I write these last words at Fairhaven. The morning after our arrival home, I stood upon the threshold of our little snuggery, which is built on an elevation, with my arm around my wife's waist, describing to her the picture which I saw. It was the play-hour of the day, and the grounds were filled with children, comfortably dressed. We have nearly three hundred children in our Home. Immediately before me, in the centre of a group of young ones, who were clustering round her, was Blade-o'-Grass, strengthened and chastened by the troubles she has experienced, beautified by the better sphere of life which she now occupies. The innate goodness of her nature has made her beloved by all. Of all our sisters she is the dearest.
We are making great preparations for Christmas. May it be as happy a time to you, dear reader, as, in all human probability, it will be to us and to the little ones who are in our charge!
Saul and David
Bread and Cheese and Kisses.
Introduction,whichserves in part as aDedicationto theMemory of my Mother.
With a sense of infinite thankfulness upon me, I sit down to commence my Christmas story. This thankfulness is born of overflowing gratitude. I am grateful that I am spared to write it, and grateful because of the belief that the Blade of Grass I put forth a year ago was: out of the goodness of many sympathising hearts: not allowed to wither and die. It has been pressed upon me, and I have had it in my mind, to continue the history of the humble Blade of Grass that I left drooping last year; but the social events that have occurred between that time and the present would not justify my doing so now. I hope to continue it before long. By and by, please God, you and I will follow the Blade of Grass through a summer all the more pleasant because of the bleak winter in which it sprung, and by which it has hitherto been surrounded. In the mean time, the tears that I shed over it will keep it green, I trust. And in the mean time, it gladdens me to see a star shining upon it, although it stands amid snow and wintry weather.
As I sit in my quiet chamber, and think of the happy season for which I am writing, I seem to hear the music of its tender influence, and I wish that the kindly spirit which animates that day would animate not that day alone, but every day of the three hundred and sixty-five. It might be so; it could be so. Then, indeed, the Good Time which now is always coming would be no longer looked forward to.
Not that life should be a holiday: work is its wholesomest food. But some little more of general kindliness towards one another, of generous feeling between class and class, as well as between person and person; some little less consideration of self; some more general recognition by the high of the human and divine equality which, the low bear to them; some little more consideration from the poor for the rich; some little more practical pity from the rich for the poor; some little less of the hypocrisy of life too commonly practised and too commonly toadied to; some better meaning in the saying of prayers, and therefore more true devotion in the bending of knees; some little more benevolence in statesmanship; some hearty honest practising of doing unto others even as ye would others should do unto you:--may well be wished for, more appropriately, perhaps, at this season than at any other, associated as it is with all that is tender and bright and good.
Why does the strain in which I am writing bring to me the memory of my Mother? It is, I suppose, because that memory is the most sacred and the tenderest that I have, and because what I feel for her is inwoven in my heart of hearts.
But there is another reason. From her comes the title of my Christmas story. And this introduction serves in part as a dedication to the beautiful goodness of her nature.
I think that in this wide world: among the thousands of millions of human beings who live and have passed away: there is not, and never was, a woman who lived her life more contentedly, nor one who strove more heartfully to make the most cheerful use of everything that fell to her lot--of even adversity, of which she had her full share. She was beloved by all who knew her. To her sympathising heart were confided many griefs which others had to bear; and, poor as she was for a long period of her life, she always, by some wonderful secret of which I hope she was not the only possessor, contrived to help those who came to her in need. I remember asking her once how she managed it. 'My dear,' she answered, with a smile which reminds me of a peaceful moonlight night; 'my dear, I have a lucky bag.' Where she kept it, heaven only knows; but she was continually dipping her hand into it, and something good and sweet always came out. How many hearts she cheered, how many burdens she lightened, how many crosses she garlanded with hope, no one can tell. She never did. These things came to her as among the duties of life, and she took pleasure in performing them. I am filled with wonder and with worship as I think how naturally she laid aside her own hard trials to sympathise with the trials of others.
She was a capital housewife, and made much out of little. She had not one selfish desire, and being devoted to her children, she made their home bright for them. There was no sunshine in the house when Mother was away. She possessed wonderful secrets in cookery, and I would sooner sit down to one of the dinners she used to prepare for us (albeit they were very humble) than to the grandest banquet that could be placed before me. Everything was sweet that came from her hands--as sweet as was everything that came from her lips.
