Chapter Seventeen.How Tom Drift gets lower still.Two years passed.They were, without exception, the dullest two years I, or, I venture to say, any watch made, ever spent. There I lay, run down, tarnished and neglected, on the pawnbroker’s shelf, never moved, never used, never thought of. Week followed week, and month month, and still no claimant for me came.Other articles on the shelves beside me came and went, some remaining only a day, some a week, but I survived them all. Even my friend the chain took his departure, and left me without a soul to speak to.None of the hundreds of tickets handed in bore the magic number 2222, which would have released me from my ignoble custody, and, in time, I gave up expecting it, and settled down to the old-fogeydom of my position, and exacted all the homage due to the “father of the shop” from my restless companions.My place was at the end of a long shelf, next to the screen dividing the shop from the office, and my sole amusement during those two dreary years was peeping through a crack and watching my master’s customers. They were of all sorts and all conditions, and many of them became familiar.There was the little girl, for instance, the top of whose bonnet just reached as high as the counter, who, regularly every Monday morning, staggered in under the weight of a bundle containing her father’s Sunday clothes, and, as regularly every Saturday evening, returned to redeem them. It was evident her respectable parent did not attend many evening parties between those two days, for I never remember his sending for them except at the regular times.Then there was the wretched drunkard, who crept in stealthily, with now a child’s coat, now a picture, now a teapot; and with the money thus raised walked straight across the road to the public-house. And there was his haggard, worn wife, who always came next day with the ticket, and indignantly took back her household goods. There was the young sailor’s wife, too, with her baby in her arms, who came rarely at first, but afterwards more often, to pawn her few poor treasures, until at length a glad day came when the brawny tar himself, with his pockets full of cash, came with her and redeemed them every one.I could tell of scores of others if I wished, but I have my own life to record, and not the transactions of my master, the pawnbroker.One day, towards the end of the first year, the door opened softly and quickly, and there entered into the office a youth, haggard and reckless-looking, whom, I thought, surely I had seen before. I looked again.Was it possible? Yes! this was none other thanTom Drift! But oh, how changed! A year ago, erring and wayward as he had been, he was yet respectable; his dress was the dress of a gentleman; his bearing was that of a gentleman too; his face had been naturally intelligent and pleasant; and his voice clear and cheerful. But now! There was a wild, restless roll about his eyes, a bright flush on his hollow cheeks, a dulness about his mouth, a hoarseness in his voice, which seemed to belong to another being. He was dissipated and seedy in appearance, and hung his head, as though ashamed to meet a fellow-being’s look, and, instead of one, looked at least ten years older than he had.Such a wreck will evil ways make of a youth! He looked eagerly round, to see that no one but he was in the office, and then produced from his pocket a scarf-pin.“What will you give me for this?” he whispered.The pawnbroker took it up and turned it over. It was a handsome pin, with a pearl in the front.“Ten shillings,” said the pawnbroker.“What!” exclaimed Tom; “do you know what it’s worth?”“Ten shillings is all I can give you,” curtly replied the pawnbroker.Tom gulped down a groan. “Give me the money, then, for goodness’ sake,” he said.The pawnbroker coolly and deliberately made out the ticket, while Tom stood chafing impatiently.“Be quick, please!” he said, as though fearful of some one detecting him in a crime.“Don’t you be in a hurry,” said the pawnbroker.“Here’s the ticket.”“And the ten shillings?” broke in Tom.“You shall have it,” said my master, going to his drawer.To Tom it seemed ages while the silver was being counted, and when he had got it he darted from the shop as swiftly as he had entered it.“That fellow’s going wrong,” muttered the pawnbroker to himself, as he laid the pin on the shelf beside me.I recognised it at once as having often been my companion on Tom’s dressing-table at nights, but I myself was so discoloured and ill that it did not at first know me. I was too anxious, however, to hear some thing about Tom to allow myself to remain disguised.“Don’t you know me, scarf-pin?” I asked.He looked hard at me. “Not a bit,” he said.“I’m Tom Drift’s old watch.”“You don’t say so! So you are! How ever did you come here? Did he pawn you?”“No; I was stolen from him one night at the music-hall, and pawned here by the thief.”“Ah, that music-hall!” groaned the pin; “that place has ruined Tom Drift.”“When I left him,” I said, “he was just going to the bad as hard as he could. He had broken with his best friend, and seemed completely—”“Hold hard! what friend?” interposed the pin.“Charlie Newcome, my first master; they had a quarrel the day I was stolen.”“That must be nearly two years ago?” said the pin.“Just,” said I. “Do tell me what has happened since then.”“It’s a long story,” said the pin.“Never mind, we’ve nothing else to do here,” I said encouragingly.“Well,” said the pin, “the night you were lost Tom never turned up at home at all.”“He was utterly drunk,” I said, by way of explanation.“Don’t you interrupt,” said the pin, “or I won’t tell you anything.”I was silenced.“Tom never turned up at all until the next morning; and he sat all that day in his chair, and did nothing but look at the wall in front of him.”