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"THE STORY OF OUR LIVES FROM YEAR TO YEAR."—SHAKESPEAKE. ALL THE YEAR ROUND. A WEEKLY JOUENAL. CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

N*'- 265.] SATURDAY, MAY 21, 1864. [PKICE 2 C?.

of lives, and that the only city worth living in is QUITE ALONE. Paris. Lily Floris lived in Paris for seven years. Until she was fifteen years of age, she never BOOK THE FIKST: CHILDHOOD, passed that gloomy porte cochere in the outer CHAPTEB SXVI. THE ONLY CITY OE THE AFOELD wall of the Pension Marcassin. It was her peni­ Af ORTH LIVING IN. tentiary, her prison-house; and a terrible one it PARIS, dear, delightful, inimitable, unrivalled was. Paris, city of delights, city of art, and taste, and There was a vast playground; and in it, when luxury; of fashion, and elegance, and Avit. Paris, she was not under punishment, she was privileged unapproached among earth's most delicious to walk. Beyond its precincts she never stirred. haunts. Paris, queen of the Avoiid, Paris, the She never went home for the holidays. The only city of the Avorld worth living in. vacations at the Pension Marcassin were three Certainly. This is the refrain to a very old days from the Jour de TAn, the first of January, song. You and I, and everybody else, have been to the fourth—a week at Easter—a month from smging it, alAvays heartily, and Avith a kind of the first of August to the second of September. sincerity, never ad nauseam, ever since per rail­ These holidays came and went for seven years, way or per dihgence ^e first set foot in Lutetia but she remained immured. She had seven years' The Beloved. There is no need to renew in mature penal servitude. When the girls were away, age the vaccination Ave have had in our youth. long tasks were set her, and these she learnt and The Paris virus, once imbibed, is not to be eradi­ wrote, and repeated or submitted to Mademoiselle cated. Marcassin, or, in her absence, to the governess i Of course Paris is enchanting. Everybody left in char.ge. It was a dreary probation, and knows it; everybody says it. One may toil and she was Quite Alone. grow rich and die in London; one may drag on Lonelier when, at the end of the second year an existence at Vienna, vegetate at Brussels, of her captivity, Polly Marygold took her depar­ prowl through the year at Plorence, be bored at ture. The girl could not refrain from sundry Rome, hipped at Venice, terrified at St. Peters­ ebullitions of joy at her deliverance from a school burg, stupified at Berlin, excited at New York, of which she was weary, and from a school­ soothed at Boston, deluded at Dublin, intoxicated mistress whom she hated, but she was neverthe­ at Edinburgh, astonished at Seville, amused at less unfeignedly sorry to leave Lily. Milan, occupied at Amsterdam, fatigued at " It's like deserting you in a desert island, my Naples, absorbed at Manchester, salted at darling," she cried, as she kissed her and kissed Liverpool, cured at Brighton, and killed at New her again, on the weU-remembered morning of her Orleans; but if one wants to live, to see life, to going away; "or, rather, it's hke leaving you in enjoy life, to make the most of life, there is a savage country full of cannibals. Eor cannibals clearly no place in the world for man or woman they are here, and nothing else." but Paris. " But you will write to me, Polly ? You will, This is an assertion scarcely worth arguing won't you, my dear?" poor Lily replied, twining upon. Opinions are unanimous. Of course there herself round the neck of the only friend but are no bonnets in the world worth the Paris one she had ever had in the world. " Oh! say bonnets. The Boulevards are unequalled among that you will write to me, that you Avill come and streets. Nobody knows how to cook, out of the see me, or I shall break my heart. I am so very Palais Royal. No pictures worth looking at are very lonely.'* tobe seen out of the Louvre, except, indeed, those " I know you are, my pet. I wish to goodness attheLuxembourg, Whypursue a theme so trite? you were coming with me. Who knows! While T, a single Englishman, am dully sound­ Perhaps they'll turn you out as a governess ing the praises of Paris, fifty thousand Germans, some of these days. Although," she continued, Itahans, Swedes, Russians, Poles, Czechs, Moldo- with a profoundly sagacious look, "my OAvn Wallachs, Montenegrins, Magyars, and Mussul­ opmion is, that you are heiress to immense mans, are crying out that Parisian life is the life estates and vast wealth, in England, and that

265 VOL. xr. y 3. 338 [May 21,1S64.] ALL THE ROUND. [Conductedby some Avicked wicked people are keeping you out looking yet so tender, were all present to her. of it. Thmk of their changing your name, too, And the more she thought of him, the more she the cruel wretches 1" wept; but why she wept, she could not tell. "But you will write, Polly, won't you; you Then would pass before her a terrible image. know you promised to ?" That night in the park. How soft and calm the "Yes, my darling," returned Miss Marygold, scene was. How happy and peaceful the deer with a touch of sadness in her voice; " I'U write, seemed. With what quiet cheerfulness the dis­ but goodness knows whether you will ever get tant lights, in the hospital wards, in the houses my letters. Madame will' sequestrate' them, or of the town, in the rigging of the ships, twinkled! I'm very much mistaken. As for coming to see But then the fierce and angry words of the you, the cross old thing will never let me darken strange lady came up in grim contrast, and her doors again, I'm certain. She has spent my marred all this tranquil loveliness. Lily remem­ premium, and got all she could out of dear pa, bered how she had gripped her arm, and looked and it's very little she cares about me now. I upon her with darkling, lowering eyes. And she wonder whether they paid a premium with you, wept no more ; but shuddered. or so much a year!" Now, all had changed. Great gulfs yawned And so, Polly Marygold took her merry face between,, the few and troubled episodes of her and her wavy black hair away, and the world young life. The last was the gloomiest, dreariest, became indeed a desert to Lily. Polly had ob­ strangest of all. She was in Paris, the city tained a situation as governess in the family of a which the strange lady had declared to be the Erench nobleman, in Brittany. It would be a only city in the world worth living in. rehef, she said, to find some children who This was Lily's Paris: were to be brought up as ladies, and not as To rise before it was light in winter-time. To governesses. be mewed up till breakfast in the dark school­ It has been said that Lily's very name had room, nine-tenths of whose area were icy chiH, been changed. Not much stress was laid upon and the tenth red-hot from the dead baking her retaining or bearing her christian name of lowering presence of the stove. To brood over Lily; only, as Lilies were numerous in the school, lessons, lessons, lessons, from half an hour after she was never so addressed in the class-room. eight until twelve, then to crowd into the re­ But her appellation of Eloris was rigorously con­ fectory for the second breakfast. Then (if haply demned, and she was informed that henceforward she were not under punishment) to wander into she was to be Mademoiselle Pauline. It did the playground till two. Then to fag at lessons, not much matter. Lily felt as though she lessons again, till five. Then, once more to flock had no longer a name at all. Once, going up into the refectory to dinner. Then after another into a great store-room where the girls' boxes hour's wandering in the playground, if it were were kept, she found that " Miss Eloris" had fine, or cowering in the schoolroom if it were been painted out from the well-remembered wet, to go through an hour's hideous torture trunk with which CutAvig and Co. had fitted her until bedtime—a torture which was called "the out; and she burst into bitter tears, less at the study hour"—a time when the girls were sup­ thought of the social extinction with which it was posed to be meditating over the tasks of the day sought to visit her, than at the recollection of which had just passed, and speculating oyer the two hours passed in the old City shop where those of the morrow which was to come—a time Mr. Ranns and 'Melia were so kind to.her, and when neither books, nor papers, nor slates were where Cutwig and Co. fitted out all the world. allowed; but when absolute and immovable Often, too, she thought of that tall gentleman silence was enjoined, and the movement of a who had kissed her on the forehead at Green­ hand, the shuffling of a foot, the turning of a wich, and talked to the strange lady in the head, was punished by bad marks—when a cough balcony. The minutest circumstance connected was penal, and a sneeze intolerable—when if a with the dinner dwelt steadfastly in her mind. girl, rendered desperate by this excruciating com­ She could see the splendid old gentleman with mand to be mute, would sometimes break silence his chains and rings, and his fringe of white coute que coute—ask some irrelevant question, whiskers ; the mihtary gentleman Avith his black make some incoherent remark—she would be sen­ stock, dyed moustachios, strapped-down trousers tenced to "hold her tongue" for a quarter of an and spurs; she could hear the laughter, and the hour—to hold it literally, taking the offending clinking of the glasses, and the wine gurgling; the member between her thumb and fore-finger, and warm odour of the viands came up gently again striving to retain her hold upon it with the most to titillate her sense of smell. She could see the ludicrously lamentable results of slipperiness— grey Thames water, the lagging barges, the ships Avhen, if another girl, as would often happen, slowly sailing across the field of view, the Essex dropped off to sleep, she would be doomed> shore in the distance, the ruddy simset behind stand on one leg for five minutes, and so, uj all. But the tall gentleman who had held her drowsiness that was not to be subdued, would between his knees, and filled her plate at dinner, doze off again, and stagger, and come at last '

Charles DickensJ ALL THE YEAR ROUND [May 21,1SC4.] 389

She was miserable, and she had cause to be She found, indeed, that those among whom her miserable. The governesses did not so much lot was cast would not, tbrough disdain and pre­ dishke as they contemned her. It was put judice, love her; but she was saved, through her about publicly by Mademoiselle Espremenil, as own iimate suavity of soul, from falling into the upon authority from the chief, Marcassin, that other and perilous extreme of loving herself. Pauline, or " la petite Anglaise," was poor, and Still, she found it necessary to have something all but friendless; that she was being "ele­ to love. There were no dogs or cats about the vated" almost through charity; and that the place to fix her affections upon. Rabbits, sphere in which she now moved was much squirrels, white mice, silkworms even—all the superior to that to which she had been ordinary domestic menagerie of children—were hitherto accustomed. Lily could not disprove prohibited in the Pension Marcassm. She was these mahgnant inuendoes. She could not but too old to make friends with spiders, Avith admit the probability of the schoolmistress the rapid lizards, with the beetles of sheeny knowing a great deal more about her than she armour. No sparrows ever came into the play­ knew about herself. So she let them have their ground. Small bnds are rare in Paris. So, in way, and suffered in silence. Her schoolmates default of something tangible to love she elected were not slow to take up the cue dropped by to build up a world of her own, and to people it then: instructresses. None of the big girls with creatures of her own imagination, and to petted her. There were no rich girls in the dwell among them, and love them very dearly. school. The elder pupils were mostly in train­ Her world was totally at war with Mercator's ing to be governesses, and toiled too hard to projection. It was a very puerile Utopia, the find time for petting any one. If wealth en­ most frivolous of Eormosas, a highly babyish New gender laziness, it is not unkindly to the culti­ Atlantis—a silly nonsensical world, if you like; vation of tender-heartedness. A rich old maid but she believed firmly in it, and her devotion to not over pious, is about the pleasantest and its inhabitants was unbounded. If she were most generous soul alive. 'Tis poverty, griping punished, somebody in the Ideal World came to gallhag grinding poverty, that makes spinsters comfort her, and to show her a clue to work her harsh and sour- way out of the labyrinth of a tangled task. If Children are often apt to be pitiless. They she were unhappy, she was invited to festivals and have not felt enough pain themselves to compas­ pic-nics in the Imaginary Land. There she sionate its endurance by others, and they are fre­ danced; there she sang; there she went to the quently eager to inflict agony, of the scope and play; there she romped and skipped; and there, purport whereof they are ignorant. Lily had scant I am afraid, she often went to the water-side to mercy shown her. At first her companions took dine on beautiful dishes of fish. But there was to pinching her, pulling her hair, treading on her no noisy company there; and the strange haughty feet, and administering chiquenaudes, or fiUips lady was not one of her company. Only she and with the thumb and finger, on her cheeks. She the tall gentleman sat at the table, and afterwards -bore with these for a time, but at last her temper went into the balcony to gaze upon the ships, and her English spirit got the better of her, and and the long line of the Essex shore, till the sun she bestowed so sounding a slap on the back of went down, and it was dark, and the lamps the biggest of her tormentors, that the rest began to glimmer. Silly Lily. retreated, hke a herd of frightened fawns, to a In this great school she was the only captive remote corner of the playground, crying out that thus rigorously confined. The other girls went "la petite Anglaise" was dangerous. Erench out on Wednesday and Sunday afternoons for children are proficient in the minute details of long walks. On their return they told her super­ bodily torture, but they do not understand bacu- ciliously about the Elysian Fields and the Wood hne arguments of the broader kind. Erench girls of Boulogne, about the Garden of Plants and the don't slap, Erench boys don't fight with one an­ Museum of the Louvre. At Easter they talked other, and Erench children are never beaten by of masked balls to which their brothers went, of then instructors. Jean Jacques Rousseau and debardeurs and Pierrots, of the mad revelry of the French Revolution definitively banished the carnival, of the fat ox promenading the stripes and blows from the educational curricu- Boulevards and Hercules leading him, while lum of Gaul. carriages full of gaily-attired maskers followed ^So being somewhat wary respecting overt acts the bedizened beast. These joys were not for of violence towards the "petite Anglaise," her Lily. She was to be kept under, and in. schoolmates shunned her. She was left alone Only one thing was wanting to complete her with her tasks, and her wretchedness, and herself. wretchedness, and that came at last. Madame But for a natural sweetness of mind and gentle­ seldom spoke to her alone. When she made her ness of natm^e with which the poor child had periodical tours of inspection through the class­ been gifted by Heaven, she might have grown rooms, Lily incurred an augmented share of re­ ^P sullen, morose, and selfish. There would have proof and bad marks at her hands; but she was been a hundred excuses for her learning to hate seldom summoned to the presence of the Mar­ ber species in general, and school-girls and gover­ cassin. It happened, however, one afternoon, in nesses in particular. But it was mercifully j the fifth year of residence, that she was com­ decreed otherwise, for Lily was made for love, I manded to repair to Madame's ca!)iiiet. :^ 340 [May 21,1864.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conductedby