I would ask her often, being of an inquisitive turn of mind, 'Mother, what have you got for dinner to-day?' 'Bread-and-Cheese and Kisses,' she would reply merrily. Then I knew that one of our favourite dishes was sure to be on the table, and I rejoiced accordingly. Sometimes, however, she would vary her reply by saying that dinner would consist of 'Knobs of Chairs and Pump-Handles.' Then would I sit in sackcloth and ashes, for I knew that the chance of a good dinner was trembling in the balance.
But Knobs of Chairs and Pump-Handles was the exception. Bread-and-Cheese and Kisses was the rule. And to this day Bread-and-Cheese and Kisses bears for me in its simple utterance a sacred and beautiful meaning. It means contentment; it means cheerfulness; it means the exercise of sweet words and gentle thought; it means Home!
Dear and sacred word! Let us get away from the garish light that distorts it. Let you and I, this Christmas, retire for a while, and think of it and muse upon it. Let us resolve to cherish it always, and let us unite in the hope that its influence for inconceivable good may not be lost in the turmoil of the Great March, to the thunderous steps of which the world's heart is wildly beating. Home! It is earth's heaven! The flowers that grow within garret walls prove it; the wondering ecstasy that fills the mother's breast as she looks upon the face of her first-born, the quiet ministering to those we love, the unselfishness, the devotion, the tender word, the act of charity, the self-sacrifice that finds creation there, prove it; the prayers that are said as we kneel by the bedside before committing our bodies to sleep, the little hands folded in worship, the lisping words of praise and of thanks to God that come from children's lips, the teaching of those words by the happy mother so that her child may grow up good, prove it. No lot in life is too lowly for this earth's heaven. No lot in life is too lowly for the pure enjoyment of Bread-and-Cheese and Kisses.
I wish you, dear readers and friends, no better lot than this. May Bread-and-Cheese and Kisses often be your fare, and may it leave as sweet a taste in your mouth as it has left in mine!
Bread and Cheese and Kisses page 4If I were asked to point to a space of ground which, of all other spaces in the world, most truly represents the good and bad, the high and low, of humanity, I should unhesitatingly describe a circle of a mile around Westminster Abbey. Within that space is contained all that ennobles life, and all that debases it; and within that space, at the same moment, the lofty aspiration of the statesman pulses in the great Senate House in unison with the degraded desires of the inhabitant of Old Pye-street. There St. Giles and St. James elbow each other. There may be seen, in one swift comprehensive glance, all the beauty and ugliness of life, all its hope and hopelessness, all its vanity and modesty, all its knowledge and ignorance, all its piety and profanity, all its fragrance and foulness. The wisdom of ages, the nobility that sprung from fortunate circumstance or from brave endeavour, the sublime lessons that lie in faith and heroism, sanctify the solemn aisles of the grand old Abbey. Within its sacred cloisters rest the ashes of the great: outside its walls, brushing them with his ragged garments, skulks the thief--and worse.
But not with these contrasts, nor with any lesson that they may teach, have you and I to deal now. Our attention is fixed upon the striking of eight o'clock by the sonorous tongue of Westminster. And not our attention alone--for many of the friends with whom we shall presently shake hands are listening also; so that we find ourselves suddenly plunged into very various company. Ben Sparrow, the old grocer, who, just as One tolls, is weighing out a quarter of a pound of brown sugar for a young urchin without a cap, inclines his head and listens, for all the world as if hewerea sparrow, so birdlike is the movement: Bessie Sparrow, his granddaughter, who, having put Tottie to bed, is coming downstairs in the dark (she has left the candle in the washhand-basin in Tottie's room, for Tottie cannot go to sleep without a light), stops and counts from One to Eight, and thinks the while, with eyes that have tears in them, of Somebody who at the same moment is thinking of her: Tottie, with one acid-drop very nearly at the point of dissolution in her mouth, and with another perspiring in her hand, lies in bed and listens and forgets to suck until the sound dies quite away: a patient-looking woman, pausing in the contemplation of a great crisis in her life, seeks to find in the tolling of the bell some assurance of a happy result: James Million, Member of Parliament, whose name, as he is a very rich man, may be said to be multitudinous, listens also as he rolls by in his cab; and as his cab passes the end of the street in which Mrs. Naldret resides, that worthy woman, who is standing on a chair before an open cupboard, follows the sound, with the tablecloth in her hand, and mutely counts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, the last number being accompanied by a resigned sigh, as if Eight were the end of all things.
