CHAPTER IX.

“Oh, man! oh, man! what pity ’tis,That what we whop our heeghest blissSud disappoint us; nay, what’s worse,Sae oft turns out a real curse.It shows man’s want o’ fworeseeght truly,In not consideran’ matters duly.”Tom Knott.

“Oh, man! oh, man! what pity ’tis,

That what we whop our heeghest bliss

Sud disappoint us; nay, what’s worse,

Sae oft turns out a real curse.

It shows man’s want o’ fworeseeght truly,

In not consideran’ matters duly.”

Tom Knott.

Thedelight of the Sandboys at the recovery of their luggage was not altogether unbroken. If Mrs. Cursty was overjoyed at the prospect of a “change of linen,” still her joy was considerably alloyed with fear at the continued absence of her dear Jobby. If Elcy rejoiced exceedingly at the discovery of her pet Psyche, she was, nevertheless, deeply afflicted at the thought of some misfortune having befallen her brother.

The same family consultation as had been previously held concerning the discovery of the missing luggage was now renewed, as to the best mode of finding the absent boy. Mrs. Sandboys requested to know whether she couldn’t have him cried.

Cursty, however, was for putting an advertisement in theTimessuch as that newspaper-loving gentleman had seen continually in the same column of the leading journal, running—

“If this should meet the eye of J. S., of Buttermere,

he is requested to return to his disconsolate parents immediately.”

But Mrs. Fokesell suggested that, according to all accounts, the boy would be but too glad to come back directly, if he only knew the way.

This was more than the philosophy of Mr. Sandboys had calculated for. He saw the force of the argument, and, consequently, modified his plan of action into a proposal to have a hundred or two of bills printed, headed—

“Missing—A Young Gentleman,”

And, after giving a full and flattering description of the lad, to wind up by announcing that any one who should bring him to Mrs. Fokesell’s house, should beHANDSOMELY REWARDEDfor their trouble.

The latter proposition being considered to be unobjectionable by Mrs. Fokesell, Postlethwaite was had in, and the copy of the wished-for bill having been written out, amidst considerable altercation on Mrs. Sandboy’s part as to the personal characteristics of the youth, the deaf serving-man was, after much shouting, made to understand that he was to take the document to a printer’s in an adjoining street, and leave it there with the note that Elcy, to prevent accidents, had written to the head of the establishment, requesting him to have the bills printed and circulated throughout the metropolis, with as little delay as possible.

Postlethwaite was again shouted at so as to make him understand the road he had to follow; but from the odd jumble that, owing to his imperfect hearing, he made of the names of the different streets, it was deemed advisable that the several turnings he had to take, and the names of the various thoroughfares he had to traverse, should be written down for him, andthenhe could make no blunder.

The list having been prepared, the poor deaf man was started on his errand. But no sooner did the wretched individual emerge into the Strand, than the crowd and hurry of the dense throng that streamed along, half in one direction and half in another, so bewildered him, that, as he stood to look at the names of the streets, he was twisted round and round, first this way and then the other, by the impatient passengers; so that, what with the novelty of the scene he felt at the sight of so many vehicles whose approach he knew he could not hear, and what with the jostlings of the people, and the vertigo superinduced by the continual gyrations that he was forced to make by the crowd, the poor man got so confused in his mind, that in a few minutes it was impossible for him to tell which way he had come or whither he was going, and the consequence was that, with the best possible desire to go right, he proceeded in the very opposite direction to that which he had been instructed to follow.

It was useless for the poor deaf beetle-like countryman to ask his way of any of the strangers; for even in the stillness of home it required the lungs of a Surrey tragedian to make him comprehend what was said; but, amid all the roar of the commercial tide of London, it was sheer waste of breath to endeavour to make the least impression on his leathery tympanum. Moreover, like the generality of people who are a “little” hard of hearing, he was so eager to hide his infirmity, and to put those addressing him to as little extra trouble as possible, that he was always ready to catch at half a meaning, and consequently, from some faint analogy in the sound, was continually putting constructions on what was said that were diametrically different from what was intended.