The "cabinet" was a square comfortless apart­ wrench of her teeth an obstinate knot in the ment, not unlike a refrigerator in its chilly atmo­ string which confined it. "One, two, three •'li sphere and light wooden fittings. The Marcassin four, five, six—three years' memoirs—nearly three was the ice in the refrigerator, and froze all thousand francs for your pension and educa­ who approached her. In the "cabinet" she tion; and not one centime of those three thou­ m collated the register of the young ladies' studies sand francs have been paid. Do you hear and conducts, and made disparaging marginal me?" notes thereon. At her tall desk in the "ca­ Lily heard, and turned Avhite as her name. binet" she drew up the alarming "memoirs," "Three years, then," pursued the pitiless or half-yearly bills of the pupils. To the Marcassin, "you have been eating bread and "cabinet," offenders of more than ordinary tur­ drinking wine to which you have no right. Three pitude were doomed to repair, to undergo the years you have been living on my charity. Pale anguish of prolonged and solemn reprimand. impertinent, worthless, insubordinate" — poor Finally, to the cold grey and white papered wall Lily 1—" you have always been; and I have been of this cabinet was affixed au enormous framed often obliged to tell you so; but not tiU this and glazed pancarte of pasteboard, bearing, in moment have I informed you that you are a elaborate French engrossing, and Avith many pauper and a beggar. Who are the robbers aud. Ji flourishes, tn which the forms of swans, eagles, felons who have left you here to impose on my and griffins preponderated, the names of the credulity, and fatten on the fruit of my industry? pupils of the estabhshment who had distin­ Speak, little impostor." guished themselves from six months to six "Oh, madame, madame!" the girl urged, months by assiduity in study, or propriety of tearfully, " I'm not an impostor. It is not my conduct. This placard was called the "Tableau fault. Madame knows much more than I do of d'Honneur." It was renewed at the commence­ the persons who brought me here. I was such a ment of every fresh half-year; and a rumour ran little girl then. I have always done my best, through the Pension Marcassin that M. Lesti- and tried to learn, and to be good. Oh! don't boudois, the Avriting-master, received no less a reproach me with what I am innocent of; for I sum than one hundred francs for executing it in am quite, quite, alone." ornamental caligraphy. "Insolent!" retorted the Marcassin. "You Lily stood, her hands meekly folded, her head will reason, will you ? Ah 1 it is I who will decorously bent, her feet well set together— bring you to reason. Tell me instantly the "position de recueillementhumble et attentive," names of the swindlers Avho owe me three as it Avas set forth in the codex of disciplinary thousand francs." etiquette observed in the pension—before her in­ "Indeed I don't know, madame. How can I structress. She was mentally wondering of what tell ? From the day I was brought here, I have misdeed she could have rendered herself guilty never had a single letter, a single visitor, a single during the past week to merit a summons to the friend, except that dear Mademoiselle Marygold, refrigerating cabinet. who is gone." "Fille Floris, called Pauline," said the Mar­ " You dare to mention the name of that rebel­ cassin, sternly, and no longer deigning to give lious and ungrateful girl to me ?" interrupted the Lily a title of courtesy, "you and I must have schoolmistress, with a furious look. "AUons! some conversation together. The affairs have It is of a piece with your other impertinence." been going on too long in a deregulated manner. Lily could only sob and wring her hands in They must be regulated now, in a manner defini­ reply. tive. Do you hear me, Fille Floris ?" "The very clothes you have on your back She spoke in French now, and Lily understood have been paid for or renewed by me these two her Avell. The girl could speak the lively lan­ years past. You are a burden, a pest, an incum­ guage fluently—so fluently, that she sometimes brance to the school. It is by fraud that you found herself thinking or addressing the people have learnt the piano, the dance. You have of the Imaginary Empire in French, and as often robbed me of lessons in drawing and geography. discovered her tongue tripping and stumbling Why do I not give you up to the police for the when she essayed to sing some httle English escroquerie of your parents—if you have any rhyme of old times. parents—little miserable, who ought to have been The Marcassin slowly unlocked one of the put into the creche of the Enfants Trouves ? Why drawers in her tall bureau, and took forth two do I not send you to the Depot of Mendicity? packets of neatly folded papers. One packet Tell me, little beggar brat 1" was slun and sparse, the other dense and In a bodily as well as a mental rage at last, heavy. which was strange with this frigid woman, she " Do you see this, Fille Floris ?" she resumed, rose and seized Lily by the shoulders and shook in a cold and bitter tone, pomting to the slim her. The terrified giri fled into a comer of packet. ^ " One, two, three, four, half-years' me­ the room, too much alarmed to shriek, but moirs, bills for your pension and education, and trembling and holding her hands before her which have been duly paid by the persons who face. , placed you here. And now observe." She un- Mademoiselle Marcassin resumed her selt- aed the other packet, undoing with a vengeful possession. She was a coldly logical lady, ^'^^ Ciiaries Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND, [May 21, 1864.] 341 recognised the inexpediency of a personal con­ me out of my money you and I will have some flict with a pensionnaire whose only fault was future conversation on the matter. Now you that her friends had neglected to pay her half- may go." . yearly bills. Besides, she knew that the charges she brought against the girl of being "idle, impertinent, worthless, and insubordinate," were CAREFULLY MOVED IN TOWN AND groundless. There Avere few girls in the school COUNTRY. more studious than Lily, and there was not one better conducted. Ir any reader of this periodical should require She sat down at her bureau again, replaced the full and valuable information regarding the packets in the drawer, and locked it. "A truce houses in the various suburbs of London, their to these absurdities," she said. " No harm has size, rent, advantages and disadvantages, annual been done you. Let us have no more whimper­ amount of sewer's rate and land tax, soil, climate, ing, or we wiU see what effect the atmosphere of quahty of water, and other particulars, let him the wood-cellar—la cave au bois—and two days' address a letter, post-paid, to "Wanderer," bread-and-water will have upon you. Come for­ under cover to the Conductor, and he will Imve ward, and stand in front of this bureau, and his heart's desire, I am " Wanderer," if you hsten to me." please, and I am in a position to give the in­ Lily came forward as she was commanded. formation named; for, during the last ten years, I have led a nomadic and peripatetic existence: She hastily dried her eyes, and stood before the now becoming the tenant of a villa here, now Marcassin, pale, but composed. blossoming as the denizen of a mansion there, "People who eat bread must earn it," re­ sipping the sweets of the assessed taxes and tbe marked the schoolmistress. "Don't think I parochial rates, and then flying off with my am going to keep you—pour vos beaux yeux— furniture in several large vans to a distant for your own sweet sake. If you continue to neighbourhood. Want of money, possession of hve here, you must work. Are you ready to funds, hatred of town, detestation of the work ?" country, a cheerful misanthropy, and an un­ "Yes, madame, as hard as ever you wish pleasant gregariousness, all these have, one by me." one, acted upon me, and made me their slave. " We shall see. If I sent you away from here, Wbat I have learned by sad experience, I your destination would be the Prefecture de now purpose to teach: setting myself up as a Police. You have no domicile, no papers, no pillar of example and warning to my dissatisfied name even that offers reasonable proof of identity, fellow-creatures. and I question whether the consul of your nation Before I married, I lived in chambers in would be at the trouble of reclaiming you. The Piccadilly, kept my horse, belonged to the woman who brought you here—I wish I could Brummel Club, and was looked upon as rather a catch sight of her, la vaurienne !—spoke English, fine fellow; but when I married, my Uncle Snape 2 but she was French. She told me you had (from whom I obtained the supplies for my ex­ been born in France. Thus, all the police could penses and who was a confirmed woman-hater) do for you would be to send you to a house of at once stopped my allowance, and I had no­ correction—a penitentiary, understand me well thing but my professional earnings as an Old —where you would be confined till you were Bailey barrister, and a hundred a year, which I twenty-one years of age, where you would be had inherited. Under these circumstances I kept all day, either kneeling on the cold stones had intended going into lodgings; but my wife's • singing psalms, or working your fingers to the family (I don't know exactly what tbat means: bone with needlework, under the tutelage of the she has no mother, and her father never inter­ good grey sisters who have little machines and feres with her or her sisters: I think it must be her sisters who are the family, but Ave always leathern thongs to keep their correctionnaires in speak of "the family") were very genteel, and order." looked upon lodgings as low ; so it was generally Lily's heart sank within her. She had heard understood that I must take a house, and tbat appalhng stories of the severities practised in the "the family" would help to furnish it.^ I need Maisons de Correction—stories which, in justice not mention that there was a great discussion to the good nuns who conduct those establish­ as to where the house should be. The family ments, must be branded as apocryphal. Could lived in St. John's Wood, and wished us to they be worse stories than Lily might tell of the be near them; but the rents in that saintly Pension Marcassin ? neighbourhood were beyond my means, and, "You may remain here," continued the Mar­ after a great deal of searching and heart-aching cassin. "But on a different footing. You are worry, after inspecting a dozen " exact things," no longer a pensionnau-e, but a fille de classe. ''just wliat you wanted," and " such treasures!" You wdl do what you are told, and learn what found for me by friends, none of which Avould you are permitted, and wiU make yourself as use­ do, I at last took a house in Bass's-buildings, in ful as common gratitude for being fed, lodged, and the New-road. That great thoroughfare has clothed should render you. We wiU say nothing since been sub-divided, I think, but then it was the New-road stretching from Paddington to ofthe arrears for your board and education. If Islington, and our house was about a mile from I cannot discover the swindlers who have cozened y^ 34-2 [May 21, 1864.] ALL THE YEAR RUUiVD, [Conducted b^ the Paddhigton end. It was small, but so brass plate with "Middlemiss, Portrait Artist," r:S was the rent, sixty pounds a year, and it was on it, and by its side a little case containing quite large enough for my wife and nae and our miniatures of the officer, the student in cap and one servant. It had a little garden in front, gown, and the divine in white bands, with the between it and the road, with a straight line of top of the wooden pulpit growing out from flagstones leading direct from the gate to the under his arms, which are common to such door-steps, and bits of flower-beds (in which no­ professors. It was a thoroughly harmless little thing ever grew) intersected by little gravel art-studio, and apparently did very little busi­ paths about a foot wide. This garden was a ness, no one ever being seen to enter its portal. source of great delight to my humorous friends. But after a twelvemonth Mr. Middlemiss One of them could be seen carefully putting died, and we heard through the electric chain one foot before the other, in order that he of our common butcher, that his son, a might not step off the path, and, after wander­ youth of great spirit, was about to carry on ing in and out betAveen the little beds, would the business. The butcher Av^as right. The new feign excessive fatigue on his arrival at the proprietor was a youth of great spirit, no half house, declaring he had been " lost in the measures with him ; he certainly did not fear his shrubbery;" another would suggest that we fate too much, nor were his deserts small should have a guide on the spot to show visitors (though in his lamented father's time his dinners the nearest way; while a third hoped we intended were said to have been restricted), for he set giving some out-door fetes in tbe summer, as­ his fate upon one touch—of paint—to win or suring us that the "band of the Life Guards lose it all. He coloured the entire house a would look splendid on that," pointing to a bit bright vermilion, on Avhich, from attic to base­ of turf about the size of a pocket-handkerchief. ment, the following sentences were displayed in When the street door was opened wide back, it deep black letters. "The Shop for Portraits! entirely absorbed the hall, and we could not get Stop, Examine, and Judge for Yourselves! 'Sit, out of the dining-room door; but then we could, Cousin Percy, sit, good Cousin Hotspur'— of course, always pass out through the "study," Shakespeare! Photography Defied ! Your Like­ a little room like a cistern, which just held my ness in Oils in Ten Minutes ! *The Counterfeit desk and one chair. Presentment'—Shakespeare. Charge low, Por­ There was a very small yard at the back, traits lasting! Art, not Mechanical iff^o^r.'" giving on to a set of stables which had their Kit-cat portraits of celebrated characters copied real entrance in the mews; but we Avere from photographs leered out of every window, compelled to cover all our back window's with while the drawing-room balcony was given up putty imitative of ground glass, on which we to Lord John Russell waving a parchment stuck cut-out paper designs of birds and flowers, truncheon, and Mr. Sturgeon, the popular as these looked directly on the rooms over the preacher, squinting at his upheld forefinger. stables, inhabited by the coachman and his The Family Avere out of town when this horrible family; and the sight of a stalwart man at the work was undertaken: when they returned, they opposite window, shaving himself in very dingy declared with one voice that we could hve iu shirt-sleeves within a few feet of your nose, was Bass's-buildings no longer, and must move at not considered genteel by The Family. We were once. rather stivy in the up-stairs rooms, owing to low I was not sorry, though I liked the httle ceilings, and a diffidence we felt as to opening house well enough, but we had been confined the windows, for the New Road is a dusty there, in more senses than- one, and wanted thoroughfare, and the immediate vicinity of a more room for our family, now increasedbya cab-stand, though handy on some occasions, lets baby and a nurse. The nurse was a low-spirited one into rather a larger knowledge of the stock young person afflicted with what she called "the of expletives Avith which the English language creeps," under the influence of which she used abounds, than is good for refined ears. But when to rock to and fro, and moan dismally and slap we knew that the coachman was out, we used the baby on the back; and it was thought that to open the back windows and grow very en­ change of scene might do her good. I ^s thusiastic over "the fresh air from Hampstead glad, too, for another reason. I had recently and Highgate," which, nevertheless, always obtained occasional employment on a daily seemed to me to have a somewhat stabley twang. journal, which detained me until late at night One great point with The Family was that there at the newspaper office, and I had frequently to were no shops near us: that being an acme of attend night consultations at the chambers of vulgarity which, it appears, no well-regulated leading barristers, to whom I was to act as mind can put up with; to be sure, the row junior. Bass's-buildings were a horrible distance immediately opposite to us was bounded by a from the newspaper office and the chambers; chemist's, but then, you know, a chemist can and walking home at night had several times scarcely be called a tradesman—at least The knocked me up. So my wife submitted to The Family thought so—and his coloured bottles Family, a proposition tbat I must remove to were rather a relief to the eye than otherwise, some more convenient position; and The Fanaily, giving one, at night, a strange idea of being at after a struggle (based, I am inclined to thinfi^ sea in view of land. On the door next to on the reflection that lunch at my expense would the chemist's, stood, when we first took not be so practicable), consented. possession of our house in Bass's-buildings, a The neighbourhood of RusseU-square was that Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [May 21,1S64.] 343 selected, and in it we began to make 6onstant fire by the cook in mistake for a lump of Walls^ research. There are few Londoners of the rising end. generation who know those ghastly streets, I don't think there were many advantages in solemn and straight, where the daylight at the the Great Dowdy-street house (though I was height of summer fades at four o'clock, and in very happy there, and had an immense amount winter only looks in for an hour about noon; of fun and pleasure) beyond the proximity to where the houses, uniform in dirt and dinginess, my work, and the consequent saving in cab hire in lack of paint on their window-sills, and in and fatigue. But I do recollect the drawbacks; fulness of filth on their windows, stare con­ and although six years have elapsed since I ex­ fronting each other in twin-like similitude. perienced them, they are constantly rising in my Decorum - street, Hessian - street, Walcheren- mind. I remember our beiug unable ever to square. Great Dettingen-street, each exactly open any window without an immediate inroad of resembling the other, aU equaUy dreary, equally " blacks :" triturate soot of the most penetrating deserted, equally heart-breaking, equaUy genteel. kind, which at once made piebald all the anti­ Even the family could not deny the gentility, macassars, toilet-covers, counterpanes, towels, but were good enough to remember having and other linen; I remember our being unable to visited a judge in CuUoden-terrace, and having get any sleep after five A.M., wdien, at the been at the routs of Lady Flack, Avife of Sir builder's which abutted on our black enclosure, Nicholas Flack, Baronet, Head of the College a tremendous bell clanged, summoning the of Physicians, and Body-preserver in Ordinary workmen to labour, and from which time there to the great Georgius of sainted memory. AU was such a noise of sawing, and hammering, the districts just named were a little above my and planing, and filing, and tool grinding, means, but eventually I settled down into a and bellows blowing, interspersed with strange 'house in Great Dowdy-street, a row of small bellowings in the Celtic tongue from one Irish but very eUgible tenements on the Dowdy labourer to another, and mingled with objurga­ estate. None of your common thoroughfares, tions in pure Saxon from irate overseers, that to be rattled through by vulgar cabs and earth- one might as well have attempted a quiet nap shaking Pickford's vans, but a self-included in the neighbourhood of Babel A^^hen the tower property Avith a gate at each end and a lodge was in course of erection. I remember, on the with a porter in a gold laced hat and the Dowdy first occasion of our sleeping there, a horrible arms on the buttons of his mulberry-coloured yell echoing through the house, and being dis­ coat, to prevent any one, except with a mission covered to proceed from the nurse aforenamed, to one of the houses, from intruding on the ex­ who had, at the time of her shrieking, about clusive territory. The rent was seventy pounds six A.M., heard "ghostes a burstin' in tiirough a year, "on a repairing lease" (which means an the waUs." We calmed her perturbed spirit, annual outlay of from five-and-twenty to thirty finding no traces of any such inroads, but to keep the bricks and mortar and timbers to­ were aroused in a similar manner the next gether), and the accommodation consisted of a morning, and then discovered that the rushing narrow dining-room painted salmon colour, and in of the New River supply, obedient to the a httle back room looking out upon a square turncock's key, was the source of the young vmm black enclosure in which grew fearful fungi; two person's fright. I remember the hot summer big drawing-rooms, the carpeting of which Sunday afternoons, when the pavement would nearly swalloAved a quarter's income; two good be red-hot, and the dust, and bits of straw, and bedrooms, and three attics. I never went into scraps of paper Avould blow fitfully about with the basement save when I visited the cellar, every little puff of air, and the always dull which was a mouldy vault under the street pave­ houses would look infinitely duller Avith their ment only accessible through the area, and con­ blinds down, and no sound would fall upon the sequently rendering any one going to it liable to ear save the distant hum of the cabs in Holborn, the insults of rude boys, who would grin through or the footfall of some young person in service the area-railings, and say, " Give us a drop, going to afternoon church—or to what was, in guv'nor;" or, " Mind you don't drop the bottle, her mind, its equivalent—in all the glory of open- old 'un;" and other ribald remarks—but I worked stockings, low shoes, and a prayer-book believe the kitchen was pronounced by the swaddled in a white cotton pocket-handkerchief. servants to be " stuffy," and the whole place I have sat at my window on scores of such "ill conweuient," there being no larder, pantry, Sundays, eyeing the nose of Lazarus over the nor the usual domestic arrangements. I know, dwarf Venetian blinds opposite, or the gorgeous too, that we were supposed to breed and pre­ waistcoat of Eliason, a little higher up (for the serve a very magnificent specimen of the black- tribes are great in the neighbourhood). I beetle, insects which migrated to different parts have stared upward to catch a glimpse of the of the house in droves, and which, to the num­ scrap of blue unclouded sky, visible above the ber of five-and-twenty being met slowly ascend­ houses; and then I have thought of Richmond ing the drawing-room stairs, caused my Avife to HUl; of snoAvy tablecloths, and cool Moselle-cup, swoon, and me to invest money in a hedgehog: an and salmon cutlets, in a room overhanging the animal that took up his abode in tbe coal-cellar river at the Orkney Arms, at Maidenhead; of on the top of the coals, and, retiring thither early that sea breeze which passes the Uttle hotel at one morning after a surfeit of beetles, was sup­ Freshwater Bay, in wild hurry to make play over posed to have been inadvertently "laid" in the the neighbouring downs; of shaded walks, and y

