times notably; Ogni softens, or, Ogni prun fa siepe — any cuffia e buona per la notte—any coif is bramble-bush makes hedging, has the same good at night, is ItaHan, and marks the meaning to an Italian. It's as broad as it's same period. If you're born to be hanged, long, or six of one and half a dozen of the you will never be drowned, is our ques­ other, is our saying when we mean that tionable comforting; Quello che ha ad esser two things will be pretty equal in the end; de' lupi, non sara mai de cani—What is Chi mura a secco, mura spesso—who builds meant to be wolf can never be dog, is dry (that is, in the loose primitive way, similar philosophy of the Italians. If it without the expense of mortar) must build doesn't go one way, it goes another,^ we all the thicker, is the equivalent reflection say, when our substance is^ vanishing ,j^ of an Italian. Our, A close mouth catches Quello che non va neUe maniche, va ne no flies, is matched in Italy by Che dorme gheroni—what doesn't go into the sleeves non pigha pesce—he who sleeps nets no goes into the gussets, is the rueful cry of fish. This is no time for trifling, said by an ItaHan. Talk of the devil, and he is us when we want to be in earnest, is sure to appear, we say irreverently; E non

5=SS^ Charles Dickens, Jun.] MORE PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. [OctoTjer8,1870.] 449 si grida mai al lupo, che e non sia in paese leave them out. The first shaU be. Every —one never cries wolf, but he is out in the one has his hobby. This becomes, in French, country, say the Italians. One good turn de­ A chaque fou son marotte—to every fool serves another, is our way of recommending his bauble. Then, Put the cart before the gratitude; Amore con amor si paga—^love horse, is (very descriptively, and with is paid by love, is the pretty equivalent of a sharp reminiscence of Rosa Bonheur) Italy. Chi ha arte, ha parte—he who has Mettre la charrue devant les boeufs—put skUl has estate, is said by the Italians, and the plough before the oxen. Let well it is doubtful whether there is any close alone, is developed figuratively (and per­ English counterpart; and they say also haps so figuratively some may dispute the (with significance that puzzles us until we application) into N'eveillez pas le chat qui consider it closely), Ognuno ha buona dort—don't wake the sleeping cat. Birds moglie e cattiv' arte—every one has a of a feather flock together, is widened out good wife but a poor business, to which into Qui se ressemble, s'assemble. Teach again there does not seem to be an English your grandmother to suck eggs, becomes, parallel. But so many touches of nature C'est Gros Jean qui en remontre a son have proved us all akm so often, that one cure — it is Hodge (let us say) instil­ or two Httle absences of this kind cannot ling theology into his rector; and it is sever us; and, indeed, we have but to go veiy effective with such a reading. Pos­ further on and farther features strike us session is nine points of the law, is turned instantly with all the old resemblance. into, or has been turned by us, from We find an equivalent, for instance, for our La raison du plus fort est toujours la Born with a silver spoon in his mouth. meilleure—the judgment of the strongest The ItaHans call it Nascer vestito—to be is always the best. Civility costs no­ born clothed. We find, too, that instead thing, becomes, more bitingly, Bien parler of trying to pacify a person with fair words, n'ecorche la langue—to speak well does they give one another a hint to Pascer di not flay the tongue. No song, no supper, vento—feed him with wind ; and, instead or, as it was with us formerly under papal of declaring such an one to be very two- authority, No penny, no paternoster, wears faced, they say, E piu doppio d'una cipoUa the form with martial allusion enough, —he is more double than an onion. Then Point d'argent, point de Suisse—no monfey, a scowl is described by Italian malcontents no Swiss-guard. Fore-warned, fore-armed, as Un viso di matrigna—a mother-in-law's is, again keeping to the military, Un averti en vaut deux—one cautioned man look (poor mothers-in-law enjoying their is worth two. A whet is no let (that is, accustomed unpopularity under the sha­ hindrance), is, Ou ne perd point de temps dows of the Appenines); and for having a quand on aiguise ses outils—one loses no man under their thumb, they say they have time when sharpening tools; and though their hands in his hair (whence there must the French gives significance to the English be small chance of escape, indeed !) ; and that at first would not be perceived, the for being tete-a-tete with anybody they put peculiar power of our language to express it that they are bocca a bocca—mouth to much by Httle is in this well exemplified. mouth; whilst for throwing an insult in a The