Hence it was but natural, when poor Postlethwaite requested of the passers-by to be put in the right way towards his destination, that he was, owing either to his own infirmity, or to the wickedness of the London boys, invariably sent in the wrong.

And here, in the midst of the London crowd and London roguery, tossed about from street to lane, from lane to square, and from square again to park, we must for awhile leave the bewildered and melancholy serving-man wandering—like Mr. Leigh Hunt’s memorable pig—up “all manner of streets.”

Postlethwaite had not been gone long when a policeman brought Jobby back to his temporary home, but in a very different state from that in which he had left it. Mrs. Sandboys herself had to look at him twice before she could make up her mind that another shameful trick was not about to be practised upon her in the form of a false case of affiliation.

The new suit of clothes which his mother had purchased for the youth at Cockermouth was gone, and in its place he now wore a man’s ragged old pea-jacket—once blue, but now foxy with age—and a pair of trousers as wide as windsails, and smeared with tar, so that they bore a strong resemblance to coal-sacks; while on his head was a dirty old straw-hat, with a low crown and broad brim, that reminded one strongly of an inverted soup-plate. The jacket was tied together at the button-holes by bits of rope-yarn; for the miserable young gentleman had no shirt to his back, nor had a shoe or a stocking to his feet.

The truth was, as the policeman proceeded to explain to his terrified mother, Master Jobby had been what in the eastern districts of the Metropolis is technically termed “skinned.”

The lad’s story was soon told. Led on by the delight of the posturers’ performance, he had followed the “School of Acrobats” for miles. Then he had suddenly lighted upon a Punch and Judy Show, and this had so tickled his boyish fancy, that he wandered with it half over London. After this, a street-band of Ethiopian serenaders had bewitched him; their lamp-black faces, their white-paper wristbands and collars, and their fuzzy horsehair wigs, together with the banjos and kettle-drums, and the rattle of the bones, and the chuckle of the nigger-laugh,—all were so new and strange to the boy, that he travelled after them in all directions. Then, as he was growing footsore with his long rambles, an engine at full speed, with the horses galloping, and the firemen in their shiny helmets seated along each side of the machine, went tearing past; and when Jobby saw the people hurry after it, he, too, joined in the crowd. As he ran along, he asked some of the mob who accompanied him, what it all meant; and learning that a fire was raging down at Shadwell, he hurried on the quicker and the lighter to see the sight. But though he kept up with the crowd through many a street and past many a turning, yet, when he reached the Docks, he began to feel so weary, while the sight of the forest of masts showing above the walls and roofs, so took his boyish fancy, that he came to a dead halt, and letting the engine go on its way, entered the gates of the London Docks.

Here he strolled about, now stopping to listen to the song of the labourers as they tramped round the wheels that lifted the goods from the vessels alongside the quay; then he wandered to the sugar-houses, and watched the coopers within mending the broken casks; and stood some time at the door, placing his foot stealthily on the sticky floor, coated, as with tar, with the drainings of the casks. Hence he sauntered to the bridges, and there he loved to stand while the iron viaduct was swung back with him and the other loiterers upon it, to make way for some huge emigrant ship, that presently glided through, with its decks littered with ropes and packages, and the passengers grouped at the stern, nodding and waving their handkerchiefs to their friends down upon the quay. Thus Jobby passed the time till the hour came for all to leave; and then, following the stream of labourers, he reached the gates, and there, having watched the workmen pass one by one, in a long file, through the narrow doorway, while the officers hastily searched each as he went past, the youth turned out into the streets once more, ignorant where he was, or which way to go to reach his home.

Now, too, the excitement being over, the youth began for the first time to feel how tired and hungry he was, and to think of the distance he had travelled. It was impossible for him to remember the road by which he had come, so he asked a boy to direct him back to the Strand. The London lad, seeing that Jobby was fresh from the country, made up his mind to have a bit of fun with him, and directed him down some of the many courts and alleys which abound in that locality, and which generally end in “no thoroughfare.”