344 [May 21. 1864.] ALL THE YE OUND, [Conductedby cool retreats, and lime avenues, and overhung " ben" for which we had to take stalls. From bathing-places, and all other things delicious at one of the admirers of the host of genius, I that season; until I have nearly gone mad with bought a pair of horses; they were not good hatred of Great Dowdy-street, and fancied my­ horses ; from another I purchased a phaeton, it '•^ self pretty able to comprehend the feelings of the was a bad one! I confess I did not lik/j the Polar bears in their dull retrogressive promenade manner in which some of the host of genius in the Zoological Gardens. That none of our used to climb up the waUs and kiss their hands friends had ever heard of Great Dowdy-street; to Miss Crump's young ladies who were walk­ that no cabman could be instructed as to its ing in the next garden, and I owned to Miss exact whereabout, naming it generally ^ as Crump that it was too strong retaliation even " somewhere near the Fondlin';" that migration for the pianoforte practice at 5 A.M. ; they could to a friend's house in a habitable region to not take any liberties with my neighbour on the dinner occasioned an enormous expense in cab other side, for he Avas Dr. Winks, the celebrated fare; that all the tradesmen with whom Ave had mad-doctor, and we were always in a state of previously dealt declined our custom, "as they mental terror lest some of his patients should never sent that way;" that we found Tottenham- get loose and come over the wall at us. How­ court-road a line of demarcation, behind which ever, the life at Agatha Villa, though merry, we left light, and sunshine, and humanity—on was brief. Through my own exertions, and our side of which we tumbled into darkness those of the host of genius, I ran through a and savagery; that we were in the midst of a couple of thousand pounds in two years, and Hansom cab colony, clattering home at all then the Cotopaxi Grand Imperial Mining Com­ hours of the niijht; and in the immediate neigh­ pany, in which I had invested the rest of Uncle bourhood of ati the organ men, who gave us Snape's money, went to smash, and I had to their final grind just before midnight; all these give up Agatha ViUa, were minor but irritating amioyances. At length, The thought of having to return to London after six years' experience of this life, we heard and its dreariness, in the summer which had just that Uncle Snape was dead and had left me set in, was the bitterest morsel of that tart of some money, and we immediately determined on humility which we were about to partake of; quitting Great Dowdy-street. and you may judge, therefore, with what delight " Oh! my life in Egypt!" sighs Cleopatra, in I received an offer of a country-house, rent free, the Dream of Fair Women, remembering the for a year. " It's a capital old house, any way," daUiance and the wit, the Libyan banquets, and said old Cutler, its owner, " a capital liouse, all the delights of that brief but glorious sea­ near town, and yet thoroughly in the country. son. " Oh! my life in Agatha ViUa, Old I'm going to take my gal abroad for a year to Brompton!" say I, which was quite as brief, see the Continent, and you're not only welcome and almost as glorious. We entered upon to live at WoUops, but I shall be obUged to you Agatha Villa immediately on quitting Great for keeping the place aired." Now, WoUops Dowdy-street, and revelled in the contrast. was a house, if you like! An old red-brick Such an elegant house, such a dining-room in Queen Anne mansion, with little deep mullioned red flock paper and black oak furniture, such a diamond-paned windows, with quaint old armour drawing-room in satin paper and chintz, open­ in the hall, and a portrait of Brabazon de Wol- ing with large French windows upon a little lop, temp. Charles the Second, over the chimney- lawn, such a study for me, such a spare bed­ piece ; there were long passages, and tapestry- room for a bachelor friend from Saturday till hung rooms, and oak corridors, and secret doors, Monday ! It was at Agatha Villa that we com­ and a wine-cellar so like a subterraneous dungeon, menced our deUghtful Uttle Sunday dinners— that my heart sunk within me every time I en­ which indeed finished in the same place. It tered it; there were Ukewise numerous bed­ was at Agatha Villa AVC first discovered how fond rooms with tremendous bedsteads aU plumes people were of us, what a popular Avriter I was, aud hangings; and a stone kitchen like that one how my oratorical displays at the Old Bailey in the Tower of London which Mr. Cruikshank were making a sensation. People liked coming drew. The house stood in the middle of splendid to see us at Agatha Villa : not for the mere sake grounds, there was a carriage-drive up to it, of what they got, of course, but because they its drawing and dining room windows looked were sure of meeting " such charming people" out upon a beautiful lawn dotted here and there at our house: money was all very well, they with briUiant beds of v erbena and scarlet would remark, but no money could bring toge­ geranium; and there was a lake, and a kitchen- ther such a host of genius as was always to be garden, and an orchard, all kept up at Mr. seen at Agatha Villa. The host of genius (I'm Cutler's expense; and everything was so noble not speaking of myself) was expensive to enter­ and so grand, that a friend, who knew the reason tain ; it stopped late, it dined heavily, it smoked of our quitting Agatha ViUa, remarked, on seeing on the lawn, and remained sipping cold drinks WoUops, that one more attempt at retrenchment untu past midnight. Its admirers remained too: would take us into Buckingham Palace. From sometimes some of the host of genius borrowed our windows we looked away over green fields, money and didn't return it; the host of genius to Harrow on the one side, to Highgate on the was always either painting a picture which I other, and it was worth something when commg was expected to buy, or giving a concert which we were expected to patronise, or having a| From brawling courts And dusty purheus of the law, Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND [May 21, 18C4.] 345 to feel your feet on the turf, with the sweet And lay in long passages, golden, fresh air blowing round you, and that soft Like paths for the spirits of good. silence, broken only by the pipe of bird or hum The thrushes are singing in chorus, of insect, which is tlie greatest of all rural The blackbird outwhistles them all; charms to an overAVorked Londoner, WoUops Up there on the aspen he carols— was too far for the host of genius, as they The aspen so light and so tall. could not have got back at night, so we only The squirrels sport up in the beeches, had our own friends and The Family. I am The bees on the furze-blossom sleep, happy to say that the croquet parties at WoUops The lark o'er the green corn and clover, were the cause of marrying off my wife's two The ricks and the close huddled sheep, younger sisters: one to a revising barrister, and Soars, soars, and in ecstasy singing, the other to a county court judge: while the Bears upward his prayer unto Heaven : elder girls, who had been very uncivil about He's the priest of the blue upper region, what they called the "goings on" at Agatha Nor rests he a day in the seven, Villa, were so delighted with WoUops that they 'Tis a time full of hope and of promise, forgave us off hand, and each came and stayed a This youth of the blossoming year, month. All this was during the summer weather; All is pleasure on earth and in ether, the autumn of that year was as good as summer, No clouding of sorrow nor fear. warm, clear, and sunny, and we were thorouglily There is love singing loud from the branches, iiappy. But, one fatal morning in the middle of There is love in each wavering flower, November we got up and found winter had ar­ Yes, love in each blade of the barley, rived; the wind roared through the old house, and That steals to the light every hour. moaned and shrieked in the long corridors; the rain dashed against the badly fitting romantic windows, and lodged in large pools on their SHAKESPEARE-MAD. inner sills; the water-pipe along the house was choked, overflowed, soaked through the old I FEEL now, at this cool and collected moment, red brick, which was just like sponge, and, that for a whole week I have been going about coming through the drawing-room wall, spoilt with straws in my hair—a raving maniac. Here my proof copy of Landseers Titania. The big are the straws lying before me in a tangled bare trees outside, rattled and clashed their huge wisp : a pewter medal, with an effigy in profile of the Immortal Bard on one side, and a front ele­ arms, the gardeners removed everything from r the beds, the turf grew into rank grass, and the vation view of his birthplace on the other; item, storms from Harrow to Highgate were awful in a triple badge in Coventry ribbon with the their intensity. Inside the house, the fires would Bard's lineaments in fioss silk, and woven repre­ not light for some time, and then the chimneys sentations of natal spot, and church containing smoked awfully, and the big grates consumed dust; item, button with rosy-cheeked miniature scuttles of coals and huge logs of wood without of the Bard in enamel; item, blue scarf with giving out the smallest heat. The big hall full length Bard in an impossible but traditional was like a weU; after dark the children attitude, pointedly calling attention to a scroll were afraid to go about the passages ; and the inscribed with a passage from his own works, of w servants came in a body and resigned, on account which, I am led to infer, he was particularly of the damp of the stone kitchen. Gradually proud. the damp penetrated everywhere ; lucifers would Now, considering that for six days I have s not strike, a furry growth came upon the been rushing about in a frantic state of ex­ lookinsr-fflass, the leather chairs all stuck to us citement with aU these straws in my hair, I when Ave attempted to rise. My AVife wanted take it as highly generous on the part of my us to leave WoUops, but I was firm—for two relatives that they have abstained frona procur­ nights afterwards; then the rats, disturbed by ing the certificate of two quaUfied medical prac­ the rains from their usual holes, rushed into our titioners, and locking me up in Bedlam. When bedroom and danced wUdly over us. The next the mania seized upon me, I resolved to do two morning at six A.M. I despatched the gardener things which the Bard himself, in his profound to town, to bring out three cabs, and removed philosophy, never could have dreamt of. I re­ my family in those vehicles to lodgings in solved to assist at the planting of a tree in Cockspur-street, where I am at present. London, and to be present at a display of fire- Avorks in Stratford-upon-Avon, on one and the same day. I carried my resolve into execution. I was on Primrose-hiU at three o'clock, and I THE BLOSSOMING TIME* was on the bridge at Stratford-upon-Avon at THE violets, in bunches of purple, nine. But I had entered upon my mad career Bloom sweet on the bosom of Spring; The thrushes, up high on the larches, before this. Of summer, of summer-time sing. At the wdtching hour of the previous night, The primroses light the green shadows when the last stroke of twelve ushered m the Of fir woods, odorous, dim; natal day, I betook myself to a famous hostelrie And deep in the darkest of coverts to sup in the Bard's honour, in the exclusive The nightingale chanteth his hymn. company of the Uving iUustrators of his works, That's at dusk; but I speak of the morning, I wiU not attempt to conceal that I was drawn When sunbeams glance into the wood, thither, not altogether by reverence for the ^ 346 [May 21,1864.] ALL THE YEAR EOUND, [Conductedby Bard, but, in some degree, by the expectation self very closely to his supper, and took it that certain of his iUustrators A^i^ould probably coolly. appear in the fuU evening costume of velvet The name of Shakespeare, mention of the tunics and russet boots with spurs. It was whis­ Player's Art, the Stage, were all so many sparks il pered that, on the transpontine shore, russet of fire faUing upon gunpowder which never boots and spurs were considered the correct thing burned out, but always renewed itself from its on such high festive occasions. Let me silence own ashes and smoke to go off again and again m whispering mahce, and give the transpontine with an explosion which shook the walls, and iUustrators their due. If there were any there caused their Royal Highnesses the Dukes of more spotless as to shirt fronts, more resplen­ Kent and Sussex to tremble in their gilt frames. m dent as to the polish of their patent leather So much enthusiasm and so much unity of feel­ boots, more completely en regie as to the ing were probably never witnessed in any dimensions of their white cravats, more fashion­ similar gathering. Nothing but Shakespeare's able as to the cut of their black dress-coats and wand could have ruled such an ocean, ordinarily pantaloons, more snowy as to the hue of their agitated by so many diverse currents and dis­ cambric handkerchiefs, than others, they were turbed by so many opposing winds. Ah the iUustrators from over the water. I will jealousies and disappointments were laid aside even go so far as to say that, as regards the oili- for the time, and one feeUng animated and cou- ness of their hair, and the number of plaits on troUed the vast assembly. Notwithstanding a their shirt-fronts, they put the illustrators of littlenoisy disagreement—not about Shakespeare the West End to shame and confusion. When —which took place between two perfervid I found myself in their midst crushing up the youths at the end of the room, this gathering of broad stairs of the hostel, all classes and degrees actors in honour of the great master of the mingling on equal terms of brotherhood in dramatic art was, in its broad and general aspect, honour of the great High Priest of their art, it a most impressive spectacle. I, Avho had come occurred to me that I was not doing such a very with a strong predisposition to be amused, mad tiling after all. Up they went, a strangely rather than impressed, was fain to confess this amalgamated crowd of leading tragedians and much. I could not think of any other class that comedians, rubbing shoulders and exchanging would have been so unanimous and so hearty in friendly greetings with general utility, and an act of homage to a chief. And so, when supernumeraries, and pantomimists, and promp­ they had lingered to the last, loth to tear them­ ters, and call-boys, and even door-keepers. Ah, selves away from a scene of such rare enjoy- surely he was a Great Magician, whose name, ment, in the bright sunshine on the morning after three centuries, could work such a charm. of Shakespeare's three hundredth birthday, the It was good for the heart to see such community players streamed out into the street, while of feeUng, and curious to mark how unaccus­ citizens, awakened possibly from dreams of last tomed they all were to the use of tickets of night's play, peered at them from the corners of admission. None of them had their tickets blinds, and utterly failed to recognise Falstaff ready, and when they were demanded by the in the respectable cleanly gentleman gaily jump­ man at the top of the stairs, the Ulustrators ing into a Hansom cab; or Bardolph in the seemed to regard it as quite a joke that they smart young man with the embroidered shirt- should be asked for tickets, as if they were the front; or King Henry the Fourth in the tall public. When they were all seated, the great gentleman in the black surtout, borrowing alight hall was, as an illustrator in the eccentric line for his cigar from Francis, the drawer, in all the observed, " gorged with talent," which evoked magnificence of a white hat resplendent in the from another the remark that it would be a fine thing for the country actors, longing for London, morning sun if the floor were to give way and entomb the lot. Surely I am mad now, for I go away in a Happily, however, no such combination of good four-wheeled cab in company with Hamlet and bad luck occurred; though the enthusiasm Prince of Denmark, and Horatio his friend, at times was well calculated to inspire fears for and the First Gravedigger, Avho has only one the security of the roof. The imveUing of the waistcoat on, and that bound A\dth gold braid, statue of the Bard at the beginning of the feast, and the Ghost of Hamlet's father outside on the acted like a spark of fire upon a heap of gun­ box, scenting the morning air with a briar-root powder. The iUustrators sprang to their feet pipe, away to north-western regions, where early and went off in one tremendous bang of applause. shop - keeping birds are taking down their Yet there could scarcely have been twenty shutters, and preparing to catch the first human persons in that room who had much to be thank­ worm that appears above ground—away in the ful to the Bard for. For four or five whom he fresh morning air, untU we begin to persuade had blessed with Macbeth, there were a hundred ourselves that we are not tired, and that there whom he had condemned to the carrying of is no necessity to go to bed. banners. I had the pleasure of sitting beside a We do not go to bed, but joyfully accept banner-bearer, one who had nailed his colours to an invitation to breakfast with First Grave- the flagstaff in early Ufe, and was resolved to digger, whose pressing hospitality at that stand by them to the last, and he was as en­ awkward hour in the morning is an asto­ thusiastic as — nay, more enthusiastic than nishment to us aU, until he informs us that Macbeth, who, I am bound to say, devoted him­ the partner of his bosom is out of town; which fuUy accounted, I wiU not say for the