“Poor fellow!” I could not help saying.“There you go!” said the pin; “be good enough to remember what I said, and if you can’t endure to hear of anybody sitting and looking at a wail, it’s no use my going on with my story.”“I only meant that I could imagine how miserable he was that day,” said I; “but go on, please.”“Two or three days after, Charlie Newcome called. Tom was alone, but he refused to see him. He cursed to himself when he heard the name. Charlie went back disappointed, but Tom made a great boast to his ‘friends’ that same night of his ‘cold shoulder to the prig,’ as he called it, and they highly applauded him for his sense.“Again, a week later, Charlie called once more, but with the same result. He wrote letters, but Tom put them in the fire unread; he sent books, but they were all flung into a corner. In a thousand different ways he contrived to show Tom that, though ill-used and in suited, he was still his friend, and ready to serve him whenever opportunity should offer.“All this while Tom was sinking lower and lower in self-respect. He was contracting a habit of drinking, and in a month or two after you had left he rarely came home sober.”“And what about his bad friends?” asked I.“There you are! why can’t you let me tell my story in peace? His bad friends visited him daily at first, made a lot of him, and praised him loudly for his resolution in dismissing Charlie, and for his ‘growing a man at last.’ They lent him money, they lost to him at cards and billiards, and they made his downward path as easy for him as possible.“At last, about six months ago, Tom was found tipsy in the dissecting-room at the hospital, and cautioned by the Board. A fortnight later he was found in a similar state in one of the wards, and then he was summarily expelled from the place, and his name was struck off the roll of students.”“Has it come to that?” I groaned.“Come to that? Of course it has; I shouldn’t have said so if it hadn’t,” replied the testy pin, who seemed unable to brook the slightest interruption. “He took a fit of blues after that; he went to the Board, and begged to be allowed to return to his studies, representing that all his prospects in life depended on his finishing his course there. They gave him one more chance. In his gratitude he resolved to discard his companions, and actually sat down and wrote a letter to Charlie, begging him to come and see him.”“Did he really?” I exclaimed, trembling with eagerness.“All right, I shall not tell you of it again. Stop me once more, and you’ll have to find the rest of my story out for yourself.”“I’m very sorry,” said I.“So you ought to be. When it came to the time, however, Tom’s resolutions failed him. Gus and his friends called as usual that evening and laughed him to scorn. He dare not quarrel with them, dare not resist them. He crumpled up the letter in his pocket and never posted it, and that night returned to his evil ways without a struggle.“For a week or two, however, he kept up appearances at the hospital; but it could not last. A misdemeanour more serious than the former one caused his second expulsion, and this time with an intimation that under no circumstances would he be readmitted. That was three months ago. He became desperate, and at the same time the behaviour of Gus altered. Instead of flattering and humouring him, he became imperious and spiteful. And still further, he demanded to be repaid the money he had advanced to Tom. Tom paid what little he could, and borrowed the rest from Mortimer. He got behindhand with his rent, and his landlady has given him notice. As usual, everybody to whom he owes money has found out his altered circumstances, and is down on him. The keeper of the music-hall, the tailor, the cigar merchant, are among the most urgent.”“And your being here is a result of all this, I see,” said I, knowing the story was at an end, and considering my tongue to be released.“Find out!” angrily retorted the pin, relapsing into ill-tempered silence.I had little enough inclination to revert to the sad topic, and for the rest of that day gave myself up to sorrow and pity for Tom Drift. One thing I felt pretty sure of—it would not be long before he came again; and I was right.In two days he entered the office, wild and haggard as before, but with less care to conceal his visit.This time he laid on the counter the famous lance-wood fishing-rod which Charlie had given him months ago, and which surely ought to have been a reminder to him of better times.He flung it down, and taking the few shillings the pawnbroker advanced on it, hurried from the shop.The next time he came some one else was in the shop. A passing flush came over Tom’s face on discovering a witness to his humiliation; but he transacted his business with an assumed swagger which ill accorded with his inward misery. For even yet Tom Drift had this much of hope left in him—that he knew he was fallen, and was miserable at the thought. His self-respect and sensitiveness had been growing less day by day, and he himself growing proportionately hardened; but still he knew what remorse was, and by the very agony of his shame was still held out of the lowest of all depths—the depths of ruthless sin.The stranger in the shop eyed him keenly, and when he had gone said to the pawnbroker, “He’s a nice article, he is!”“Not much good, I’m thinking,” observed the pawnbroker, dryly.