English, You can't make a sUk purse person's face, they convey the same idea from a sow's ear, is in French, On ne saurait by declaring that they fling it at his mous­ faire d'une buse un epervier—^you cannot tache. make a sparrow hawk from a buzzard. Of course it is not only from Italy Cut your coat according to your cloth, is that these picturesque suggestions can be altered into Selon ta bourse, gouverne ta drawn. They come from everywhere; bouche—according to thy purse, govern for Tanti paesi, tante usanze—so many thy mouth; and a hint at fitting modesty is countries, so many customs, the people we very well given by it. A man who does have quoted truly and comprehensively not do this, but is improvident, is said. say; but we are mindful of our readers' Manger son ble en herbe—to eat his wheat goodwill and patience, and we wiU not wliile growing; and one who opens his trench upon them any more. We are mouth too widely another way, who is, in loth, however, to omit a short adden­ short, what we call a braggart, is laughed dum from French proverbial lore. In that at for making Une longue Htanie de ses country, there are some sayings so pithy exploits. Another mode of exaggeration— and so pretty, and so illustrative of those the mountain and mole-hiU metamorphosis that have been familiar in our British —is Faire d'une mouche un elephant—^to mouths for centuries, it would be a pity to I"

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4S0 [Octobers, 1870.] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Oondncted by make a fly into an elephant; and whether put sugar into it, means to take off the from novelty or simpHcity, it seems to hit sharp edge of what we say. the target with a much neater arrow. A This is nothing like a complete catalogue cursed cur must be tied short, we do not of these strange likenesses. It is scarcely hear now, though it is close kin to Grive a a beginning. But we must not overtax dog a bad name and you may as well hang the reader's patience, and for the present him; Mechant chien, court Hen, does the at least, these examples are all that con­ whole thing in a twinkUng across the siderations of space permit us to present. Channel. Daub yourself with honey, you'll never want fHes, obsolete also with us, remains stUl, Qui se fait brebis le loup le THE VISION" OF TOM CHUFF. mange, and is prettily varied in the French fable, where the bee scolds Chloe for having AT the edge of melancholy Catstean lips so like a rose, he stung her because he Moor, in the north of England, with half a couldn't help it. A stitch in time saves dozen ancient poplar-trees with rugged nine, is rendered, Un point sauve cent; and hoary stems around, one smashed and perhaps this immense proverbial per­ across the middle by a flash of lightning centage has had its proper effect on French thirty summers before, and all by their women, and accounts for their charming great height dwarfing the abode near wliich toilettes and nattiness. To sow one's wild they stand, there squats a rude stone house, oats, is, oddly and inexplicably enough, with a thick chimney, a kitchen and bed­ Roter le balai—to roast the broom. Any­ room on the ground-floor, and a loft, ac­ thing for a shift, becomes Faire de tout cessible by a ladder, under the shingle roof, bois fleche—Make an arrow of any wood, divided into two rooms. an iUustration as old as the battles of Its owner was a man of ill repute. Toni Agincourt and Crecy certainly, if not Chuff" was his name. A shock-headed, still older. Lightly come Hghtly go, has broad-shouldered, powerful man, though in France a pretty martial wording, that somewhat short, with lowering brows and calls up a whole scene, Ce qui vient par a sullen eye. He was a poacher, and hardly la flute s'en retourne par le tambour. He made an ostensible pretence of earning his has gone to his long home is, in French, S'en bread by any honest industry. He was a aller au pays des taupes, the mole country drunkard. He beat his wife, and led his being oblique for " in the earth," or " under children a life of terror and lamentation, the sod." They cannot set their horses' when he was at home. It was a blessing to heads together, is, musically again, lis ne his frightened little family when he ab­ sauraient accorder leurs flutes. There is sented himself, as he sometimes did, for a more in that than meets the eye, is, II y a week or more together. quelque anguille sous roche. For setting On the night I speak of he knocked at our arms a-kimbo, our neighbours say they the door with his cudgel at about eight make themselves into pots with two handles. o'clock. It was winter, and the night was For, I am ruined, I am undone, they say I very dark. Had the summons been that am hit in the wing; such a calamity to the of a bogie from the moor, the inmates of Cock of Gaul being, of