^^ Charles Dickens-J ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [May 21,1864.] 347

milk in the cocoa-nut, but for the coffee with resumed the shieing of three sticks, and cracked boiling milk, accompanied by hot rolls and a nuts, and weighed itself, and took electric shocks, cold capon—I wiU not say "fowl in this con­ and generally dispersed itself over the hiU out nexion—with which we were presently refreshed. of sight of the Oak and out of hearing of the Passed several hours in a ridiculous attempt to Ode. In the comfortable belief that I had seen be Uvely and wide awake, and just giving it up all and done my duty, I now turned my steps and sinking into the arms of Morpheus and au homewards, but had not proceeded far when I easy-chair, when the Ghost of Hamlet's Father, heard the strains of martial music, and presently who is used to late hours, cries out, " More came upon a smaU army of Foresters marching Shakespeare!" and we all start to our feet, and on to the field, Uke the Prussians at Waterloo, find, on consulting the dials iu our pokes, a little late in the day. I understand tbat at that it is time to hie us to the Oak. So away this moment Mr. Phelps was standing with his we go through the gate, and past a cluster of watch in his hand wishing that either Chaos or genteel vUlas, to tbe base of the • mountain, the Foresters were come. That the Foresters whereon a number of flying merchants and pe­ w^ere late seemed to be entirely owing to their rambulating speculators have seized the occasion zeal and love of glory, for they insisted upon to revive the glories of Chalk Farm fair. Oi bringing the banner of the Bard of Avon lodge PoUoi in great force, vox populi very loud, with them, and the banner being large, requir­ harshly and hoarsely inviting us to eat oranges ing two poles, and the wind contrary, the army, —though that was not particularly enjoined if we which, in respect of its mainsail, seemed to be only bought them—to drink sherbet, to have a one of foot-marines, made rather a slow march, shie at a cocoa-nut three sticks a penny, to treat or rather voyage of it. That its progress had ourselves to an electric shock, to try our weight, been an arduous and disastrous one became pain­ to buy gingerbread-nuts. Some confusion of fuUy evident to me as I proceeded onward. AU ideas apparent with respect to the- occasion. along the road I encountered stray Foresters Shakespeare a good deal mixed up with Gari- who had fallen out of the ranks, overcome by baa^ldy. Boys, evidently unable to grapple with fatigue and—as they were generally showing the subject in hand, give vent to their general their exhaustion in close proximity to a pubUc- feelings in the exclamation, " Whoop, Shake­ house—possibly beer. One gentleman in a full speare !" which may, or may not, have been in­ suit of Lincoln green and a hat with three ex­ tended to be compUmentary. I perceive that the hausted feathers, was being danced round by a little circle of boys and girls, who seemed to tree has been already planted, but there is no i^u great sensation in its immediate neighbourhood. have some vague notions that he might be Shakespeare, or at any rate some celebrity de­ The flying merchants and the perambulating serving of honour. This is the last glimpse I speculators cannot complain that the Bard is have of the celebration in London. exercising any superior attraction. He isn't. Populace cannot be induced to pay a shilling for In little more than three hours after I am at admission to the enclosure round the tree. If the little station at Stratford-upon-Avon, in there is anything that is considered not for an company with about a dozen others, who are all age, but for all time, it is the game of three the pUgrims who have come by the G. W. R. i sticks a penny. Some sUght sensation, but not that evening to worship at the shrine. As I had much, when Mr. Phelps is brought along, a man never visited Stratford before, I declined a con­ on each side of him holding him fast by the veyance, and walked into the town, prepared to arms. It occurs to me that Mr. Phelps is in feel that I was treading sacred ground, and to custody, and that the two men are poUcemen in be much moved by aU I saw. I expected to plain clothes—very plain clothes, I may remark come upon "tbe House" suddenly, and I felt —taking him off to the station. I follow, in­ sure I should know it from its portraits. Every tending to offer myself as bail, and try to catch now and then I thought I saw it looming in the the tragedian's mournful eye, but he is evidently distance, and began to feel a thriU, but I was ashamed of himself, and does not wish to be re­ mistaken again and again, and the thriU subsided cognised ; so I spare his feelings, and remain to —subsided past recal, when I suddenly found review the procession, Avhich consists of six myself in front of a yellow caravan, where they men and a boy, the last carrying a brown were exhibiting waxwork and a Scotch giant. paper parcel, which a youth of an inquiring This diverted my thoughts. I began to think Bnind, who turns himself upside down to read of the pushing character of the people north of the inscription on the cover, informs me con­ the Tweed, who had sent this Scotch giant to tains the "hode." compete with the great EngUsh giant on his owm ground and on his own natal day. _ Cer­ I followed Mr. Phelps with my eyes until I tainly tbe Scotch giant had the best of it in one saw him dragged into the station-house and con­ respect. He was alive, 0! alive! fronted with the inspector, who immediately took down the charge, the two officers in plain Not coming upon the house fortuitously, as I clothes evidently asseverating that the tragedian expected, I thought it prudent—particularly as had assaulted them in the execution of tiieir I had heard alarming accounts of the great in­ duty, and had been very obstropolous and flux of pilgrims, and the scarcity of accommoda­ voilent. What they did with him after that I tion—to look out for an hotel. Found one in cannot say, and few apparently cared to know; the principal street, and was asked a guinea a for, after the procession passed, the populace night for a bed. Explained that I was not y r

3 IS [May 21, 18G4.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND, [Conducted by

Baron RothschUd, and was informed that I saw a house which had been restored out of all might have one higher up for half a guinea; its antiquity, which was trim, and neat, and consented to this, and had a momentary im­ angular, and varnished, and Avhich, when the pression that I must be very rich; and that rockets exploded and rained down their spray hitherto I had been regulating my expenditure of coloured fires, and the people shouted hi the on a scale altogether unbefitting my means. meadow, recaUed a vision of YauxhaU. The Could not rest for refreshment or anythinp:, general tea-garden aspect of the house was until I had seen the House; so immediately disappointing enough, but with the accompani­ sallied out in search of it, trying to forget the ment of fireworks the effect was shockingly yellow caravan and the Scotch giant. Did not depressing. There was so much of the tea- like to inquire my Avay to the House; felt that garden about the place, that I should not have I ought to be drawn to it by an influence ; and been at all surprised if some one had appeared that it w^ould show a want of delicacy and at the window, sung a comic song, and asked veneration to ask any one to show it me, as if conundrums. Lideed, on returning presently it Avere a bank or a post-office, or something of through the deserted street—there w^as not a that sort. Stratford was not so large a town soul m it besides myself on this evening of the but that I might easily find the shrine which Tercentenary—I heard the sound of minstrelsy was its pride and glory, its sacred place. The proceeding from a public-house, and, looking paths AVorn with pilgrims' feet should direct me through the window, I beheld a busker in the to it. I assure you I had got over the Scotch costume of the music-hall Irishman, dancing a giant, and was fully primed witb the right feeling. jig and singing Limerick Races, while the I have the bump of veneration stronglydeveloped. townsmen of Shakespeare sat around and drank Vestiges of antiquity, relics of great men, places beer, and smoked pipes, and did homage to the Avith classic associations interest and move me Bard! deeply. I never pass through Temple Bar and take a walk down Fleet-street without I knew that I should never feel the thrill thinking of Johnson and Goldsmith, and pictur­ after this. Tbe restorer and the fireworks had ing them in my mind's eye. I had long looked done for me. So I went in for the display of forward to this day; long promised myself a fireworks pure and simple, and thought it, per visit to Stratford; many a time and oft had se, not so very bad. visited it in imagination, and reaUsed all the A few flags fluttering about the pretty little sensations which its associations are calculated town, but no commotion until after the fire­ to inspire. And I was prepared to realise all works, when a dense crowd of yokels breaks these feelings now with tenfold intensity. But into the streets, like an inundation of muddy I could not find the House, and was obliged to water. Heedless, blundering yokels, with tre­ ask my way to it after all. It is a fact, that the mendous feet, who run against you, and stamp person to whom I applied for guidance looked upon you, and scent the air with fustian and puzzled, and turned first this way and then corduroy. Away they go, following the band, that, and at last confessed that he " really and w^hen the band has blown itself out they didn't know where the House was situated." disperse themselves among the little taverns, He was apparently an intelligent man, in the which seem to be in the proportion of one to '"itjiuusat three of the houses, and the streets are quiet cattle-dealing line, I fancy; but he had an i^Jjpipeso excuse for his ignorance in so insignificant a and deserted again. matter — he had been only a fortnight in Revisited the House on Sunday morning, Stratford! hoping to see it under more favourable circum­ • •'•^tekin stances. Well, there were no fireworks, andthe ;'aitetkl " Down there, sir, on the right-hand side of new beams and laths let into the house did not ••/'•^Mteatte the wav," said a native. I was thankful for the look so varnished and glittering by daylight. '^Ikeffijj first part of the direction, but I did not want Peeped in at one of the windows, never ima- ! •^tJbiiewi him to tell me on whicli side of the Avay; I ginuig that I would be admitted on that day, -'mi Give wanted to find that out for myself, aud I when a person immediately ran out and pounced •-'«poritaits escaped hastily, lest the native should spoil upon me. Would I walk up ? but first my six­ -:<*tofa my pleasure by pouitmg at the house with pence. I paid my sixpence and walked up; but ;;J%gritali a showman's finger, and saying, " That's it!" here again my pleasure Av^as marred. The work "'•'^positioi I knew now that I was coming to it, and that a of renovation had not been extended to the •'M\n\ few more paces would bring me to it. I was natal chamber, and I could well believe that uo \ -'*'boifit. approaching Avith all reverence, and Avith a alteration had been made in it since Shake­ '•''EtlloJ feeling that the thriU was about to rise, when speare's time; but it was occupied by two huge the sky was suddenly illuminated by a flash of Warwickshire policemen in full uniform, Avhose bright light, accompanied by a peculiar rushing presence was suggestive of a murder, or a rob­ noise in the ah:. I was not left for a single bery, or something of a simUar nature requirujn moment in doubt as to the cause. I looked up, the superintendence of the authorities. I could and saw tha*t it was a rocket. They were have been much impressed by those old worm- letting off fireworks in the neighbouring meadow! eaten boards, which Shakespeare's feet had trod, A few more steps and I was in front of the but who could adore a sacred spot with two House, and / saw it for the first time by the light policemen standing at his elbow, irreverently of fireworks I The thrUl did not rise. By the lounging against the Avails, and blowing tueir garish Ught of red and blue and green fires I noses like thunder in erreat sheets of red caucor Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [May 21,18G4.] 349