The room in which Mrs. Naldret is standing is poor and comfortable; a cheerful fire is burning, and the kettle is making up its mind to begin to sing. An old black cat is lazily blinking her eyes at the little jets of gas that thrust their forked tongues from between the bars of the stove. This cat is lying on a faded hearthrug, in which once upon a time a rampant lion reigned in brilliant colours; and she is not at all disturbed by the thought that a cat lying full-length upon a lion, with his tongue hanging out, is an anomaly in nature and a parody in art. There is certainly some excuse for her in the circumstance that the lion is very old, and is almost entirely rubbed out.
Mrs. Naldret steps from the chair with the tablecloth in her hand, and in one clever shake, and with as nimble a movement as any wizard could have made, shakes it open. As it forms a balloon over the table, she assists it to expel the wind, and to settle down comfortably--being herself of a comfortable turn of mind--and smoothes the creases with her palms, until the cloth fits the table like wax. Then she sets the tea-things, scalds the teapot, and begins to cut the bread and to butter it. She cuts the bread very thick, and butters it very thin. Butter is like fine gold to poor people.
'I don't remember,' she says, pausing to make the reflection, with the knife in the middle of the loaf, 'its being so cold for a long time. To be sure, we're in December, and it'll be Christmas in three weeks. Christmas!' she repeats, with a sigh, 'and George'll not be here. He'll be on the sea--on the stormy ocean. It'll be a heavy Christmas to us. But, there! perhaps it's all for the best; though how George got the idea of emigrating into his head, I can't tell; it seemed to come all of a sudden like. The house won't seem like the same when he's away.' For comfort, her thoughts turn in another direction--towards her husband. 'I wish father was home, though it isn't quite his time--and he's pretty punctual, is father.' She goes to the window, and peeps at the sky through a chink in the shutters. 'It looks as if it was going to snow. What a bright clear night it is, but how cold! It's freezing hard!' Turning, she looks at the fire, and at the cozy room, gratefully. 'Thank God, we've got a fire, and a roof to cover us! God help those who haven't! There are a many of 'em, poor creatures, and times are hard.' She turns again to the window, to takes another peep at the sky through the shutters, and finds the light shut out. 'There's some one looking into the room!' she exclaims, retreating hastily out of view. 'It can't be Jim--he's never done such a thing. He's only too glad to get indoors such nights as this. And it can't be George. And there's the lock of the street-door broken--no more use than a teapot with a hole in the bottom.' Being a woman of courage, Mrs. Naldret runs into the passage, and opens the street-door. 'Who's there? she cries, looking into the street, and shivering, as the cold wind blows into her face. 'Who's there? Don't sneak away like that, but come and show your face, like a man!'
The man pauses at the challenge, stands irresolute for a moment or two, then walks slowly back to the window, with hanging head.
'Show my face, like a man!' he repeats, sadly, bitterly, and with a world of self-reproach in his tone. 'There's not much of that stuff left in me, Mrs. Naldret.'
'Good Lord!' she exclaims, as he stands before her like a criminal. 'It's Saul Fielding!'
'Yes,' he replies. 'It's Saul Fielding, God help him!'
'Why can't Saul Fielding help himself?' she retorts, half angrily, half pityingly. 'There was stuff enough in him once--at all events I thought so.'
'Show me the way!' he cries; but lowers his tone instantly, and says humbly, 'I beg your pardon, Mrs. Naldret, for speaking in that manner. It's ungrateful of me to speak like that to any of George's friends. and least of all to his mother, that George loves like the apple of his eye.'
'So he does, dear lad,' says the grateful woman, 'and it does my heart good to hear you say so. But you've nothing to be grateful to me for, Saul. I've never done you any good; it's never been in my power.'
'Yes, you have, and it has been in your power, Mrs. Naldret. Why, it was only last week that you offered me----'
'What you wouldn't take,' she interrupts hastily; 'so you don't know if I meant it. Let be! Let be!'
'----That you offered me food,' he continues steadily. 'But it's like you and yours to make light of it. You've never done me any good! Why, you're George's mother, and you brought him into the world! And I owe him more than my life--ay, more than my life!'
'I know the friendship there was between you and George,' she says, setting the strength of his words to that account, 'and that George loved you like a brother. More's the pity, because of that, that you are as you are.'
'It is so,' he assents meekly; 'but the milk's spilt; I can't pick it up again.'
'Saul, Saul! you talk like a woman!'