course, irreme­ this small house could hardly have heard it diable. For the "ducking" given to a with greater terror. new voyager in crossing the line, they say. His wife unbarred the door in fear and Give such an one bapteme. For a gar­ haste. Her hunchbacked sister stood by ment fitting badly in wrinkles, they say. the hearth, staring toward the threshold. This coat makes grimaces, and they surely The children cowered behind. hit the fact so hard there, it wUl be harder Tom Chuff" entered with his cudgel in still not to think of it when, henceforth, the his hand, without speaking, and threw him­ ugliness is brought to our notice. For the old self into a chair opposite the fire. He had maid's piece, as we sometimes call it now, been away two or three days. He looked or, Manners in the dish, as it was formerly, haggard, and his eyes were bloodshot. they say, Le morceau honteux. They call They knew he had been drinking. spare time, Heures perdues; a donkey is, Tom raked and knocked the peat fire with them, not a Jerusalem pony, but an with his stick, and thrust his feet close to Arcadian nightingale; to stand trifling, it. He signed toward the Httle dresser, they say is (triflingly enough !) to amuse and nodded at his wife, and she knew he oneself with the mustard ; and they bring wanted a cup, which in sUence she gave mustard again into requisition, when, to , him. He pulled a bottle of gin from his •TV Charles Dickens, Jun.] THE VISION OF fOM CHUFF. [October 8,187a] 451

coat-pocket, and nearly filling the teacup, duty as laundress, to come down and look drank off" the dram at a few gulps. at her husband, who seemed to be dying. He usually refreshed himself with two The doctor, who was a good-natured fel­ or three drams of this kind before beating low, arrived. With his hat still on, he looked the inmates of his house. His three little at Tom, examined him, and when he found children, cowering in a comer, eyed him that the emetic he had brought with him, from under a table, as Jack did the ogre in on conjecture from Mary's description, did the nursery tale. His wife, Nell, standing not act, and that his lancet brought no behind a chair, which she was ready to blood, and that he felt a pulseless wrist, snatch up to meet the blow of the cudgel, he shook his head, and inwardly thought: which might be levelled at her at any " What the plague is the woman crying moment, never took her eyes off" him ; and for ? Could she have desired a greater hunchbacked Mary showed the whites of a blessing for her children and herself than large pair of eyes, similarly employed, as the very thing that has happened ?" she stood against the oaken press, her dark Tom, in fact, seemed quite gone. At his face hardly distinguishable in the distance Hps no breath was perceptible. The doctor from the brown panel behind it. could discover no pulse. His hands and Tom Chuff was at his third dram, and had feet were cold, and the chill was steaHng not yet spoken a word since his entrance, up into his body. and the suspense was growing dreadful, The doctor, after a stay of twenty minutes, when, on a sudden, he leaned back in his had buttoned up his great-coat again and rude seat, the cudgel slipped from his hand, pulled down his hat, and told Mrs. Chuff a change and a death-Hke paUor came over that there was no use in his remaining his face. there any longer, when, all of a sudden, a For a while they all stared on ; such was little rill of blood began to trickle from the their fear of him, they dared not speak or lancet-cut in Tom Chuff's temple. move, lest it should prove to have been but " That's very odd," said the doctor. a doze, and Tom should wake up and pro­ " Let us wait a little." ceed forthwith to gratify his temper and exercise his cudgel. I must describe now the sensations which In a very little time, however, things Tom Chuff had experienced. began to look so odd, that they ventured, With his elbows on his knees, and his his wife and Mary, to exchange glances chin upon his hands, he was staring into full of doubt and wonder. He hung so the embers, with his gin beside him, when much over the side of the chair, that if suddenly a swimming came in his head, he it had not been one of cyclopean clumsi­ lost sight of the fire, and a sound Hke one ness and weight, he would have borne it stroke of a loud church bell smote his to the floor. A leaden tint was darkening brain. the pallor of his face. They were becoming Then he heard a confused humming, and alarmed, and finaUy braving everything, the leaden weight of his head held him his wife timidly said, "Tom!" and then backward as he sank in his chair, and con­ more sharply repeated it, and finally cried sciousness quite forsook him. the appeUative loudly, and again and again, When he came to himself he felt chilled, with the terrified