Could not remain and muse in such company; in the body of the church from a pulpit wliich I so looked hurriedly round at the countless names cannot see. Every now and then, however, I scribbled all over the walls and ceiling, noticing hear the word " Shakespeare," and catch por­ « Walter Scott" awkwardly scratched on one of tions of famUiar quotations from his works, and, the diamond panes of the window, and rendered straining my ear, I hear the archbishop say by almost Ulegible by the names of Brown and way of peroration, tbat Shakespeare was a gift Jones and Robinson that had been scrawled from Heaven, for which we ought to give through it, over it, under it, and all about it; thanks. And after a three hours' sederunt, we saw also the name of Thackeray neatly written stream out of the beautiful church, and march in pencil on the ceUing, the place nearest his home to our dinners (getting cold) to the martial hand; and observed generally that the names strains of the town band; and as I keep step to that were written in the largest characters and " See the conquering hero," I wonder if Exeter m the most conspicuous places, were those of HaU is present, and what he is thinking of all ladies and gentlemen from the United States this. of America. Paid another sixpence to the I walk across the fields in the evening to Ann Museum, where I saw many interesting things, Hathaway's cottage, and am charmed with the 111 oil: including Shakespeare's ring, which he must quiet rural beauty of the scene. The fields are mse, ml, have worn on his thumb ; the desk at whicli he sparkling with daisies and Avild flowers, like sat at school, and on which he had only partly stars in a firmament of green; the rooks are caw­ isb,: accomplished the carving of his initials, having ing high up on the trees; the groves are ringing been unable, apparently, to turn the tail of the with the songs of birds; the air is laden with S, leaving it in the condition of a C; many the perfume of new leaves. That long-expected documents of the period, one relating to house thrill comes unbidden now. Truly a place to property, Avith John Shakespeare, his mark (a nurse a poet. I sit lingering upon every stile, very unsteady cross), at the foot of it; a letter drawing in great draughts of the fresh exhilara­ to the poet from a friend in London, asking him ting air, as if I could take in a stock of it to last for the loan of thirty pounds—the only epistle me when I have returned to the murky city. extant addressed to the poet; a large folio And by-and-by little maidens come round me manuscript book, recently discovered in the with offerings of bunches of daisies and cowslips, Lord Chamberlain's office, in wthich Shakespeare with a view to halfpence—and when I inquire is mentioned at the head of a list of other players, the whereabouts of the cottage, they all volun­ as having received " iiij yardes of skarlet red teer to be my guides; and remonstrance and cloth," to enable him to appear in a procession halfpence being equaUy in vain, I proceed on­ on the occasion of the entry of King James into wards escorted by a whole troop of maidens, London; a flat candlestick found at the bottom who seem to conduct me in triumph. I find the of the well in New Place, the site of the Bard's cottage more real than the house ; no paint and grand house, a candlestick with which he may varnish here; but all the old beams, many of often have gone up to bed, and which, having the old stones, and a thatched roof that might been found at the bottom of a well, I am in­ be any age. A female descendant of the Hath- clined to regard as a true relic; much mulberry aways receives me at the door joyfully, and con­ and many clay pipes of modern aspect, which I ducts me through the apartments—the sitting- M- reject altogether. room and kitchen combined, Avhere I imagined William and Ann sitting courting on the stone From the house to the church, where I deem ledge under the great chimney—if, indeed, Ann's myself fortunate in finding a seat in the chancel father ever aUowed the lad to come beyond the exactly opposite the Bard's monument. I am garden-gate—up-stairs to the bedroom, Avhere afraid I paid more attention to the bust than to Ann probably arrayed herself in bridal attire the service. The effigy struck me very much, and previous to proceeding on WiUiam's arm to gave me quite a new idea of the Bard's features Luddington church. And here there is a won­ and expression. Give me this bust, and I resign derful old bedstead of black oak, which I to you aU the portraits. I have here the counter­ imagined might be that " second-best" which the feit presentment of a face suggestive above all Bard bequeathed to his widow. The female things of strong vitality, freshness of spirit, and descendant of the Hathaways could not say: hveliness of disposition. I can imagine this to be perhaps it might be. Express myself very much the face of a man who was full of natural genius pleased with the cottage, and descendant of the and did not know it; whose animal and mental Hathaways hopes I will tell my friends that the spirits never flagged; w^ho never toUed at any­ show is worth seeing. On looking at the thing; whose head never ached. I cannot dis­ visitors' book I can understand her anxiety in cuss the question of the plaster cast of the face, this respect. Very few pilgrims have as yet said to have been taken after death, and used as walked across the fields to view Ann Hathaway's a model by the artist who executed this effigy. cottage. I return by the way I came, and find I can only say that the effigy satisfies me, and a missionary preaching under a hedge to a select that I can believe Shakespeare to have been congregation of rustics, denouncing the esta­ exactly such a man as it represents. I am in a blished clergy, especially in the form of arch­ very favourable position in the chancel for bishops, calling down vengeance upon the making these observations and revolving these Pavilion, and describing Shakespeare as a worm. tliouijhts, but not for hearing the Archbishop of Dublin's sermon, which is preached far away up The expected influx of visitors from' aU corners

/ X \ ^ 350 [May 21,1864.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conductedby of the earth did not take place at the beginning even by the Haymarket company: which ira. ofthe week, as the natives fondly hoped; and pressions, I have no doubt, were induced hythe sleeping became a less expensive luxury. Beds beauty and the comfort of the theatre. 1 had declined in the market, and sofas that had been seen all the plays and all the actors, but I went looking up on Saturday, were entirely at a dis­ night after night simply to enjoy the rare Enghsh count. Omnibuses came rattUng up from the luxury of being comfortable in a' theatre. station with only three or four persons in them. Now that the players were coming down Wombwell's menagerie came in with a Uttle every day, there was an agreeable combination village of yeUow vans and many men and horses, of the rus in urbe, of London and Stratford, looked about and thought it would go aAvay about the place. When I had heard the band again. Eventually, however, drew up beside blow from all quarters of the town, and marched the Scotch giant, and blew brass horns until it hither and thither, always turning into Henley- waa black in the face; but to no purpose. Per­ street to see the House, and never finding any. forming elephants were reported to be engaged body near it, except on one occasion, when in an entirely new and astonishing feat—that of Punch was giving his performance exactly op­ eating their heads off. I caU at the office of the posite ; wdien I had mused myself nearly asleep committee, and find that a poet has sent in an in the old churchyard, or by the banks of tie| invocation beginning: placid Avon; when I had inspected the portraits! of the Bard in the Town-haU, and the plast Come let us Tercentenerate— cast with some hairs adhering to the mou­ Wander forth again and invoke the town in the stache, concerning which I had grave doubts, poet's words: Come let us tercentenerate, and the walking-stick and drinking-cup under by aU means. But at present all the tercen- the glass case, aud more pipes from New Place; teuerating is done by the town band, which for and gazed in through a window at an old rusty wind is a paragon. The performance of the piece of iron, said to be the original key of the Messiah at the PavUion in the afternoon is, as church where Shakespeare was married; and respects the attendance, a failure. The audience dropped in for a glass of ale at the Falcon, consisted chiefly of the gentry of the neighbour­ whose parlour is lined with the oak panelling hood, who came in in their carriages and went from the Bard's grand house, and where the Bard away again immediately the performance was himself is said to have sat of an evening and over. It was a bitter sight for the natives to smoked a pipe, to the wonder and amazement see the horses eating out of their owrn nose­ of the viUage gossips—when I had done all bags, and the owners of the horses sitting in these things, and tercentenerated (poet, I thank the carriages eating out of their own nose-bags— thee for that word!) to my heart's content, it not patronising the town to the extent of a feed was very pleasant to betake me to a certain of corn, nor a biscuit and a glass of sherry. snug room in the Red Horse, there to foregather Prospect brightens, however, on Tuesday, when with Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Sir Toby Belch, the players come. Tickets for Twelfth Night and MalvoUo, and the two Dromios, and Touch­ going off rapidly, and the indefatigable mayor, stone, and many more, who w^ere well bestowed who is ubiquitous, begins to look more cheerful. at that hostel, when they were not being enter­ The vicar, beloved of all the natives high and tained by the most hospitable Mayor and the no low, is seen driving through the town a phaeton, less hospitable Yicar. And here, whenever a in which are seated side by side the Bishop of new comer arrived, Washington Irving's poker St. Andrews and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, the was brought in, tenderly encased in a blue baize bishop craving for something more solid than sheath, and handed round to be admired. Wash­ Twelfth Night, vand asking Sir Andrew Avhy he ington Irving had stirred the fire with that very doesn't play Macbeth. I go to the PavUion poker, in that very room, and so it has been a for the first time to see the comedy, and am de­ holy poker ever since. And here the Irish lighted with the splendid proportions of the " busker " stole in one evening and gave us a building ; consider it a model of what a theatre recitation with remarkable emphasis and pro­ ought to be, and can only account for its perfec­ priety, showing that, when occasion required, tion by the supposition that the architect set to he had a soul above Limerick Races and Irish work to construct a wooden tent and by accident jigs. hit upon a perfect theatre. The Pavilion is larger Away on the top. of an omnibus to Charlcote in ^rea than any theatre in London, and yet the Park, the" scene of the Bard's poaching exploit. spectator can see and hear in every part of it, An unbelieving phantom who has haunted me 'Jiascr and this seems to be owing to the low roof for days, and denied the birthplace, and the and the absence of piled-up tiers of boxes. WiU tomb, and everything else, now denies the some one confer a great obligation on the London poaching. I shut him up finally, by myseit play-going public by bringing the PaviUon up to denying Shakespeare altogether. After a three London, and planting it, say, in Leicester-square ? miles' ride, Ave come upon the park, which is Sitting in a wide open balcony, w\i\\ plenty of swarming with tame deer, and I picture young ''Had room to move about, and neither oppressed with Will sneaking under the shadow of the wall to ;•; M heat nor chilled A\'ith draughts of cold air, I knock one of them on the head. Seeing to^t thought Twelfth Night a more enjoyable comedy the deer are all as tame as hens or ducks, it than I had ever thought it before, and con­ came into my head that it was not poaching b^t sidered that I had never seen it so well played 1 something else, which I will not mention. Di^i^® i ^

Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND, [May 21.1S64.] 351

np to the new gate, beside which is preserved successful entertainment in the Pavilion, spe­ an old post, which we are left to imagine is the cially erected for the purpose of performing his very post on which the youthful poet fixed his works, was a masked ball. lampoon upon Sir Thomas. And now a strange thought. The house and park of the Lucys are thrown open to visitors to-day in the name of SUSSEX IRONMASTERS. one who once did the family the honour to steal a deer from its park. If the story be not true, THE ironworks of Sussex and Kent were the it is stiU more remarkable that a slander in con­ most important in England for sixteen hundred nexion with the Bard's name should have been years. In the sandstone beds of the Forest enough to immortaUse a house, and render a Ridge, caUed by geologists the Hastings sand, family famous. The house and grounds very which lies between the chalk and the oolite- beautiful—the gardens laid out to realise a layers, there is an abundance of ironstone. picture by Watteau : the house reminding one The ironstone beds Ke in a north-easterly direc­ of the magnificence of YersaiUes—oak floors, tion from Ashburnham and Heathfield to the emblazoned ceiUngs, and the walls hung with neighbourhood of Crowborough; and timber for rare pictures by old masters. The portrait of the ironstone, fuel suitable for smelting the ores, Sir Thomas Lucy over the mantelpiece, and the lay handy and plentiful — the country about marble monument in the church forbid the idea having been called the Forest of Anderida, and of Justice Shallow. They are emphatically the the Weald, or wild wood, and being full of large portraits of a gentleman—a chivalrous-lQoking oaks. The district thus combined both the gentleman, with a fine head and a noble coun­ conditions suitable for iron-making. When, in tenance. the far and obscure past, the iron-smelting Returning over the old bridge to Stratford, began here, nobody can tell, but more than I am homlied to see the calm bosom of the seventeen hundred years ago, in the year 120, Avon being ruffled by th e paddle-wheels of a dirty the iron-ores of Sussex were extensively worked steam-boat from the Birmingham Soho. Man by the Romans, or by Teutonic iron-workers on the bank touting for passengers to go up the using Roman pottery, and the coins of Nero, river to Luddington, where the Bard was mar­ of Vespasian, and Diocletian. Coins of Roman ried. I have seen his birthplace, and I have emperors and fragments of Roman pottery have seen his tomb, and I should like to view the been plentifuUy found, in a bed of cinder-heaps scene of the middle event of his life; but I extending over several acres, at Old Land Farm, decline to navigate the Avon in a steam-boat, so near Maresfield. Throughout the county, old forego Luddington, and content myself with mansions, places, and farm-houses occur, bearing another sight of the old key in the shop window such names as Furnace-place, Cinder HiU, in High-street. Hammer Pond, and Forge Farm. But Sussex Now, if you ask me if I passed a pleasant iron is now a mere curiosity, for the Sussex time and enjoyed' myself, I angwer that I furnaces, which were probably blazing long passed a very pleasant time, and never enjoyed before the Christian era, were all except one myself more in my life. Nature has made the blown out by the end of the eighteenth cen­ neighbouriug country a paradise of quiet beauty, tury. and the mayor and the committee, as the repre­ The discovery of the art of smelting iron by sentatives of Art, certainly did everything in their pit coal enabled the districts combining iron­ power to add to the delights of the town. The stone and coal to undersell the district in which, erection of that handsome Pavilion I regard as a although the ores remained, the fuel was always great achievement, and too much praise cannot becoming scarcer and dearer; but, whUst the be awarded to the committee for its spirit and iron trade flourished in Sussex, noteworthy in­ enterprise in providing entertainments utterly cidents marked its history, and notable men regardless of expense. As an example, the pursued it. Several wealthy fainUies in the whole of the scenery and properties that were county owe their fortunes to. the iron trade. used in Romeo and Juliet at the Princess's SmitL the most common of aU names, is one Theatre, on Tuesday night, in London, were which'is now disguised and abandoned, but it used in Stratford on Wednesday, and were seen ought to be remembered that this commonness again in London on the evening of Thursday. of the name ought to accompany the charac­ I think, as a whole, the celebration was as teristic of the EngUsh nation, for the EngUsh­ successful as could have been reasonably ex­ man is pre-eminently the blacksmith of the pected. The PaviUon was never fiUed, but it worid. A Saxon means a sharp blade. What­ yould have been difficult to fiU so large a build- ever other superiorities he may boast, it is iug even in London. If the visitors from the chiefly in reference to iron tools and machinery that the superiority of the EngUshman is ad- .lU neighbourhood came and went away again the same day without spending money in the town, mUted. He may caU himself John Bull, but he the natives had only themselves to blame. is John Smith. And, in ancient times, the Thousands were scared away by the false blacksmith was a great man, holding a high reports of overcrowded hotels and high charges. place at court, sitting at royal tables, and But that honour to the Bard had much to do quenching the spark in his throat after bobbing ^ith the celebration, I will not pretend to and nobbing with kings. Indeed, Smith and declare, in the face of the fact, that the most Smithson (Hadad and Benhadad) were the