The unsuspecting Jobby went on his way as he was bid; and when he found, on coming to the end of the last court, that a trick had been played upon him, weary and famishing as he was, the poor lad could not help seating himself on the door-step of the nearest house, and bursting into a flood of tears.

Here the wretched youth was soon espied by one of the female inmates, who, seeing that he was well dressed, invited him in, and drew from him, without much difficulty, the whole story of his troubles. She offered him some ale, telling him that a draught of it would be sure to refresh him, and help him on his journey. The simple lad thankfully received a mug of the drink, but had scarcely swallowed it, before his chin fell with a sudden drowsiness upon his bosom; and though he started up and tried to shake the sleepiness off, it was too much for him; and in a few minutes he was dead asleep in the chair.

Jobby could remember no further, save that, on waking, he found himself in a wretched, damp, dirty room, lying on the sacking of a bare bedstead, and on looking for his clothes, he discovered that they had been stolen, and the ragged ones he now wore left in their place. He was too frightened to recollect how he had got away from the house, or found his way out of the courts. All he knew was, that on reaching the open street, he had placed himself under the protection of the first policeman he could meet, who returned with the boy to see if he could find out the house again, but in vain. The many windings and turnings of the courts so confused the country lad, that it was impossible for him to recall the way he had gone. After this, the policeman had taken him to the station, where the superintendent had given orders to one of the men to accompany him home.

Mrs. Sandboys was too glad to have her darling boy with her once again to feel inclined either to grieve or scold overmuch about his adventures; besides, she now knew the luggage would arrive in a few hours, and then he and the rest of the family could be made clean and sweet, which, she began to think, they were far from being at that present moment.

Mr. Sandboys, too, was not so much annoyed at the occurrence as might have been expected. Not only was he delighted at the boy’s return, but he felt a kind of inward satisfaction to find that his long-cherished theory as to the wickedness of the great Metropolis was being, in all its particulars, so fully borne out. He had foreseen, he said, every occurrence that had happened, but they had only themselves to blame. He had fully warned them of all they had to undergo; and, in his opinion—if he knew anything at all about the rogueries of London—they had not yet gone through one tithe of the troubles that were in store for them.

Cursty’s sermonizing was at last cut short by the arrival of the long looked-for luggage. Then Mrs. Sandboys was in her glory. If ladies delight in the synthetical operation of packing, they certainly find an equal delight in the analytical process of unpacking—even as children take pleasure in building up their card-houses, and a like pleasure in blowing them down again.

It was not long before Mrs. Sandboys, with Elcy at her elbow, was down on her knees in the kitchen, in front of a long open box, counting the several articles enumerated on a piece of paper gummed to the lid, to satisfy herself that none had been abstracted during their absence. And as she examined the state of her best caps and bonnets, she found them so tumbled, that she felt thoroughly convinced they had been worn by some parties—the wives of the railway men, she had no doubt—or why, as she said, should they have kept them so long on the way?

Nor was the pleasure of going over “her things” confined to Mrs. Sandboys alone, for even the maid and Mrs. Fokesell, though in no way concerned, seemed to experience a similar delight in the operation; for there they stood by her side, watching and admiring every article as she took it from the box.

At length, having looked out the much-wished-for, or rather, according to the lady, the much-wanted “change,” for the whole family, she gave them each their bundle of clean clothes, and having arranged with Mrs. Fokesell that they might be allowed the use of the back attic, as a temporary dressing-room, during the absence of the German Baron and his lady, Cursty was started up stairs and told by his wife to make as much haste as possible, for really she was getting alarmed about Postlethwaite, and she wanted Mr. Sandboys immediately that he had “tidied” himself to step round to the printer’s and try and learn whatever had become of the poor man.