accompaniment, "He's and was leaning against a huge leafless tree. dying—he's dying !" her voice rising to a The night was moonless, and when-he scream, as she found that neither it nor her looked up he thought he had never seen plucks and shakings of him. by the shoulder stars so large and bright, or sky so black. had the sHghtest effect in recalling him The stars, too, seemed to blink down with from his torpor. longer intervals of darkness, and fiercer And now from sheer terror of a new kind and more dazzling emergence, and some­ the children added their shrilly piping to thing, he vaguely thought, of the character the talk and cries of their seniors; and if of silent menace and fury. anything could have called Tom up from He had a confased recoUection of having his lethargy, it might have been the piercing come there, or rather of having been carried chorus that made the rude chamber of the along, as if on men's shoulders, with a sort poacher's habitation ring again. But Tom of rushing motion. But it was utterly in­ continued unmoved, deaf, and stirless. distinct; the imperfect recollection simply His wife sent Mary down to the viUage, of a sensation. He had seen or heard hardly a quarter of a mile away, to implore nothing on his way. of the doctor, for whose family she did He looked round. There was not a sign

1 iH||H|r ...-.-.-. 452 [October 8, 1870.] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Conducted by of a Hving creature near. And he began initial letters of his own name, cut in its bark with a sense of awe to recognise the place. long ago, had spread and wrinkled Hke the The tree against which he had been lean­ grotesque capitals of a fanciful engraver ing was one of the noble old beeches that and now with a sinister significance over­ suiTOund at irregular intervals the church­ looked the open grave, as if answering his yard of Shackleton, which spreads its green mental question, " Who for is t' grave and wavy lap on the edge of the Moor of cut ?" Catstean, at the opposite side of which He felt still a little stunned, and there stands the rude cottage in which he had was a faint tremor in his joints that dis­ just lost his consciousness. It was six inclined him to exert himself; and, further, miles or more across the moor to his habi­ he had a vague apprehension that take what tation, and the black expanse lay before direction he might, there was danger aroimd him, disappearing dismally in the darkness. him worse than that of staying where he So that, looking straight before him, sky was. and land blended together in an undistin- On a sudden the stars began to bUnk guishable and awful blank. more fiercely, a faint wild Hght overspread There was a silence quite unnatural over for a minute the bleak landscape, and he the place. The distant murmur of the saw approaching from the moor a figure brook, which he knew so well, was dead; at a kind of swinging trot, with now and not a whisper in the leaves above him; the then a zigzag hop or two, such as men air, earth, everything about and above was accustomed to cross such places make, to ' indescribably stiU; and he experienced that avoid the patches of slob or quag that meet quaking of the heart that seems to portend them here and there. This figure re­ the approach of something awful. He sembled his father's, and, Hke him, whistled would have set out upon his return across through his finger by way of signal as he the moor, had he not an undefined pre­ approached; but the whistle sounded not sentiment that he was waylaid by some­ now shrilly and sharp, as in old times, thing he dared not pass. but immensely far away, and seemed to sing The old grey church and tower of Shackle- strangely through Tom's head. From habit ton stood like a shadow in the rear. His or from fear, in answer to the signal, Tom eye had grown accustomed to the obscurity, whistled as he used to do five-and-twenty and he could just trace its outline. There years ago and more, although he was were no comforting associations in his mind already chilled with an unearthly fear. connected with it; nothing but menace and Like his father, too, the figure held up misgiving. His early training in his law­ the bag that was in his left hand as he less calling was connected with this very drew near, when it was his custom to caU spot. Here his father used to meet two out to him what was in it. It did not re­ other poachers, and bring his son, then but assure the watcher, you may be certain, a boy, with him. when a shout unnaturally faint reached Under the church porch, towards morn­ him, as the phantom dangled the bag in ing, they used to divide the game they had the ail', and he heard with a faint distinct­ taken, and take account of the sales they ness the words, " Tom Chuff's soul!" had made on the previous day, and make Scarcely fifty yards