^ / s ma^^asim^' 352 [May 21, 1364.] ALL THE YEA5 R KOUNDr [Conductedby names of a Syrian dynasty, and even when an to his stcAvard requesting him to buy iron in the usurper of another family seized the throne, he neighbourhood of Gloucester for an hospital at took the names with it. Winchester. Of the Sussex ironworks, the \^^ Vegetable and animal decomposition in the earliest record is in a murage grant of Henry bed and delta of a mighty river produced, say the Third, authorising the town of Lewes to the geologists, the iron of the ferruginous clays exact a penny toll on every cart-load of iron from and sands of the Wealden. The clay ironstone the neighbouring weald. A Master Henry, of was the ore of the Forest Ridge ; at the western Lewes, received payments a quarter of a century extremity of the Iron District the ferruginous later for iron work in this king's chamber, and sands AA'ere used; and in the Clay Country, a for his monument in Westminster Abbey. The comparatively recent concretion, or bog iron, Crown, in the reign of Edward the First, smelted caUed iron rag, is frequently turned up by the the iron ores of St. Leonard's Forest. A com­ plough. This pudding stone is composed of clay plaint was laid before the Lord Mayor by the and gravel, and about twenty-five or thirty per ironmongers of London against the smiths of cent of oxide of iron. Crowborough is the loftiest the Weald, because the irons for wheels were point of this Iron District, being about eight shorter than they ought to be. The roads, if hundred and four feet above the level of the sea. roads there were in those days, were so im­ Mr. Mark Antony Lower, the authority fol­ passable that Sussex iron was carried to London lowed by all compilers of information on this by water. On the authority of the Wardrobe subject, is of opinion that the iron of this dis­ account (Carlton Ride MSS.), Mr. Mark Antony trict w^as wrought long before the conquest of Lower says: this island by the Romans. The Britons ap­ " In the thirteenth year of Edward the Second, prised the invaders that they knew already the Peter de Walsham, sheriff of Surrey and Sussex, uses of iron for military purposes, by mowing by virtue of a precept from the King's Exchequer, their ranks with their scythe-armed chariots. made a provision of horse-shoes and nails of Csesar says their coins were iron rings of a cer­ different sorts for the expedition against the tain weight—a description applicable at the Scots. The number furnished on the occasion present day to certain coins or moneys used by was 3000 horse-shoes and 29,000 nails, and the Chinese. Sussex and Kent were, probably, the expense of their purchase from various the maritime regions, which, he says, produced places wdthin the sheriff's jurisdiction, and their iron, although only in small quantities. Pliny delivery in London, by the hands of Jolm de aUudes to the iron smelted in Britain. Abundant Norton, clerk, was 14/.'13s. lOd." proofs of the activity of this industry during the Iron ore paid tithe in Western Sussex in period of the Roman occupation have been dis­ 1342. There is a cast-iron slab, much worn by covered. Scorise, or the cinders of the extinct being trodden upon, in Durwash church, with furnaces, have been extensively used in repair­ the inscription, in Latin: " Pray for the soul of ing roads; and, in a heap of cinders lying ready John CoUins." Until the civil war in the time for use on the side of the London-road, in 1844, of Charles the First, sewing needles were made a small bit of pottery attracted the attention of in Chichester. In many old farm-houses in the Rev. Edward Turner. On examination, it Sussex, brand-irons, brand-dogs or andirons, proved to be undoubtedly Roman. The cinders, such as are still used in countries which bum he learned on inquiry, came from Maresfield, wood fires, and supported the merry yule logs his own parish, where lay a large heap of them of our forefathers, still retain the places they at a place caUed Old Land Farm, near Buxted. have occupied for centuries within the ample When he visited this cinder-bed, six or seven chimneys. The cast-iron chimney-backs were acres in extent, the labourers were laying bare ornamented with figures in relief of the most the remains of a Roman settlement. In a sort various kinds. Some of the heads appear to be of grave lay a funeral deposit of pottery. portraits : one of them reminded me of the Scarcely a barrow-load of cinders was driven casts of Oliver Cromwell. Among these orna­ out that did not contain fragments of pottery. ments in relief are armorial bearings, the Royal Brass coins of Nero, Vespasian, Tetricus, and arms, grapes and vine-leaves, the Tudor badge Diocletian, were identified. Deeming them old of rose and crown. Edward the Third used halfpence, the labourers had "chucked" Roman hooped cannon against the Scots in 1337, ^^^^' coins away because "the letters on 'em Avas teen years before they w-ere employed at Crefy pretty near rubbed out." Besides coins, there against the French, but there is no evidence were found in these acres of cinders fragments bearing on the question whether or not they of red or Samian Avare, implements, fibulse, ar- were made in Sussex. But two centuries later, miUse, and mortaria. in the reign of Henry the Eighth, Ralph Hogge, Csesar had recorded the unimportance of the aided by one Peter Baude, a Frenchman, cast iron industry of the maritime regions of Albion, cannon at Buxted. The device of the Hoggs, and such was its insignificance in the period Hogges, Hoggets, or Huggets, is the animal, subsequent to the Roman occupation, that and the name was, says Mr. Lower, probably oi Sussex was not mentioned in Domesday Book Norman origin. The traditionary distich is as an iron producing country, although the iron StiU devoutly beUeved in the neighbourhood ot trade of Somerset, Hereford, Gloucester, Che­ Huget's Furnace, near Buxted and Mayfield— shire, and Lincoln are mentioned. A Bishop of JWasUr 'I^uggft mti fjfs man Soljn, Chichester, even in the thirteenth century, wrote SEfjrg ^'^ t^st ti^e fivst CCan^non. Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [May 21, 1864.] 353

Down to the present day many Huggets are one daughter; and when I was between sixteen blacksmiths in East Sussex. The terms pig and and seventeen years of age, my father and BOW are still associated Avith iron, and this may mother going to visit a friend at Sensom mil be the origin of the device, and the name. And (Kemsing ?) in the said county, took the plague, Master Huggett and his man John may have a and quickly after they came home, my mother more assured place in the Story of the Guns fell sick, and about six days after died, nobody than has yet been won by either Armstrong or thinking of such a disease. My father made a Whitworth. Two of Peter Baude's brass guns great burial for her, and abundance came to it, 'si are stiU to be seen in the Tower of London. The not fearing anything, and notwithstanding cannon made at Robert's Bridge were floated several women layd my mother forth, and no down the Rother by means of " shuts," a sort manner of clothes were taken out of the Mi of locks. chamber when she died, yet not one person As men of free minds, the Sussex ironmasters took the distemper; this I set down as a miracle. jUTO iff, After her burial, we were aU weU one whole OUS fet'I furnished several Protestant martyrs during the Eeformation struggle. Richard Woodman, of week, and a great many people frequented our Wartleton, in one of his examinations before house, and we our neighbours' houses, but at the Bishop of Winchester, said: " Let me go the week's end, in two days, fell sick my father, fas eair home, I pray you, to my wife and children, to my eldest brother, my sister, and myself; and iritjoffs:" see them kept, and other poore folke that I in three days after this my two younger brothers, S,),l[i,| would set aworke, by the help of God. I have Edward and John, feU sick, and though I was set aworke a hundreth persons, ere this, all the very iU, my father sent me to market to buy yeare together." Richard Woodman was burnt provisions, but before I came home it was f at Lewes in 1557. Archbishop Parker de­ noysed abroad that it was the plague, and as nounced the iron trade to Queen Elizabeth as soon as I was come in adoors they charged us rse-sii "a plague." to keep in, and set a strong watch over us, yet Early editions of Camden's Britannia contain all this while no one took the distemper of or quamt and graphic pictures of the iron districts from us, and about the sixth day after they were IDI ai of the days of the Tudors and the Stuarts. taken, three of them dyed in three hours, one Speaking of Sussex, he says: " Full of iron after another, and were all buryed in one grave, i]iinsi;iii: mines it is in sundry places, where, for the and about two days after the two youngest dyed tiielifi,, making and founding thereof, there be furnaces both together, and were buryed in one grave. Ikf on every side, and a huge deal of wood is yearly AU this AvhUe I lay sick in another bed, and burnt, to which purpose divers brooks in many the tender looked every hour for my death; but places are brought to run in one channel, and it pleased God most miraculously to preserve Dumt sundry meadows turned into pools and waters me, and without any sore breaking, only I had that they might be of power sufficient to drive a swelling in my groin, which was long ere it sunk aAvay, and I have been the worse for it liecitilr^- hammer-mUls, which, beating upon the iron, re­ sound aU over the places adjoining." ever since, and when I was recovered, I was Extracts from Memoirs of the Gale Family, shut up with two women, one man, and one supplied by Mr. R. W. Blencowe to the Transac­ chUd, for three months, and neither of them had miA^ • the distemper. And now, at between sixteen ICOilKi' tions of the Sussex Archseological Society, give tis an insight into the minds and characters of and seventeen, I came into the world, to shift the ironmasters whose energy and sagacity for myself, having one brother left, which was it guided this noisy industry, which contrasts so out at prentice, who presently fell out with me strikingly with the quiet now reigning among about what my father had left me, and when I tbe Sussex downs, except where it is disturbed had been at about 10/. charges, we came to occasionally by the distant roar of a railway an agreement. I, by my guardian, had the train, or the screech of the locomotive whistle. administration, and my brother quickly spent all In the prospect of leaving his sons "in a world his portion, and went to sea, and died; and I, of fraud and deceit, a world of all manner of entering into the Avorld at this age, worth about wickedness in all sorts of people," Leonard 200/., within the space of two years and a half, Gale wrote the foUowing breviate of his birth ran out 150/. of it, not with ill husbandry, for I and living, " The advice of me, Leonard Gale, laboured night and day to save what I had left to my two sons, Leonard and Harry, being in to me, but bad servants and trusting was the the 67th year of my age, A.D. 1687. My ruin of me, and then I turned away both man sons hearken unto the words of your loving and maid, and Uved starke alone for the space of father, who earnestly desireth your welfare, and one month, in which time I cast up my accounts, encreasing of grace, learning, and riches. I and found that I was not worth 50/. if I had was born in the parish of Sevenoake in Kent, sold myself to my shirt; then I was in a great iny father, a blacksmith, living in Riverhead- strait, and knew not wliich way to steer, but I street, in the parish aforesaid, Avho lived there cried unto the Lord with my whole heart and iu very good repute, and drove a very good Avith tears, and He heard my cry, and put into trade; his name Francis Gale: my mother was my mind to try one year more, to see what I the daughter of one George Pratt, a very good could do, for I resolved to spend nothing but mine own, and I resolved always ' to keep a con­ Uft yeoman," Uving at Cbelsford, about five mUes from Riverhead; my father had, by a former science void of offence towards God and towards [ieJ3^''' wife, two sons, and by my mother three sons and man.' Then I took a boy to strike and to blow

/ 354 [May 21,1864.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by for me, and a man to work by the piece, but tbat which I Avould not have them do to 33 kept no maid nor woman in my house; and then me " Thus, my son, I liave set down a I so thrived that, within two years and a half, I short breviate of my Ufe unto this day, and got back aU that I had lost before, so that by what the Almighty hath bestowed on me, in the the time I came to twenty-one years of age, I sixty-sixth year of my age, in all which time I had lost 150/. and got it again, and I began to hated idleness and vain-gloriousness, and I never be looked upon as a thriving man ; and so I was, boasted of anything but to the glory of God, and for all the time I kept a smith's forge I laid by my own comfort. I always held the Scriptures 100/. a year, one with another, and having for the rule of life to walk by; and I always gotten enough to keep me well, and being counted it to be a deadly sin to be in any man's burdened with free quartering of soldiers, I left debt longer than they were willing to trust off, and came down into Sussex, after one Spur, me." . . . "My son, Leonard, I pray youto who owed me betAveen 40/. and 50/., and he have a tender respect unto your brothers and being in a bad capacity to pay me, though he sisters, for few men would have left so great an did afterwards pay me all. Before I went home estate to you, and so little to them, when I have again I took St. Leonard's forge, and so kept a gained it all by the blessing of God and my own shop to sell iron, and let out the smith's forge. industry; therefore grudge not anything that I I had not been in the country one year but Mr. may give them; and next have a tender respect Walter Burrell, whom I looked upon as my to your mother, who hath been very tender over mortal enemy, sent to speak with me, and when you in bringing you up, and who nourished you I came to him he told me he heard a very good with her own breast." . . . "Next I advise you report of me, and desired to be acquainted Avith to have a care and be not too famiUar with your me, and he told me if I would let his son Thomas vile neighbours, as I have been, and you now come into partnership with me, he Avould help see how they hate me; indeed, they are but a me to "sows" nearer, and better, and cheaper beggarly and bastard generation, and whom I than I had bought before. I told him I wondered have been at great charges with. Nexc, suffer to hear such things from him, for I heard he no man to inclose my land, nor buUd houses on was my mortal enemy because I took that forge, the waste, for there is Denshies, and Bowmans, and I told him that if he would let me go and Finches, wthich are cottages which will he a partners with liim in the furnace, he should go perpetual charge to you and yours, and so with partners with me in the forge. He desired time Piggotts. Next, I charge you never to suffer that to consider of it, and he rode presently into lane to be inclosed by Woolborough Sears, who Kent to inquire of me, and found such an ac­ took delight to damn up higlnvays to his owu count of me, that he told me I should go ruin; and so it was observed by his neighbours, partners with him in all his works." for he never thrived after he took in Langly- lane, and burned the Crawley footway, and to This partnership lasted about fifteen years, and my knowledge he never thrived since he took in the trade in iron falling off, it was dissolved, and this lane. Next, I advise you to have a great Leonard Gale became the sole proprietor of care of ill and debauched company, especially Tinsloe forge. " Considering," he says, " that wicked and depraved priests, such as are at this I had got about 5000/. or 6000/., having traded present time about me, as Lee and Troughton, about thirty years, and being about forty-six of Worth; never give any of them any enter­ years of age, and having neither brother, sister, tainment, nor none of their companions, for they nor child in the world, I bethought myself about are most vUe and wicked men to my knowledge. taking a wife, and chose this woman, your Next, my advice is, that whatever estates either mother, the daughter of Mr. Johnson, with of you ever attain to, yet follow some employ­ whom I had 500/. and one year's board with ment, which will keep you from abundance of her; and now, at the writing of these Unes, I expenses and charges, and take you off from evil have attained unto the age of sixty-six years, thoughts and wicked actions; and observe the having been married about twenty years, in mechanic priests, which have nothing to do but which time, as God hath been pleased to send to come to church one hour or two on a Sunday, me five children, so hath He improved my estate and aU the week besides they will eat and drink to at least 16,000/., which is 500/. a year, one at such men's houses as you are, but avoid them; year Avith another, Avhich is a very great miracle but love and cherish every honest godly priest to me how^ I should come to so great an estate, wherever you find them; and, above all, hold considering my small dealings, the bad times, fast the ancient Protestant reUgion, for a better and my great losses by bad debts, suits of law, religion cannot be found out than that is, only! and by building; which enforces me to extol could wish the abuses w^ere taken away, and the name of the great God, for He was always wicked men found out, or punished, or turned my director in aU good ways, and A\lien I w-as out. Next, my advice is, that above aU things in distress I called upon Him, and He heard you avoid swearing, lying, drunkenness, ana me, and gave me more than ever my heart de­ gaming, which are the ruin of aU men's estates, sired ; for I had no man in the world that would that are ruined in this nation, and pride or stand by me, either for advice or for money when appareU, which is a great consumer of uieus I wanted, A\-hich enforced me to be careful not estates in this kingdom." to run beyond my own substance, and always resolved 'to keep a good conscience towards Pride of apparel, denounced by this Puritan God and towards man,' and not to do to others ironfounder, was one of the vices which pre- % X. msrm^ Charles Dickena.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND, [May 21, 18G4.] 355