In a few minutes Mr. Sandboys returned to the kitchen, clad in his best suit, to receive the opinion of his wife as to the improved character of his appearance. Mrs. Sandboys twisted her “guidman” round and round, tried to pull the wrinkles out of his coat behind, pinched up the frill of his shirt, and ultimately pronounced that she thought he would do—at least, thank guidness, she said he was clean and sweet once more. Then, having kissed him, she despatched him on his errand after the deaf Postlethwaite.

Mrs. Sandboys was still engaged in the interesting process of unpacking her trunks in the kitchen, when a hawker of flowers, with a basket of all colours on his head, stopped before the railings, and observing the lady down stairs, immediately commenced crying—“Fine flowers! sweet-scented flowers! handsome flowers!—all a-blowing—all a-growing!”

Elcy, observing the bright scarlet blossoms of the geraniums, and the long crimson drops of the fuchsias swinging backwards and forwards in the wind, and the pink balls of roses, nodding at every motion of the huckster’s head, called out to her mother to come and see what beautiful plants the man had got.

The street-seller no sooner caught sight of Mrs. Sandboys, than he shouted again—“Fine flowers! sweet-scented flowers. Take any old clothes for ’em, ma’am. You may have the pick of the basket for an old coat.”

Mrs. Sandboys shook her head, but the street-seller seeing her still look up, put his basket down on the pavement, and began trying to have a deal with her down the area railings.

“Now’s your time, ladies,” he cried, “you can have this here moss-rose for an old weskit, or a pair of satin shoes. Now’s your time, ladies; all a-blowing! all a-growing!”

Elcy, at her mother’s request, stepped out into the area to tell the man that they didn’t want any.

But the cunning dealer having once got the girl into conversation, handed her down a pot of mignionette, and begged her just to put her nose to that there. As she sniffed at the fragrant flowers, the man said he’d accept of anything, he didn’t mind what it was, how old or how dirty, for he had not taken a penny all that day. “Any old trowsers, Miss, if you’ll tell your ma, or an old hat, or a pair of boots—it’s all the same, Miss; though they a’n’t no use to you, they’re as good as money to us. Take that there pot in to your ma, Miss, and ax her just to put her nose to it, and then say whether she doesn’t think such a nosegay as that there a’n’t worth an old straw bonnet, or some white linen rags.”

Elcy trotted in with the plant, vowing that she had never in all her life seen such beautiful flowers as the man had in his basket,—the geraniums quite made her eyes ache to look at them; and then she told her mother that the man said he would take anything for them, even old rags.

The novelty of the transaction, the beauty of the plants, and the seeming wonderful cheapness of them, all produced such an effect upon Mrs. Sandboy’s mind, that she began to consider what useless article she had with her that she could offer the man in exchange for one of them.

After much cogitation, they both came to the conclusion that the trowsers which Mr. Sandboys had worn in the morning were too shabby for him to put on in London; they were the “old things” said his wife, which he had split to pieces in going after that tiresome pig, and which, on second thoughts, she had considered quite good enough for him to travel in; and now, as the new ones she had bought him at Cockermouth had come to hand, why, there was no necessity for her keeping the others any longer; and she knew very well, unless she got rid of the nasty, shabby old things, Cursty would be making his appearance in them some day; whereas if she took them out in flowers, it would prevent his ever wearing them again.

The determination once formed, Mrs. Sandboys motioned the flower-seller to the street-door, while Elcy was despatched to fetch the trowsers that her father had recently taken off.

The street-seller, on seeing the garments, declared that they were hardly worth putting in his basket, and carrying home. “If the lady had got an old coat, he’d let her have that there handsome fuchsia for it, ’cause the skirts was valuable—let it be ever so much worn—for making cloth caps for boys, and the officers in the army; or, he wouldn’t mind chucking in that partic’lar fine ’artsease for an old weskit, fortheycame in handy for parsons’ gaiters, but trowsers was no account at all; however, he didn’t like to be hard with the ladies so he’d give ’em that there lovely Chaney rose for the trowsers and a silver sixpence.”