'Do I?' he asks tenderly, and looking into her face with respect and esteem in his eyes. 'Then there's some good left in me. I know one who is stronger than I am, better, wiser, than a hundred such as I--and I showed my appreciation of her goodness and her worth by doing her wrong. Show my face like a man! I ought to hide it, as the moles do, and show my contempt for myself by flying from the sight of men!'
Filled with compassion, she turns her face from him so that she may not witness his grief.
'She is the noblest, the best of women!' he continues. 'In the face of God, I say it. Standing here, with His light shining upon me, with His keen wind piercing me to my bones (but it is just!), I bow to her, although I see her not, as the nearest approach to perfect goodness which it has ever been my happiness and my unhappiness to come in contact with. Ay; although virtue, as humanly exercised, would turn its back upon her.'
'Are you blaming the world, Saul Fielding,' she asks, in a tone that has a touch of sternness in it, 'for a fault which is all your own?'
'No,' he answers; 'I am justifying Jane.Iblame the world! a pretty object I, to turn accuser!'
He appeals to his rags, in scorn of them and of himself.
'Saul Fielding,' she says, after a pause during which she feels nothing but ruth for his misery, 'you are a bit of a scholar; you have gifts that others could turn to account, if they had them. Before you--you----'
'Went wrong,' he adds, as she hesitates, 'I know what you want to say. Go on, Mrs. Naldret.Yourwords don't hurt me.'
'Before that time, George used to come home full of admiration for you and your gifts. He said that you were the best-read man in all the trade, and I'm sure, to hear you speak is proof enough of that. Well, let be, Saul; let the past die, and make up your mind, like a man, to do better in the future.'
'Let the past die!' he repeats, as through the clouds that darken his mind rifts of human love shine, under the influence of which his voice grows indescribably soft and tender. 'Let the past die! No, not for a world of worlds. Though it is filled with shame, I would not let it go.--What are you looking for?'
'It's Jim's time--my husband's--for coming home,' she says, a little anxiously, looking up the street. 'He mightn't like----' But again she hesitates and stumbles over her words.
'To see you talking to me. He shall not My eyes are better than his, and the moment I see him turn the corner of the street, I will go.'
'What were you looking through the shutters for?'
'I wanted to see if George was at home.'
'And supposing he had been?'
'I should have waited in the street until he came out.'
'Do you think Jim Naldret would like to see his son talking to Saul Fielding?'
'No, I don't suppose he would,' he replies quietly; 'but for all that, I shall do George no harm. I would lay down my life to serve him. You don't know what binds me and George together. And he is going away soon--how soon, Mrs. Naldret?'
'In a very few days,' she answers, with a sob in her throat.
'God speed him! Ask him to see me before he goes, will you, Mrs. Naldret?'
'Yes, I will, Saul; and thank you a thousand times for the good feeling you show to him.'
'Tell him that I have joined the waits, and that he will hear my flute among them any night this week. I'll manage so that we don't go away from this neighbourhood till he bids good-bye to it.'
'Joined the waits!' she exclaims. 'Good Lord! Have you come to that?'
'That's pretty low, isn't it?' he says, with a light laugh, and with a dash of satire in his tone. 'But, then, you know--playing the flute--is one of my gifts--(I learnt it myself when I was a boy)--and if s the only thing I can get to do. Is there any tune you're very fond of, and would like to hear as you lie a-bed? If there is, we'll play it.'
'If you could play a tune to keep George at home,' says Mrs. Naldret, 'that's the tune I'd like to hear.'
'Your old Gospel of contentment, Mrs. Naldret,' he remarks.
'I like to let well alone,' she replies, with emphatic nods; 'if you'd been content with that, years ago, instead of trying to stir men up----'
'I shouldn't be as I am now,' he says, interrupting her; 'you are right--you are right. Good-night, and God bless you!'
He shuffles off, without waiting for another word, blowing on his fingers, which are almost frozen. Mrs. Naldret, who is also cold enough by this time, is glad to get to her fireside, to warm herself. Her thoughts follow Saul Fielding. 'Poor fellow!' she muses. 'I should like to have had him by the fire for a while, but Jim would have been angry. And to be sure it wouldn't be right, with the life he's been leading. But how well he talks, and how clever he is! What'll be the end of him, goodness only knows. He's made me feel quite soft. And how he loves George! That's what makes me like him. "You don't know what binds me and George together," he said. "I would lay down my life to serve him," he said. Well, there must be some good in a man who speaks like that!'