pared and provoked the civil war. In the reign counts A\dthin the last three years of above 150/., of James the First of England a satirical poet which I cannot possibly find out after my utmost said: endeavours." His account of the marriage of all*? They wore a farm in shoestrings, edged with gold, his daughter PhiUppa reminds us of the change And spangled garters, worth a copyhold. which has come over English manners during the past century. " My daughter Philippa, ' an Harrison, the old chronicler, said of the women ornament to her sex, her parents, and the family of London even in the reign of EUzabeth, " I she is grafted in,' was married January 21, mi have met Avith some so disguised that it hath 1730, to James Clitherow, Esq., she being in passed my skUl to discover w^hether they were the twenty-first year of her age, and he about men or women." thirty-seven. I gave her 8000/. to her portion, Three years after writing his advice to his and she has 1200/. per annum settled upon her sons, Leonard Gale the elder died in 1690, and and her heirs, of which 600Z. per annum is for her Leonard, his eldest son, succeeded to his pro­ jointure. All our relatives, except Dr. Wood­ perty. This Leonard resided four years as a ward and his wife, were at the wedding, which 01 Wt gentleman commoner at University College, and was on Thursday, and they stayed a week with was called to the bar. " Being," he says, " very us at Crabbett, and that day fortnight she Avent distrustful of my own abilities, and too great a home to Brentford, accompanied by her mother, •W: lover of idleness and ease, I neglected the study who stayed three weeks with her, and Mrs. Ann ofthe law, and devoted myself to management Clitherow, his sister; and Tim Nightingale, who %lr of my property in the country." Eight years had lived with us near twelve years, went -^ith later he bought the estate and timber of Crabbett her for her maid. There was abundance of for 9000Z. "Two reasons," he says, "chiefly people at Worth church on the wedding, and a induced me to buy Crabbett; one was that my great many strowers ; and the Sunday following estate might lie together, and the other that I there Avas a prodigious congregation at church, might have a good estate, which I had not before, when Mr. Hampton preached an excellent for I was always afraid of building. Building is sermon on this text, * Marriage is honourable in a sweet impoverishing." . . . "August 19, 1703, aU men, and the bed undefiled;' being the same being near thkty years old, I married with Mrs. sermon he preached the next Sunday after I IHllp,^ Sarah Knight, my mother's sister's only daughter, marryed, near twenty - five years before." after I had made my court to her for two or Leonard Gale died in his seventy-seventh year, three years. By her I had a plentiful fortune a few months after the death of his only son (^between 7000/. or 8000/.). We were married Henry, and the wealth earned by three genera­ in the parish church of Charlwood by Mr. tions of frugal and careful men passed to the Hesketh, the rector. She was truly my own families of the husbands of his daughters. choice, and I am extremely w^ell satisfied with it, (J The most celebrated, hoAvever, of the Sussex and do verily believe that for truth and sincerity, ironmasters was far more ancient than the kindness and fidelity, humiUty and good nature, Gales, the legendary St. Dunstan. The ten­ she has few equals. I am sure none can exceed dency of historical criticism has not been favour­ her, and I pray God to continue us long to­ able to the more piquant points of ancient story; gether in health and prosperity, and to crown us and Mr. Mark Antony Lower aUows no great with aU those blessings Avhich He has promised antiquity even to the tongs which is said to to those that serve Him and walk in his ways." have held so firmly the nose ofthe arch-tempter. eir The parish of Mayfield was famous for its iron. ita^:- This blacksmith's son was elected a Member of ParUament for East Grinsted in 1710, with­ There were considerable ironworks upon the out expense or opposition. The power of bribes archiepiscopal estate. The massive iron liand- and threats he deplores as " an eternal scandal raU of the grand staircase is one of the relics of to the whole nation." " Our lands and liberties this manufacture. "The hammer, anvil, and must be precarious; our so much boasted tongs of St. Dunstan preserved here," says Mr. privilege of having free parliaments must be M. A. Lower, "seem to refer as much to the utterly lost. For this is an observation founded iron trade so famous in these iparts, as to the on the greatest truth, that he that will buy his aUeged proficiency of the saint in the craft of a seat in parliament wiU seU his vote; and to blacksmith. The anvU and tongs are of no what misery and poverty such men will soon great antiquity, but the hammer with its iron bring this nation God only knows!" This handle may be considered a mediseval relic." Leonard Gale advised his chUdren to be sure as Archbishops, like doctors, differ; and, although they grew rich in estate to grow richer in Archbishop Parker, as we have seen, denounced wisdom and virtue, taking care that their income the iron trade as a plague, there have been ecclesiastical dignitaries equally high who have rere f should exceed their expenses, and that they daily beard and read more than they spoke or told. encouraged it, and saints who pursued it with When he w^as fifty-two years of age, he said, " I marvellous results. am now worth at Michaelmas, 1724, at a reason­ The Morleys of Glynde worked the forge at able computation, 40,667/.; though I have been Hawksden. They were estabUshed there in the S^ty of many oversights in missing good sixteenth century, and, in the seventeenth, bargains and taking bad." When fifty-eight Herbert Morley, the regicide, died, possessed of years of age, he said, " My memory is growing these works, which descended to his sons. worse, for'l have made some mistake iu my ac­ Among the greatest of these famiUes of iron-

^ ^ 356 [May 21, 1864.] ALL THE YEAR iiOUND. [Conductedby

founders were the Fowles of Riverhall. They stamp to the wall; and he is wise enough to t^- built a fine mansion in 1591, which still retains apply the old adage, about leaving a bridge to traces of its former grandeur. King James the retreating enemy. I shall have more diffi. gave to WiUiam Fowle a grant of free warren culty in silencing the women, however. It will over his numerous manors and lands in Wad­ be a hard task to muzzle their curiosity; but I hurst, Frant, Rotherfield, and Mayfield. The must try some plan to effect it. Is that telegram fourth in descent and heir-male of this WiUiam for me ?" cried he, as a messenger hastened Fowle left RiverhaU, and kept the turnpike-gate hither and thither in search for some one. in Wadhurst. His grandson, Nicholas Fowle, "II Signor Grainger ?" a day-labourer, emigrated to America in 1839, " Yes, all right," said he, taking it. It was with his son John Fowle, a wheelwright, and a in these few words. numerous young family, carrying wdth them, as a " They find it can be done—make tracks. family reUc, the royal grant of free warren given "DKAYTON." to their ancestor. " They find it can be done," muttered he. This family, like many others, rose and fell " Which means, it is legal to apprehend me. ii^i with the Sussex iron trade. Geologists say Well, I supposed as much! I never reckoned there is still in this district more and finer iron- on immunity ; and as to getting away, I'm readier ore than in many of the coal-fields of England; for it, and better provided too, than you think but, when the art of using coal in smelting in­ for, Master Algernon. Indeed, I can't well say stead of charcoal was discovered, it was found what infatuation binds me to this spot, apart from to be cheaper. Without intending it, the coal- the peril that attends it. I don't know that I am Iif lias some miners interposed to preserve the woods from very much what is called in love with Florence, islallh though I'd certaiiUy marry her if she'd have me; the destruction lamented by the poets. Dray­ ••••ki\%m ton, in his Polyolbion, made the trees denounce but for that there are, what the ladynovehsts call, jfetaver the iron trade in the foUowing strain: ' mixed motives,' and I rather suspect it is not i,tslesle| with any especial or exclusive regard for her ! ••» Jove's oak, the warlike ash, vein'd elm, the happiness that I'd enter into the holy bonds. I softer beech, should like to consult some competent authority Short hazel, maple plain, light asp, the bending on the physiology of hatred—why it is that, wych, though scores of fellows have injured me deeply Tough holly, and smooth birch must altogether in life, I never bore any, no, nor the whole of burn. What should the builder serve, supplies the them collectively, the ill will that 1 feel for that forger's turn; man. He has taken towards me a tone tbat When under public good, base private gain takes none have ever dared to take. He menaces me! hold, Fifty have wronged : none have ever threatened And we, poor woful woods, to ruin lastly sold. me. He who threatens, assumes to be your •i' le Tn'ot( The last of the Sussex furnaces, the property master, to dictate the terms of his forbearance, •^'loiitlieroa of Lord Ashburnham, was blown out in 1825. and to declare under what conditions he will 'i'Mjaiiiatoi Bars of Sussex iron are now curiosities or relics. spare you. Now^, Master Loyd, I can't say if -:^c?SEfilii]nac The iron of the entrances to the new church this be a part to suit your powers, but I know •vfcpatlie at Listed was made at Ashburnham in one of well, the other is one which in no way is --TUe lie the last heats of the forge. A true Sussex adapted to mine. Nature has endowed me ^^•'crielCs man feels a peculiar thrill of regret when he with a variety of excellent qualities, but, some­ passes the raUings of St. Paul's in London; how, in the hurry of her benevolence, she for­ and, the ores being plentiful in his native fields, got patience! I suppose one can't have every­ he may be excused for fancying that an in­ thing 1" dustry, which an improvement in metallurgy has While he thus mused and speculated, the boat put down, a new discovery may any day raise swept smoothly over the lake, and Onofrio, not up again, and anthracite, or some other fuel, remarking the little attention Calvert vouchsafed enable Sussex again to supply iron for armies to him, went on talking of " I Grangeri" as the or for fleets, for monuments or firesides. most interesting subject he could think of. At last Calvert's notice was drawn to his words by hearing how the old lady had agreed to A RENT IN A CLOUD. take the villa for a year, with the power of IN TA\^ENTY-FOUK CHAPTEBS. continuing to reside there longer if she were so CHAPTEK XIV. THE LAST WALK IN THE GAKDEN. minded. | THE only letter Calvert found at the post- The compact had been made only the day ')) office for the viUa was one in the vicar's hand, before, after Calvert had started for Milan, evi­ addressed to Miss Grainger. Nothing from dently—to his thinking—showing that it had Loyd himself, nor any newspaper. So far, then, been done with reference to something in Loyd s Loyd had kept his pledge. He awaited to see if last letter. " Strange that she did not consult w?^ Calvert would obey his injunctions before he upon it," thought he; "I who have been her proceeded to unmask him to his friends. chief counsellor on everything. Perhaps tbe Calvert did not regard this reserve as any­ lease of my confidence has expired. But bow thing generous—he set it down simply to fear. does it matter ? A few hours more, and ah these He said to himself, "The feUow dreads me; he people shall be no more to me than that lazy knows that it is never safe to push men of my cloud that is hanging about the mountain-top. Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [May 21, 1864.] 357