away from the low partition of the money, and drink their gin. churchyard fence at which Tom was stand­ It was here he had taken his early lessons ing, there was a wider chasm in the peat, in drinking, cursing, and lawlessness. His which there threw up a growth of reeds father's grave was hardly eight steps from and bulrushes, among which, as the old the spot where he stood. In his pre­ poacher used to do on a sudden alarm, the sent state of awful dejection, no scene on approaching figure suddenly cast itself earth could have so helped to heighten his down. fear. From the same patch of tall reeds and There was one object close by which rushes emerged instantaneously what he added to his gloom. About a yard away, at first mistook for the same figure creeping in rear of the tree, behind himself, and on aU-fours, but what he soon perceived to extending to his left, was an open grave, be an enormous black dog with a rough the mould and rubbish piled on the other coat like a bear's, which at first sniff"ed side. At the head of this grave stood the about, and then started towards him iu beech-tree; its columnar stem rose like a; what seemed to be a sportive amble, huge monumental pillar. He knew every bouncing this way and that, but as it drew line and crease on its smooth surface. The near it displayed a pair of fearful eyes that «= CharleB Dickons, Jun.] THE VISION OP TOM CHUFF. [October 8,1870.] 453 glowed like Hve coals, and emitted from "What shaU I do?" said Tom, in an the monstrous expanse of its jaws a ter­ agony. rifying growl. "It's aU one." This beast seemed on the point of seizing "But what shaU I do ?" reiterated Tom, him, and Tom recoiled in panic and fell quivering in every joint and nerve. into the open grave behind him. The edge " Grin and bear it, I suppose." which he caught as he tumbled gave way, " For God's sake, if ever you cared for and down he went, expecting almost at the me, as I am your own child, let me out of same instant to reach the bottom. But this!" never was such a faU! Bottomless seemed " There's no way out." the abyss ! Down, down, down, with im­ " If there's a way in there's a way out, measurable and stUl increasing speed, and for Heaven's sake let me out of this." through utter darkness, with hair stream­ But the dreadful figure made no farther ing straight upward, breathless, he shot answer, and gHded backwards by his with a rush of air against him, the force shoulder to the rear; and others appeared of which whirled up his very arms, second in view, each with a faint red halo round after second, minute after minute, through it, staring on him with frightful eyes, the chasm downward he flew, the icy per­ images, all in hideous variety, of eternal spiration of horror covering his body, and fury or derision. He was growing mad, it suddenly, as he expected to be dashed into seemed, under the stare of so many eyes, annihilation, his descent was in an instant increasing in number and drawing closer arrested with a tremendous shock, which, every moment, and at the same time my­ however, did not deprive him of conscious­ riads and myriads of voices were calHng ness even for a moment. him by his name, some far away, some near, He looked about him. The place re­ some from one point, some from another, sembled a smoke-stained cavern or cata­ some from behind, close to his ears. These comb, the roof of which, except for. a cries were increased in rapidity and multi­ ribbed arch here and there faintly visible, tude, and mingled with laughter, with was lost in darkness. From several rude flitting blasphemies, with broken insults passages, like the gaUeries of a gigantic and mockeries, succeeded and obliterated mine, which opened from this centre by others, before he could half catch their chamber, was very dimly emitted a dull meaning. glow as of charcoal, which was the only AU this time, in proportion to the light by which he could imperfectly dis­ rapidity and urgency of these dreadful cern the objects immediately about him. sights and sounds, the epilepsy of terror What seemed like a projecting piece of was creeping up to his brain, and with a the rock, at the comer of one of these long and (freadful scream he lost con­ murky entrances, moved on a sudden, and sciousness: proved to be a human figure, that beckoned When he recovered his senses, he found to him. He approached, and saw his himself in a small stone chamber, vaulted father. He could barely recognise him, he above, and with a ponderous door. A was so monstrously altered. single point of light in the wall, with a " I've been looking for you, Tom. Wel­ strange brUliancy iUuminated this ceU. come home, lad; come along to your Seated opposite to him was a venerable place." man with a snowy beard of immense Tom's heart sank as he heard these length; an image of awful purity and words, which