By an egregious oversight on the part of the architect, designer, or what not, the door of Mrs. Naldret's room turned into the passage, so that whenever it was opened the cold wind had free play, and made itself felt. Mrs. Naldret, bending before the fire to warm herself, does not hear the softest of raps on the panel, but is immediately afterwards made sensible that somebody is coming into the room by a chill on the nape of her neck and down the small of her back, 'enough to freeze one's marrow,' she says. She knows the soft footfall, and, without turning, is aware that Bessie Sparrow is in the room.
'Come to the fire, my dear,' she says.
Bread and Cheese and Kisses page 9
Bessie kneels by her side, and the two women, matron and maid, look into the glowing flames, and see pictures there. Their thoughts being on the same subject, the pictures they see are of the same character--all relating to George, and ships, and wild seas, and strange lands.
'I dreamt of you and George last night,' says Mrs. Naldret, taking Bessie's hand in hers. She likes the soft touch of Bessie's fingers; her own are hard and full of knuckles. The liking for anything that is soft is essentially womanly. 'I dreamt that you were happily married, and we were all sitting by your fireside, as it might be now, and I was dancing a little one upon my knee.'
'O, mother!' exclaims Bessie, hiding her face on Mrs. Naldret's neck.
'I told father my dream before breakfast this morning, so it's sure to come true. The little fellow was on my knee as naked as ever it was born, a-cocking out its little legs and drawing of them up again, like a young Samson. Many a time I've had George on my knee like that, and he used to double up his fists as if he wanted to fight all the world at once. George was the finest babby I everdidsee; he walked at nine months. He's been a good son, and'll make a good husband; and he's as genuine as salt, though I say it perhaps as shouldn't, being his mother. Is your grandfather coming into-night, Bess?
'I don't think it. He's busy getting ready a Christmas show for the window; he wants to make it look very gay, to attract business: Grandfather's dreadfully worried because business is so bad. People are not laying out as much money as they used to do.'
'Money don't buy what it used to do, Bess; things are dearer, and money's the same. Father isn't earning a shilling more to-day than he earnt ten years ago, and meat's gone up, and rent's gone up, and plenty of other things have gone up' But we've got to be contented, my dear, and make the best of things. If George could get enough work at home to keep him going, do you suppose he'd ever ha' thought of going to the other end of the world?' She asks this question, with a shrewd, watchful look into Bessie's face, which the girl does not see, her eyes being towards the fire; and adds immediately, 'Although he's not going for long, thank God.'
'It is very, very hard,' sighs Bessie, 'that he should have to go.'
'It would be harder, my dear, for him to remain here doing nothing. There's nothing that does a man--or a woman either, Bess--so much mischief as idleness. My old mother used to say that when a man's idle, he's worshipping the devil. You know very well, Bess, that I'm all for contentment. One can make a little do if one's mind is made up for it--just as one can find a great deal not enough if one's mind is set that way. For my part, I think that life's too short to worrit your inside out, a-wishing for this, and a-longing for that, and a-sighing for t'other. When George began to talk of going abroad, I said to him, "Home's home, George, and you can be happy on bread-and-cheese and kisses, supposing you can't get better." "Very well, mother," said George, "I'm satisfied with that. But come," said he, in his coaxing way--youknow, Bessie!--"But come, you say home's home, and you're right, mammy." (He always calls me mammy when he's going to get the best of me with his tongue--he knows, the cunning lad, that it reminds me of the time when he was a babby!) "You're right, mammy," he said; "but I love Bess, and I want to marry her. I want to have her all to myself," he said. "I'm not happy when I'm away from her," he said. "I want to see her a-setting bymyfireside," he said. "I don't want to be standing at the street-door a-saying goodnight to her"--(what a long time it takes a-saying! don't it, Bess? Ah, I remember!) "a-saying good-night to her with my arm round her waist, and my heart so full of love for her that I can hardly speak"--(his very words, my dear!)--"and then, just as I'm feeling happy and forgetting everything else in the world, to hear grandfather's voice piping out from the room behind the shop, 'Don't you think it's time to go home, George? Don't you think that it's time for Bessie to be a-bed?' And I don't want," said George, "when I answer in a shamefaced way, 'All right, grandfather; just five minutes more!' to hear his voice, in less than a half a minute, waking me out of a happy dream, calling out, 'Time's up, George! Don't you think you ought to go home, George? Don't you think Bessie's tired, George?" "That's all well and good," said I to him; "but what's that to do with going abroad?" "O, mammy," he said, "when I marry Bessie, don't I want to give her a decent bed to lie upon? Ain't I bound to get a bit of furniture together?" Well, well; and so the lad goes on with his Bessie and his Bessie, until one would think he has never a mother in the world.'