Mrs. Sandboys, however, was woman of the world enough to be a good bargainer; so, as fast as the huckster decried her husband’s old breeches, she did the same for the street-seller’s flowers. In due commercial style each professed to be equally careless about dealing with the other, and yet each was equally anxious for the bargain.

At length, after much haggling, it was agreed that Mrs. Sandboys should have a pot of mignionette and a couple of cut moss-roses for the garment; whereupon the old trowsers were transferred to the flower-seller’s long black bag, and the flowers to the care of Mrs. Sandboys.

Immediately the man had closed the door, the native of Buttermere hastened to Mrs. Fokesell to show her the bargain she had effected; and while the ladies were engaged in sniffing one after another at the delicious perfume of the blossoms, a violent knock came to the door, and in a minute the breathless Mr. Sandboys stood panting before his wife.

Presently he explained, by snatches between his gasps, how he had got into an omnibus on his way to the station-house to which Jobby had been taken by the policeman, for, as he said, he considered that would be the best place to obtain tidings of any missing party—and how, after having ridden a short distance, he had put his hand into his pocket to feel for his money, and discovered to his horror that he had come out without any. The consequence was, he proceeded to say, that he had to stop the ’artsease and acquaint the conductor with his misfortune; whereupon the man abused him in the most shameful manner, and collared him in the middle of the road, saying he was a hoary-headed old cheat, and it would serve him right if he knocked his head off his shoulders, as a lesson to him for the future—and Mr. Sandboys wound up by declaring he verily believed the fellow would have done it, too, if it hadn’t been that, as luck would have it, he had taken his silk umbrella with him; which, after a good deal of trouble, he had got the man to consent to hold as security for the fare.

When Mr. Sandboys had finished his story, his wife asked him how he could be such a simpleton as to leave his money behind him, and requested to be informed where he had it.

“In t’ pockets of mey auld breeks,” responded the innocent Cursty.

The words came upon his dear Aggy like a thunderclap. As the lady said afterwards, “any one might have knocked her down with a feather.” Elcy stared at her mother, and the mother stared at the daughter, in a maze of bewilderment. Neither liked to confess the truth to Cursty, and yet to delay doing so was every minute to diminish the probability of obtaining possession of the precious garments again.

At length Mrs. Sandboysdidventure to break the matter to her husband. She told him she had disposed of his trowsers only a few moments before his return for a pot of mignionette and a couple of moss roses.

“Well, Aggy,” cried Cursty, when he had recovered from the first shock, “thee’ll have to suffer for’t as well as meysel for forty t’ notes I’d got in t’ pocket-book, thar was thy marriage lines that thee wud mek me bring up wi’ me, to show thee wast an honest woman, if ever thee sud want as much.”

“Waistoma! waistoma!” cried poor Mrs. Sandboys, when she heard of this, to her, the greatest loss of all. At first she raved against London, and London people, and London wickedness. Then she declared it was all Cursty’s fault, and owing to his nasty idle habits of never emptying his pockets, when he changed his clothes, but leaving everything to her to do. Next, she vowed she would go back to Buttermere that very night, for nothing but misery had befallen her ever since they had made up their mind to enjoy themselves.

However, when her anger had somewhat exhausted itself, she entreated her own dear Cursty to hasten after the flower-seller. The man could not be far off, unless he had discovered the prize he had got, and decamped with it to some other part of the town; but she was almost certain he had not felt anything in the pockets at the time he was looking the trowsers over in the passage, or else he would have been more anxious to have purchased them than he was.

Mr. Sandboys she directed to go one way, and Jobby another; for if her marriage lines were really gone, it was impossible to tell what might happen.

In obedience to her commands, Cursty and Jobby were soon out of the house, exploring every street and corner in quest of the flower-seller.

And here, we must, reader, for the present drop the curtain.

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