were spoken in a hoUow and, severity. He was dressed in a coarse robe, he thought, derisive voice that made him with three large keys suspended from his tremble. But he could not help accom­ girdle. He might have filled one's idea of panying the wicked spirit, who led him an ancient porter of a city gate; such into a place, in passing which he heard, as spiritual cities, I should say, as John it were from within the rock, dreadful Bunyan loved to describe. cries and appeals for mercy. This old man's eyes were brilHant and "What is this?" said he. awful, and fixed on him as they were, Tom "Nevermind." Chuff" felt himself helplessly in his power. "Who are they?" At length he spoke: "New-comers, like yourself, lad," an­ " The command is given to let you forth swered his father, apathetically. "They for one trial more. But if you are found give over that work in time, finding it is again drinking with the drunken, and no use. beating your fellow-servants, you shall r= y V 454 [October 8,1870.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Oondncted by return through the door by which you but bein', as I say, vicar o' Shackleton '" came, and go out no more." and able to do as ye list, ye'll no let them With these words the old man took him bury me within twenty good yerd-wands by the wrist and led him through the first measure o' the a'd beech trees that's round door, and then unlocking one that stood in the churchyard of Shackleton." the cavern outside, he struck Tom Chuff " I see; you would have your grave, sharply on the shoulder, and the door shut when your time really comes, a good way behind him with a sound that boomed peal from the place where lay the grave you after peal of thunder near and far away, dreamed of." • ' and all roand and above, till it rolled off " That's jest it. I'd lie at the bottom o' gradually into silence. It was totally dark, a marl-pit liefer! And I'd be laid ia but there was a fanning of fresh cool air anither churchyard just to be shut o' my i that overpowered him. He felt that he fear o' that, but that a' my kinsfolk is was in the upper world again. buried beyond in Shackleton, and ye'U gie In a few minutes he began to hear voices me yer promise, and no break yer word." which he knew, and first a faint point of " I do promise, certainly. I'm not likely light appeared before his eyes, and gradu­ to outHve you; but if I should, and still be ally he saw the flame of the candle, and, vicar of Shackleton, you shall be buried after that, the familiar faces of his wife somewhere as near the middle of the and children, and he heard them faintly churchyard as we can find space." when they spoke to him, although he was " That'U do." as yet unable to answer. And so content, they parted. He also saw the doctor, like an isolated The effect of the vision upon Tom Chuff :i figure in the dark, and heard him say : was powerful, and promised to be lasting. " There now, you have him back. He'll With a sore effort he exchanged his life of i do, I think." desultory adventure and comparative idle­ His first words, when he could speak and ness for one of regular industry. He gave saw clearly all about him, and felt the up drinking; he was as kind as an origi­ blood on his neck and shirt, were: nally surly nature would allow to his wife " Wife, forgie me. I'm a changed man. and family; he went to church; in fine Send for t' sir." weather they crossed the moor to Shackle­ Which last phrase means, " Send for the ton Church ; the vicar said he came there clergyman." to look at the scenery of his vision, and to ! When the vicar came and entered the fortify his good resolutions by the re­ little bedroom where the scared poacher, minder. whose soul had died within him, was lying, Impressions upon the imagination, how­ still sick and weak, in his bed, and with a ever, are but transitory, and a bad man spirit that was prostrate with terror, Tom acting under fear is not a free agent; his Chuff feebly beckoned the rest from the real character does not appear. But as room, and, the door being closed, the good the images of the imagination fade, and parson heard the strange confession, and the action of fear abates, the essential with equal amazement the man's earnest qualities of the man reassert themselves. and agitated vows of amendment, and his So, after a time, Tom Chuff began to helpless appeals to him for support and grow weary of his new life; he grew lazy, counsel. and people began to say that he was catch­ These, of course, were kindly met; and ing hares, and pursuing his old contraband the visits of the rector, for some time, were way of life, under the rose. frequent. He came home one hard night, with One day, when he took Tom Chuff's signs of the bottle in his thick speech and hand on bidding him good-bye, the sick violent temper. Next day he was sorry, or