There is not a spice of jealousy in her tone as she says this, although she pretends to pout, for the arm that is around Bessie tightens on the girl's waist, and the mother's lips touch the girl's face lovingly. All that Mrs. Naldret has said is honey to Bessie, and the girl drinks it in, and enjoys it, as bright fresh youth only can enjoy.
'So,' continues Mrs. Naldret, pursuing her story, 'when George comes home very down in the mouth, as he does a little while ago, and says that trade's slack, and he don't see how he's to get the bit of furniture together that he's bound to have when he's married, I knew what was coming. And as he's got the opportunity--and a passage free, thanks to Mr. Million'--(here Mrs. Naldret looks again at Bessie in the same watchful manner as before, and Bessie, in whose eyes the tears are gathering, and upon whose face the soft glow of the firelight is reflected, again does not observe it)--'I can't blame him; though, mind you, my dear, if he could earn what he wants here, I'd be the last to give him a word of encouragement But he can't earn it here, he says; times are too bad. He can't get enough work here, he says; there's too little to do, and too many workmen to do it. So he's going abroad to get it, and good luck go with him, and come back with him! Say that, my dear.'
'Good luck go with him,' repeats Bessie, unable to keep back her tears, 'and come back with him!'
'That's right. And, as George has made up his mind and can't turn back now, we must put strength into him, whether he's right or whether he's wrong. So dry your eyes, my girl, and send him away with a light heart instead of a heavy one. Don't you know that wet things are always heavier to carry than dry? George has got to fight with the world, you see; and if a young fellow stands up to fight with the tears running down his cheeks, he's bound to get the worst of it But if he says, "Come on!" with a cheerful heart and a smiling face, he stands a good chance of winning--as George will, you see if he don't!'
'You dear good mother!' and Bessie kisses Mrs. Naldret's neck again and again.
'Now, then,' says Mrs. Naldret, rising from before the fire, 'go and wash your eyes with cold water, my dear. Go into George's room. Lord forgive me!' she soliloquises when Bessie has gone, 'I'd give my fingers for George not to go. But what's the use of fretting and worriting one's life away now that he's made up his mind? I shall be glad when they are married, though I doubt she doesn't love George as well as George loves her. But it'll come; it'll come. Times are different now to what they were, and girls are different. A little more fond of dress and pleasure and fine ways. She was very tender just now--she feels it now that George is really going. It would be better for her if he was to stay; but George is right about the times being hard. Ah, well! it ain't many of us as gets our bread well buttered in this part of the world! But there! I've tasted sweet bread without a bit of butter on it many and many a time!'
Having made this reflection, Mrs. Naldret thinks of her husband again, and wonders what makes him so late to-night. But in a few moments she hears a stamping in the passage. 'That's Jim,' she thinks, with a light in her eyes. A rough comely man; with no hair on his face but a bit of English whisker of a light sandy colour in keeping with his skin, which is of a light sandy colour also. Head well shaped, slightly bald, especially on one side, where the hair has been worn away by the friction of his two-foot rule. When Jim Naldret makes a purse of his lips, and rubs the side of his head with his rule, his mates know that he is in earnest. And he is very often in earnest.
'It's mortal cold, mother,' he says almost before he enters.
'There's a nice fire, father,' replies Mrs. Naldret cheerfully; 'that'll soon warm you.'
'I don't know about that,' he returns, with the handle of the door in his hand. 'Now look here,--didyou ever see such a door as this? Opens bang into the passage.'
'You're always grumbling about the door, father.'
'Well, if I like it, it doesn't do any one any harm, does it? The architect was a born fool, that's what he was.'
To support his assertion that the architect was a born fool, Jim Naldret thinks it necessary to make a martyr of himself; so he stands in the draught, and shivers demonstratively as the cold wind blows upon him.
'Never mind the door, Jim,' says Mrs. Naldret coaxingly. 'Come and wash your hands.'
Bread and Cheese and Kisses page 13
'But I shall mind the door!' exclaims Jim Naldret, who is endowed with a large organ of combativeness, and never can be induced to shirk an argument. 'The architect he made this door for warm weather. Then it's all very well. But in this weather, it's a mistake, that's what it is. Directly you open it, comes a blast cold enough to freeze one. I ain't swearing, mother, because I say blast.'