They may Uve or die, or marry, or mourn, and Joseph nor myself desire to go back; indeed, all be as nothing to me—as if I had never met it is not at a moment like the present we would them. And what shaU /be to them, I wonder ?" open a question that could imperUthe affections cried he, with a bitter laugh; " a very dreadful that unite us. It is enough to know that we dream, I suppose; something like the memory trust each other, and need neither guarantees of a shipwreck, or a fire from which they escaped nor guidance.'" without any consciousness of the means that " The old knave !" cried Calvert. " A priest rescued them ! A horrid nightmare whose terrors is always a Jesuit, no matter Avhat Church he always come back in days of depression and iU­ belongs to." ness. At aU events, I shall not be ' poor Cal­ " Oh, Mr. Calvert." vert,' 'that much to be pitied creature who " But he's quite right after all. I am far too really had some good in him.' No, I shall cer­ worldly-minded in my notions to negotiate with tainly be spared all commiseration of that kind, men of such exalted ideas as he and his son and they'll no more recur AviUingly to my possess. Besides, I am suddenly caUed away. memory than they'll celebrate the anniversary I shall have to leave this immediately. They of some day that brought them shame and mis­ are making a fuss about that unfortunate affair fortune. at Basle, and want to catch me as a witness; and, "Now, then, for my positively last appear­ as my evidence would damage a fellow I reaUy ance in my present Une of character! And yonder pity, though I condemn, I must keep out of the ^i. I see the old dame on the look-out for me ; she way." certainly has some object in meeting me before " Well, you are certain to find us here when­ her nieces shall know it.—Land rae in that nook ever you_feel disposed to have your own room there, Onofrio, and wait for me." again. I have taken the villa for another "I have been very impatient for your coming," year " said she, as he stepped on shore; " I have so Not paying the slightest attention to this much to say to you; but, first of all, read this. speech, he went on: " There is one point on It is from the vicar." which I shall be absolute. No one speaks of The letter was not more than a few lines, and me when I leave this. Not alone that you abstain to this purport: he was about to quit the home yourself from any allusion to my having been he had lived in for more than thirty years, and here, and Avhat you know of me, but that you was so overwhelmed with sorrow and distress, will not suffer any other to make me his topic. that he really could not address his thoughts to It is enough to say that a question of my life flsra:- any case but the sad one before him. "' All these is involved in this request. Barnard's fate has calamities have fallen upon us together; for involved me in a web of calumny and libel, although,' he wa^ote, * Joe's departure is the which I am resolved to bear too, to cover the poor first step on the road to future fortune, it is still fellow's memory. If, however, by any indiscre­ separation, and at our age who is to say if we tion of my friends—and remember, it can only be shaU ever see him again ?' " of my friends under this roof—I am driven to "Skip the pathetic bit, and come to this. defend myself, there is no saying how much What have we here about the P. and 0. more blood wiU have to flow" in this quarrel. steamers ?" cried Calvert. Do you understand me ?"' it "' Through the great kindness of the Secretary " Partly," said she, trembling all over. ^ of State, Joe has obtained a free passage out—a " This much you cannot mistake," said he, favour, as I hear, very rarely granted—and he sternly; " that my name is not to be uttered, nor means to pay you a flying visit; leaving this on written, mind that. If, in his short visit, Loyd Tuesday, to be with you on Saturday, and, by should speak of me, stop him at once. Say,^' Mr. repairing to Leghorn on the foUoAving Wednes­ Loyd, there are reasons why I will not discuss day, to catch the packet at Malta. This wUl that person; and I desire that my wish be under­ give him three entire days with you, which, stood as a command.' You wiU impress your though they be stolen from us, neither his mo­ nieces with the same reserve. I suppose, if they ther nor myself have the heart to refuse him. hear that it is a matter which involves the Ufe Poor fellow, he tries to believe—perhaps he does of more than one, that they will not need to be believe—that we are all to meet again in happi­ twice cautioned. Bear in mind, this is no caprice ness and comfort, and I do my best not to of mine; it is no piece of that Calvert eccen­ discourage him ; but I am now verging on tricity, to which, fairly enough sometimes, you seventy ' " ascribe many of my actions. I am in a position " How tiresome he is about his old age ; is of no common peril; I have incurred it to save there any more about his son ?" asked Calvert, the fair fame of a fellow I have known and liked impatiently. for years. I mean, too, to go through with it; that is, I mean up to a certain point to sacrifice t\i< 1 " Yes, he says here: ' Joe is, as you may ima­ gine, full of business, and what between his in­ myself. Up to a certain point, I say, for if I am terviews with official people, and his personal pushed beyond that, then I shaU declare to the cares for his long journey, has not a moment to world: Upon you and your slanderous tongues spare. He wUl, however, write to-morrow, de­ be the blame, not mine the fault, for what is to tailing all that he has done and means to do. happen now." Of that late suggestion that came from ^ you He uttered these words with a rapidity and ^bout referring us to a third party, neither vehemence that made her tremble from head to 358 [May 21, 1864.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conductedby foot. This was not, besides, the first time she to breakfast—I can picture the lazy fool leaning had witnessed one of those passionate outbursts out of that window, gazing at those taU snow- for which his race was celebrated, and it needed peaks, whUe Florence is waiting for him in the no oath to confirm the menace his speech garden—I know well all the little graceful shadowed forth. attentions that AVUI be prepared for him, vulgar " This is a pledge, then,'* said he, grasping her dog as he is, who wUl not even recognise the hand. " And now to talk of something pleasanter. especial courtesies that have been designed for That old uncle of mine has behaved very hand­ him; well, if I be not sorely mistaken, I have somely ; has sent me some kind messages, and, dropped some poison in his cup. I have taught what is as much to the purpose, some money;" Florence to feel that courage is the first of and, as he spoke, he carelessly drew from his manly attributes, and, what is more to the pocket a roll of the bank-notes he had so lately purpose, to have a sort of half dread that it is not won at play. "' Before making any attempt to re­ amongst her lover's gifts. I have left her as my enter the service,' he says, ^ you must keep out last legacy that rankling doubt, and I defy herto of the way for a while.' And he is right there; tear it out of her heart! What a sovereign the advice is exceUent, and I mean to follow it. antidote to all romance it is, to have the convic­ In his postscript he adds: 'Thank Grainger'—he tion, or, if not the conviction, the impression, means Miss Grainger, but you know how the mere suspicion, that he who spouts the fine blunderingly he viTites—'for all her kindness to sentiments of the poet with such heartfelt you, and say how glad we should all be to see her ardour, is a poltroon, ready to run from danger at Rocksley, whenever she comes next to Eng­ and hide himself at the approach of peril, I land.' " have made Milly believe this; she has no doubt The old lady's face grew crimson; shame at of it; so that if sisterly confidences broach first, aud pride afterwards, overwhelming her. the theme, Florence will find all her worst fears To be called Grainger was to bring her back at confirmed. The thought of this fellow as my once to the old days of servitude—that dreary rival maddens me !" cried he, as he started up life of nursery governess—which had left its dark and paced the room impatiently. "Is not that shadow on all her later years; while to be the Florence I see in the garden ? Alone too! What guest at Rocksley was a triumph she had never a chance 1" In a moment he hastened noiselessly imagined in her vainest moments, down the stairs, opened the drawing-room window, and was beside her. " Oh, will you teU him how proud I am for his kind remembrance of me, and what an "I hope the bad news they tell me is not honour I should feel it to pay my respects to true," she said, as they walked along side by him?" ' ' ' side. "They'U make much of you, I promise you," "What is the bad news?" said Calvert, " when they catch you at Rocksley, "That you are going to leave us." and you'll not get away in a hurry. Now let us " And are you such a hypocrite, Florry, as to go our separate ways, lest the girls suspect AVC call this bad news, when you and I both know have been plotting. I'll take the boat and row how Uttle I shaU be needed here in a day or two? down to the steps. Don't forget all I have been We are not to have manymore moments together; saying," were his last words as the boat moved these are probably the very last of them; let us away. be frank and honest. I'm not surely asking too " I hope I have bound that old fool in heavy much in that! For many a day you have sealed recognisances to keep her tongue quiet; andnoAV up my Ups by the threat of not speaking to me for the more difficult task of the young ones," on the morroAV. Your menace has been, if you said he, as he stretched himself full length in repeat this language, I will not walk with you the boat, like one wearied by some effort that again. Now, Florry, this threat has lost its taxed his strength. " I begin to believe it will terror, for to-morrow I shall be gone, gone for be a reUef to me to get away from this place !" ever, and so to-day, here now, I say once more, he muttered to himself, "though I'd give my I love you! How useless to teU me that it is right hand to pass the next week here, and spoU all in vain; that you do not, cannot return my the happiness of those fond lovers. Could I not affection. I tell you I can no more despair do it ?" Here was a problem that occupied him than I can cease to love you ! In the force or till he reached the landing at the vUla, but that love I bear you is my confidence. I bave as he stepped on shore, he cried, "No, this the same trust in it that I would have m my must be the last time I shall ever mount these courage." steps!" " If you but knew the pain you gave me by Calvert passed the day in his room; he had such words as these " much to think over, and several letters to write. " If you knew the pain they cost me to utter Though the next step he was to take in life them!" cried he. " It is bringing a proud heart in aU probability involved his whole future very low to sue as humbly as I do. And for career, his mind was diverted from it by the what? Simply for time—only time. AU I ask is, thought tbat this was to be his last night at the do not utterly reject one who only needs your viUa—the last time he should ever see Florence. love to be worthy of it. When I think of w^t "Ay," thought he, "LoydwiU be the occupant I was when I met you first—you !—and feel tne of this room in a day or two more. I can fancy change you have wrought in my whole nature; the playful tap at this door, as MiUy goes down how you have planted truthfulness where there Charles Dickens,] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [May 21, 1864.] 359

was once but doubt; how you have made hope and don't believe these fellows can touch me, succeed a dark and Ustiess indifference—when I/ion't intend to open the question, or reserve 'helitfi:, I know and feel that in my struggle to be better the point for the twelve jud^^es, but mean to it is you,^ and you alone, are the prize before me, evacuate Flanders at once; indeed, my chief and that if that be withdraAvn life has no longer a even If;. difficulty w^as to decide which way to turn, for bribe to my ambition—when I think of these, having the whole worid before me where to Florry, can you wonder if I want to carry away choose, left me in that indecision which the '^ with me some small spark that may keep the poet pronounces national Avhen he says, embers alive in my heart ?" "It is not generous to urge me thus," said I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here, m IS ^> she, in a faint voice. Musing in my mind what raiment I shaH wear! "The grasp of thedrowning man has little Chance, however, has done for me Avhat my judg­ time for generosity. You may not care to rescue ment could not. I have been up to Milan and me, but you may have pity for my fate." had a look through the newspapers, and I see " Oh, if you but knew bow sorry I am " what I have often predicted has happened. The " Go on, dearest. Sorry for what ?" Rajahs of Bengal have got sick of their bene­ " I don't know what I was going to say; you factors, and are bent on getting rid of what we have agitated and confused me so, that I feel love to call the blessings of the English rule in bewildered. I shrink from saying what Avould India. Next to a society for the suppression of pain you, and yet I want to be honest and creditors, I know of no movement which could straightforward." more thoroughly secure my sympathy. The "If you mean that to be like the Avarning of brown skin is right. What has he to do with the surgeon—I must cut deep to cure you—I those covenanted and uncovenanted Scotch­ can't say I bave courage for it." men who want to enrich themselves by bullying For some minutes they walked on side by him ? What need has he of governors-general^ side without a word. At length he said, in a grave political residents, collectors, and commanders- and serious tone, " I have asked your aunt, and in-chief ? Could he not raise his indigo, water she has promised me that, except strictly amongst his rice-fields, and burn his widow, without yourselves, my uame is not to be mentioned any help of ours ? particularly as our help when I leave this*: She will, if you care for them, takes the shape of taxation and vexatious inter­ give you my reasons ; and I only advert to it ference. now amongst other last requests. This is a "I suppose all these are very unpatriotic promise, is it not ?" sentiments; but in the same proportion that She pressed his hand and nodded. Britons never will be slaves, they certainly " Will you now grant me one favour ? Wear have no objection to make others such, and I this ring for my sake; a token of mere memory, shudder in the very marrow of my morality to no more! Nay, I mean to ask Milly to wear think that but for the accident of an accident I another. Don't refuse me." He drew her hand might at this very moment have been employed towards him as he spoke, and slipped a rich to assist in repressing the noble aspirations of turquoise ring upon her finger. Although her niggerhood, and helping to stifie the cry of hand trembled, and she averted her head, she freedom that now resounds from the Sutlej to had not courage to say him no. the Ganges. Is not that a twang from your own " You have not told us where you are going lyre, Master D. ? Could our Own Correspondent to, nor when we are to hear from you 1" said she, have come it stronger? after a moment. "Happily, her Majesty has no further occa­ "I don't think I know either!" said he, in sion for my services, and I can take a brief from his usual reckless way. •" I have half a mind the other side. Expect to hear, therefore, in to join Schamyl—I know him—or take a turn some mysterious paragraph, ^ That the mode in with the Arabs against the French. I suppose," which the cavalry were led, or the guns pointed, added he, with a bitter smUe, " it is my fate plainly indicated that a European soldier held always to be on the beaten side, and I'd not command on this occasion; and, indeed, some know how to comport myself as a winner." assert that an English officer was seen directing '^ There's Milly making a signal to us. Is it the movements on our flank.' To which let me dinner-time already ?" said she. add the hope that the FusiUers may be "Ay, my last dinner here!" he muttered. there to see ; and if I do not give the major a She turned her head away, and did not speak. lesson in battalion drill, call me a Dutchman! There is every reason why the revolt should On that last evening at the viUa nothing succeed. I put aside all the bosh about an en­ very eventful occurred. All that need be re­ slaved race and a just cause, and come to the corded wiU be found in the following letter, fact of the numerical odds opposed. The climate which Calvert wrote to his friend Drayton, after intolerable to one, and easily borne by the other; he had wished his hosts a good night, and gained the distance from which reinforcements must his room, retiring, as he did, early, to be up be­ come; and, last of all, the certainty that if the times in the morninec and catch the first train struggle only last long enough to figure in two for Milan. budgets, John BuU will vote it a bore, and refuse "Dear Drayton,—I got your telegram, and to pay for it. But here am I getting political though I suspect you are astray in your ' law,' wlien I only meant to be personal; and now to y 360 ALL THE YEAR ROUND [May 21,1864.] come back, I own that my resolve to go out to pleasantly I might linger on here, 'My duns India has been aided by hearing that Loyd, of forgetting, by my duns forgot.' How smoothly whom I spoke in my last, is to leave by the next I might float down the stream of life, without mail, and will take passage on board the P. and even having to pull an oar ! How delightfully O. steamer Leander, due at Malta on the 22nd. domestic and innocent and inglorious the whole My intention is to be his fellow-traveUer, and thing! Isn't it tempting, you dog ? Does it not with this resolve I shall take the Austrian touch even your temperament through its thick steamer to Corfu, and come up with my friend hide of worldliness ? And I believe m my heart at Alexandria. You wUl perhaps be puzzled to it is all feasible, all to be done. know why the claims of friendship are so strong "I have just tossed up for it. Head for upon me at such a moment, and I satisfy your India, and head it is ! So that Loyd is booked most natural curiosity by stating that this is a for a pleasant journey, and I start to-morrow, to mission of torture. I travel with this man to ensure him all the happiness in my power to insult and to outrage him; to expose him in confer. For the present, it would be as well to public places, and to confront him at all times. tell aU anxious and inquiring friends, into which I mean that this overland journey should be to category come tailors, bootmakers, jewellers, him for l?is life long the reminiscence of a pil­ &c., that it will be a postal economy not to grimage of such martyrdom as few bave passed address Mr. Harry Calvert in any European through, and I have the vanity to believe that capital, and to let the ' bUls lie on the table,' and not many men have higher or more varied gifts be read this day six years, but add, that if pro­ for such a mission t lan myself. My first task perly treated by fortune, I mean to acquit my on reaching Calcutta shall be to report progress debts to them one of these days. to you. "That I 'wish they may get it' is, therefore, " I don't mind exposing a Aveakness to an old no scornful or derisive hope of your friend, friend, and so I own to you I fell in love here. " H. CALVEET. The girl had the obduracy and Avrong-headedness "If—not a likely matter—anything occurs not to yield to my suit, and so I had no choice Avorth mention, you shall have a line from me left me but to persist in it. I know, however, from Venice." that if I could only remain here a fortnight When he had concluded his letter, he extin­ longer I should secure the inestimable triumph guished his candles, and sat doAvn at the open of rendering both of us miserable for Ufe 1 Yes, window. The moon had gone down, and, though Drayton, that pale girl and her paltry fifteen star-lit, the night was dark. The window in the thousand pounds might have spoiled one of the other wing ofthe villa, at which he had seen the grandest careers that ever adorned history! and figure through the curtain, was now thrown lost the world the marvellous origin, rise, pro­ open, and he could see that Florence, with a gress, and completion of the dynasty of the great shawl wrapped round her, was leaning out, and English Begum Calvert in Bengal. Count upon talking to some one in the garden underneath. me for high office whenever penny-a-lining fails "It is the first time," said a voice he knew to you, and, if my realm be taxable, you shall be be Emily's, " that I ever made a bouquet in the my Chancellor of the Exchequer ! dark." " You are right about that business at Basle; " Come up, Milly dearest; the dew is falling to keep up a controversy would be to invest it heavily. I feel it even here." with more interest for public gossip. Drop it, " ru just fasten this rose I have here in his therefore, andthe Avorld wiU drop it; and, take hat; he saw it in my hair to-night, and he'U re­ my word for it, I'll give them something more member it." to say of me one of these days than that my hair- She left tbe garden, the window was closed. trigger was too sensitive ! I'm writing this in The light was put out, and aU was sUent. the most romantic of spots. The moonlight is sleeping—isn't that the conventional ?—over the olive plain, and the smaU silvery leaves are glit­ NEW WORK BY MR. DICKENS, In Monthly Parts, uniform with the Original Editions of tering in its pale light. Up the great Alps, '* Pickwick," " Copperfleld," &c. amongst the deep crevasses, a fitful flashing of Now publishing, PART I., price Is., of lightning promises heat for the morrow; a nightingale sings close to my Aviudow; and OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. through the muslin curtain of another casement BY CHARLES DICKENS. I can see a figure pass and repass, and even dis­ IN TAVENTY MONTHLY PARTS. tinguish that her long hair has fallen down, and With Illustrations by MARCUS STONE. floats loosely over neck and shoulders. How London: CHAPMAN and HALL, 193, Piccadilly.

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