man held it still, and said: frightened, at all events repentant, and for " Ye'r vicar o' Shackleton, sir, and if I a week or more something of the old horror sud dee, ye'll promise me a'e thing, as I a returned, and he was once more on his promised ye a many. I a said I'll never good behaviour. But in a little time camfe gie wife, nor barn, nor folk o' no sort, a relapse, and another repentance, and then skelp nor sizzup more, and ye'll know o' a relapse again, and gradually the return me no more among the sipers. Nor never of old habits and the flooding in _ of all will Tom draw trigger, nor set a snare his old way of life, with more violence again, but in an honest way, and after that and gloom, in proportion as the man ye'll no make it a bootless bene for me. was alarmed and exasperated by the re- Charles Dickens, Jun.] THE VISION OF TOM CHUFF. [October 8,1870.] 455 membrance of his despised, but terrible, would probably be home next day. -But warning. Everton affected not to believe it. Perhaps With the old life returned the misery of it was to Tom Chuff, he suggested, a secret the cottage. The smiles, which had begun satisfaction to crown the history of his bad to appear with the unwonted sunshine, married life with the scandal of his absence were seen no more. Instead, returned to from the funeral of his neglected and his poor wife's face the old pale and heart­ abused wife. broken look. The cottage lost its neat and Everton had taken on himself the direc­ cheerful air, and the melancholy of neglect tion of the melancholy preparations. He was visible. Sometimes at night were over­ had ordered a grave to be opened for his heard, by a chance passer-by, cries and sobs sister beside her mother's, in Shackleton from that ill-omened dwellmg. Tom Chuff churchyard, at the other side of the moor. Avas now often drunk, and not very often For the purpose, as I have said, of mark­ at home, except when he came in to sweep ing the callous neglect of her husband, he away his poor wife's earnings. determined that the funeral should take Tom had long lost sight of the honest place that night. His brother Dick had old parson. There was shame mixed with accompanied him, and they and his sister, his degradation. He had grace enough with Mary and the chUdren, and a couple of left when he saw the thin figure of " t' sir" the neighbours, formed the humble cortege. walking along the road to turn out of his Jack Everton said he would wait be­ way and avoid meeting him. The clergy­ hind, on the chande of Tom Chuff's coming man shook his head, and sometimes in time, that he might tell him what had groaned, when his name was mentioned. happened, and make him cross the moor His horror and regret were more for the with him to meet the funeral. His real poor wife than for the relapsed sinner, for object, I think, was to inflict upon the vil­ her case was pitiable indeed. lain the drubbing he had so long wished to Her brother. Jack Everton, came over give him. Any how, he was resolved, by from Hexley, having heard stories of all crossing the moor, to reach the churchyard this, determined to beat Tom, for his ill- in time to anticipate the arrival of the treatment of his sister, within an inch of funeral, and to have a few words with the his life. Luckily, perhaps, for all con­ vicar, clerk, and sexton, all old friends ot cerned, Tom happened to be away upon his, for the parish of Shackleton was the one of his long excursions, and poor Nell place of his birth and early recollections. besought her brother, in extremity of terror, But Tom Chuff did not appear at his not to interpose between them. So he took house that night. In surly mood, and with­ his leave and went home muttering and out a shilHng in his pocket, he was making sulky. his. way homeward. His bottle of gin, his Now it happened a few months later that last investment, half emptied, was, with its Nelly Chuff" fell sick. She had been ailing, neck protruding, as usual on such returns, as heart-broken people do, for a good while. in his coat-pocket. But now the end had come. His way home lay across the moor of There was a coroner's inquest when she Catstean, and the point at which he best died, for the doctor had doubts as to whe­ knew the passage was from the churchyard ther a blow had not, at least, hastened her of Shackleton. He vaulted the low wall death. Nothing certain, however, came of that forms its boundary, and strode across the inquiry. Tom Chuff had left his home the graves, and over many a flat, half- more than two days before his wife's death. buried tombstone, toward the side of the He was absent upon his lawless business churchyard next Catstean Moor. still when the coroner had held his quest. The old church of Shackleton and its Jack Everton came over from Hexley to tower rose, close at his right, like a black