This small pleasantry restores his equanimity, and he repeats it with approving nods; but it produces little effect upon his wife, who says,
'Willyou wash your hands and face, father, instead of maudlin?'
'All right, all right, mother! Bring the basin in here, and I'll soon sluice myself.'
Mrs. Naldret, going to their bedroom, which is at the back of the parlour, to get the soap and water, calls out softly from that sanctuary,
'Bessie's here, father.'
'Ah,' he says, rubbing his knuckles before the fire. 'Where is she?'
'Up-stairs in George's room. She'll be down presently. She's pretty low in spirits, father.'
'I suppose you've been having a cry together, mother,' By this time Mrs. Naldret has brought in a basin of water and a towel, which she places on a wooden chair, 'I daresay George'll pipe his eye a bit too, when he says good-bye to some of his mates. Ugh! the water is cold!'
'George pipe his eye! Not him! He's a man is George--not one of your crying sort.'
'I don't know about that,' gasps Jim Naldret; 'a man may be crying although you don't see the tears running down his face. Ugh!'
There was something apposite to his own condition in this remark, for Jim's eyes were smarting and watering in consequence of the soap getting into them.
'That's true, Jim. Many a one's heart cries when the eyes are dry.'
'I can't get over Mr. Million getting that passage-ticket for George. I can't get over it, mother. It's bothered me ever so much.'
'Well, it's only steerage, Jim, and you can't say that it wasn't kind of Mr. Million.'
'I don't know so much about that, mother.'
'Do you know, Jim,' says Mrs. Naldret, after a pause, during which both seem to be thinking of something that they deem it not prudent or wise to speak about, 'that I've sometimes fancied----' Here the old black cat rubs itself against her ankles, and she stoops to fondle it, which perhaps is the reason why she does not complete the sentence.
'Fancied what, mother?
'That young Mr. Million was fond of Bessie.'
'I shouldn't wonder,' he replies, with a cough. 'Who wouldn't be?'
'Yes; but not in that way.'
'Not in what way, mother?'
'You drive me out of all patience, Jim. As if you couldn't understand--but you men aresoblind!'
'And you women are so knowing!' retorts Jim Naldret, in a tone made slightly acid because he is groping about for the towel, and cannot find it. 'Whereisthe towel, mother? That's Bessie's step, I know. Come and kiss me, my girl.'
'There!' exclaims Bessie, who has just entered the room, standing before him with an air of comical remonstrance, with patches of soapsuds on her nose and face, 'you've made my face all wet.'
'Father neverwillwash the soap off his skin before he dries it,' says Mrs. Naldret, wiping Bessie's face with her apron.
'Never mind, Bessie,' says Mr. Naldret, rubbing himself hot; 'your face'll stand it better than some I've seen. I can't wash the colour out of your cheeks.'
Bessie laughs, and asks him how does he know? and says there is a sort of paint that women use that defies water. While Mrs. Naldret tells him not to be satirical, remarking that all women have their little weaknesses.
'Weaknesses!' echoes Mr. Naldret, digging into the corners of his eyes viciously. 'It's imposition, that's what it is!'
'You'll rub all the skin off your face, if you rub like that.'
'It's a playing a man false,' continues Jim Naldret, not to be diverted from the subject, 'that's what it is. It's a----'
'Is George coming home to tea, do you know, father?' asks Mrs. Naldret, endeavouring to stem the torrent.
'No; he told me we wasn't to wait for him. It's a trading under false pretences----'
'Not coming home to tea! And here I've been laying the tablecloth for him, because I know he enjoys his tea better when there's something white on the table. Mind you remember that, Bessie. There's nothing like studying a man's little ways, if you want to live happy with him.'
'I wondered what the tablecloth was on for,' remarks Jim Naldret; and then resumes with bulldog tenacity, 'It's a trading under false pretences, that's what it is! Little weaknesses! Why----'
'Now, father, will you come and have tea?'
'Now, mother,willyou learn manners, and not interrupt? But I can have my tea and talk too.'
Mrs. Naldret makes a great fuss in setting chairs, and a great clatter with the cups and saucers, but her wiles produce not the slightest effect on her husband, who seats himself, and says,
'Well, this is my opinion, and I wouldn't mind a-telling of it to the Queen. What do girls look forward to naturally? Why, matrimony to be sure----'
'Put another lump of sugar in father's cup, Bessie. He likes it sweet.'
'Well,' continues the irrepressible Jim, 'looking forward to that, they ought to be honest and fair to the men, and not try to take them in by painting themselves up. It's a good many years ago that I fell in love with you, mother, and a bright-looking girl you was when you said Yes, to me. You wore roses then, mother! But if, when I married you, I had found that the roses in your cheek came off with a damp towel, and that you hadn't any eyebrows to speak of except what you put on with a brush, and that what I saw of your skin before I married you was a deal whiter than what I saw of your skin after I married you,--I'd--I'd----'
'What on earth would you have done, father?' asks Mrs. Naldret, laughing.
'I'd have had you up before the magistrate,' replies Jim Naldret, with a look of sly humour. 'I'd have had you fined, as sure as my name's Jim.'
'That wouldn't have hurt me,' says Mrs. Naldret, entering into the humour of the idea, and winking at Bessie; 'my husband would have had to pay the fine.'
Jim Naldret gives a great laugh at this conclusion of the argument, in appreciation of having been worsted by these last few pithy words, and says, with an admiring look at his wife,
'Well, let you women alone!'
Then, this subject being disposed of, and Jim Naldret having had his say, Mrs. Naldret asks if he has brought home theHa'penny Trumpet.
'Yes,' he answers, 'here it is. A great comfort to the poor man are the ha'penny papers. He gets all the news of the day for a ha'penny--all the police-courts----'.
'Ah,' interrupts Mrs. Naldret, 'that's the sort of reading I like. Give me a newspaper with plenty of police-court cases.'
But police-court cases have not the charm for Jim Naldret that they have for the women, with whom a trial for breach-of promise is perhaps the most interesting reading in the world.
'There's a strike in the North among the colliers,' says Jim. 'The old hands are beating the new men, and setting fire to their houses.'
'And turning,' adds Mrs. Naldret, 'the women and children into the streets, I daresay--the wretches!'
'I don't know so much about that, mother. Men are goaded sometimes, till they lose their heads. If a man puts my blood up, I hit him.'
'You, father! You hurt any one.'
'I said I'd hit him--I didn't say I'd hurt him. I'd hit him soft, perhaps; but I'd be bound to hit him if he put my blood up!'
'A strike's a wicked thing, father,' is Mrs. Naldret's commentary.
'I don't know so much about that. There's a good deal to be said on both sides.'
'There's Saul Fielding,' says Mrs. Naldret; 'getting up a strike was the ruin of him--and hurt a good many others, hurt 'em badly, as you know, Jim.'
By this time the tea-things are cleared away, the hearth is swept up, and the fire is trimmed. The picture that is presented in this humble room is a very pleasant one; Bessie and Mrs. Naldret are doing needlework more as a pastime than anything else, and Jim is looking down the columns of theTrumpet.
'Saul Fielding went too far,' says Jim; 'and when he had dragged a lot of men into a mess, he deserted them, and showed the white feather. I'm for my rights, and I'll stand up for them, but I'm not for violence nor unreasonable measures. Saul Fielding's fine speech misled a many, who swore by him, and would have followed him through thick and thin. He makes a speech one night that set the men on fire. I heard it myself, and I was all of a quiver; but when I was in the cold air by myself I got my reason back, and I saw that Saul Fielding was putting things in a wrong light. But other men didn't see it. Then, what does he do? Deserts his colours the very next day, and leaves the men that he's misled in the lurch.'
'He may have got in the air, as you did, Jim, and thought better of what he had said. He may have found out afterwards that he was wrong.'
'Not he! He had plenty of time to consider beforehand--seemed as if he had studied his speeches by heart--never stumbled over a word, as the others did, who were a deal honester than him--stumbled over 'em as if words was stones.'
'Well, poor fellow, he's suffered enough. From that day masters and men have been against him.'
'He's made his bed, and he must lay on it,' says Jim Naldret; 'and you know, mother, even if he could wipe that part of his life away, he's not fit company for honest men and women.'
Jim Naldret feels inclined to say a great deal more on another subject about Saul Fielding, but as the subject which he would have ventilated is a delicate one, and refers to a woman who is not Saul Fielding's wife, he refrains, because Bessie is present.
'Let Saul Fielding drop, mother.'
Mrs. Naldret deems it wise to say no more about Saul, and allows a minute or so to elapse before she speaks again.
'Anything in the paper, Jim, about that working-man that put up for Parliament?'
'He didn't get in.'
Mrs. Naldret expresses her satisfaction at this result by saying that 'it's a good job for his family, if he's got one.'
'Why shouldn't a working-man be in Parliament, mother?' asks Jim Naldret.