attend the dismal obsequies of his sister. shadow against the sky. It was a moon­ He was more incensed than ever with the less night, but clear. By this time he had wicked husband who, one way or other, reached .the low boundary wall, at the had hastened Nelly's death. The inquest other side, that overlooks the wide expanse had closed early in the day. The husband of Catstean Moor. He stood by one of the had not appeared. huge old beech trees, and leaned his back An occasional companion—perhaps I to its smooth trunk. Had he ever seen ought to say accomplice—of Chuff's hap­ the sky look so black, and the stars shine pened to turn up. He had left him on the out and blink so vividly? There was a borders of Westmoreland, and said he deathlike sUence over the scene, like the

V X i^^

456 ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [October 8,1870.) hush that precedes thunder in sultry An hour after, when lights came with weather. The expanse before him was lost the coffin, the corpse of Tom Chufi" was in utter blackness. A strange quaking found at the bottom of the grave. He had unnerved his heart. It was the sky and fallen direct upon his head, and his neck scenery of his vision! The same horror was broken. His death must have been and misgiving ! The same invincible fear simultaneous with his fall. Thus far his of venturing from the spot where he stood. dream was accomplished. He would have prayed if he dared. His It was his brother-in-law who had crossed sinking heart demanded a restorative of the moor and approached the churchyard of some sort, and he grasped the bottle in his Shackleton, exactly in the line which the coat-pocket. Turning to his left, as he image of his father had seemed to take in did so, he saw the piled-up mould of an his strange vision. Fortunately for Jack open grave, that gaped with its head close Everton, the sexton and clerk of Shackleton to the base of the great tree against which church were unseen by him crossing the he was leaning. churchyard toward the grave of Nelly He stood aghast. His dream was re­ Chuff", just as Tom the poacher stumbled turning and slowly enveloping him. Every­ and fell. Suspicion of direct violence would thing he saw was weaving itself into the otherwise have inevitably attached to the texture of his vision. The chill of horror exasperated brother. As it was, the catas­ stole over him. trophe was foUowed by no legal conse­ A faint whistle came shrill and clear over quences. the moor, and he saw a figure approaching The good vicar kept his word, and the at a swinging trot, with a zigzag course, grave of Tom Chuif is stUl pointed out by hopping now here and now there, as men old inhabitants of Shackleton pretty nearly do over a surface where one has need to in the centre of the churchyard. This con­ choose their steps. Through the jungle of scientious compliance with the entreaty of reeds and bulrushes in the foreground this the panic-stricken man as to the place of figure advanced; and with the same unac­ his sepulture gave a horrible and mocking countable impulse that had coerced him in emphasis to the strange combination by his dream, he answered the whistle of the which fate had defeated his precaution, and advancing figui'e. fixed the place of his death. On that signal it directed its course The story was for many a year, and we straight toward him. It mounted the low believe still is, told round many a cottage wall, and, standing there, looked into the hearth, and though it appeals to what many graveyard. would term superstition, it yet sounded, in " Who med answer ?" challenged the the ears of a rude and simple audience, a new comer from his post of observation. thrilHng, and, let us hope, not altogether "Me," answered Tom. fruitless homily. " Who are you ?" repeated the man upon the wall. MR. DICKENS'S NEW WORK. "Tom Chuff"; and who's this grave cut for ?" He answered in a savage tone, to NOW EEADY. cover the secret shudder of his panic. In 1 vol. Demy 8vo., Price 78. 6d., -witli IticsTEATiOKS " I'll tell you that, ye villain !" answered AND A POETEAIT, the SIX PAETS of the stranger, descending from the wall. THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. " I a' looked for you far and near, and London : CHAPMAIT AND HALL, 193, Piccadilly. waited long, and now you're found at last." Just published, price os. 6d., bound in green cloth, Not knowing what to make of the figure THE THIRD VOLUME that advanced upon him, Tom Chuff rc- coUed, stumbled, and fell backward into the OF THE NEW SERIES OV open grave. He caught at the sides as he ALL THE YEAR ROUND. fell, but without retarding his fall. To be had of all BookBellers.

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I'ublisliert at me Oflice, -'0, Weliiugtoa St Strand. Priutad by C. WBITIXO, iieaufort House, Duke St., Liuoolu's Inu Fieids.