“So you may say; I know the beauty. He banged me on the ’ed with a chair once, when he was screwed. Never mind, I know of two or three as is after him.”And so saying, the disreputable man departed.After that Tom came daily. Now it was an article of clothing, now some books, now some furniture, that he brought. It was soon evident that not only was he miserable and destitute, but ill too; and when presently for a fortnight he never passed the now well-known door, I knew that the fever had laid him low.Poor Tom Drift! I wondered who was there now to nurse him in his weakness and comfort him in his wretchedness. He must be untended and unheeded. Well I knew his “friends” (oh, sad perversion of the sacred title!) would keep their distance, or return only in time to quench the first sparks of repentance. If only Charlie could have seen him at this time, with his spirit cowed and his weary heart beating about in vain for peace and hope, how would he not have flown to his bedside, and from those ruins have striven to help him to rise again to purity and honesty.But no Charlie was there. Since the last appealing letter so scornfully rejected, Tom had heard not a word of him or from him. What wonder indeed if after so many disappointments and insults, the boy should at length leave his old schoolfellow to his fate?With returning health there came to Tom no returning resolutions or efforts. The friends who had deserted his sick-bed were ready, as soon as ever he rose from it, with their temptations and baneful influence. One of his first visits after his recovery was to my master with a pair of boots. He looked so pale and feeble that the pawnbroker inquired after his health—a most unusual departure from business on the part of that merchant.“Hope you’re feeling better,” he said.“Yes; so much the better for you,” replied Tom with a ghastly smile. “What can you give me for these, they are nearly new?”“Five shillings?”“Oh, anything you like; I’ve to pay two pounds to-morrow. What you give me is all I shall have to do it with—I don’t care!”The pawnbroker counted out the five shillings, and handed them across the counter.“Good-bye!” said Tom, with another attempt at a smile; “I shall have to change my address to-morrow.”And with that he turned on his heel. I watched him through the window as he left the shop. He walked straight across the road and went in at the public-house opposite.And that glimpse was the last sight I had of Tom Drift for many, many months.
Two years passed.
They were, without exception, the dullest two years I, or, I venture to say, any watch made, ever spent. There I lay, run down, tarnished and neglected, on the pawnbroker’s shelf, never moved, never used, never thought of. Week followed week, and month month, and still no claimant for me came.
Other articles on the shelves beside me came and went, some remaining only a day, some a week, but I survived them all. Even my friend the chain took his departure, and left me without a soul to speak to.
None of the hundreds of tickets handed in bore the magic number 2222, which would have released me from my ignoble custody, and, in time, I gave up expecting it, and settled down to the old-fogeydom of my position, and exacted all the homage due to the “father of the shop” from my restless companions.
My place was at the end of a long shelf, next to the screen dividing the shop from the office, and my sole amusement during those two dreary years was peeping through a crack and watching my master’s customers. They were of all sorts and all conditions, and many of them became familiar.
There was the little girl, for instance, the top of whose bonnet just reached as high as the counter, who, regularly every Monday morning, staggered in under the weight of a bundle containing her father’s Sunday clothes, and, as regularly every Saturday evening, returned to redeem them. It was evident her respectable parent did not attend many evening parties between those two days, for I never remember his sending for them except at the regular times.
Then there was the wretched drunkard, who crept in stealthily, with now a child’s coat, now a picture, now a teapot; and with the money thus raised walked straight across the road to the public-house. And there was his haggard, worn wife, who always came next day with the ticket, and indignantly took back her household goods. There was the young sailor’s wife, too, with her baby in her arms, who came rarely at first, but afterwards more often, to pawn her few poor treasures, until at length a glad day came when the brawny tar himself, with his pockets full of cash, came with her and redeemed them every one.
I could tell of scores of others if I wished, but I have my own life to record, and not the transactions of my master, the pawnbroker.
One day, towards the end of the first year, the door opened softly and quickly, and there entered into the office a youth, haggard and reckless-looking, whom, I thought, surely I had seen before. I looked again.
Was it possible? Yes! this was none other thanTom Drift! But oh, how changed! A year ago, erring and wayward as he had been, he was yet respectable; his dress was the dress of a gentleman; his bearing was that of a gentleman too; his face had been naturally intelligent and pleasant; and his voice clear and cheerful. But now! There was a wild, restless roll about his eyes, a bright flush on his hollow cheeks, a dulness about his mouth, a hoarseness in his voice, which seemed to belong to another being. He was dissipated and seedy in appearance, and hung his head, as though ashamed to meet a fellow-being’s look, and, instead of one, looked at least ten years older than he had.
Such a wreck will evil ways make of a youth! He looked eagerly round, to see that no one but he was in the office, and then produced from his pocket a scarf-pin.
“What will you give me for this?” he whispered.
The pawnbroker took it up and turned it over. It was a handsome pin, with a pearl in the front.
“Ten shillings,” said the pawnbroker.
“What!” exclaimed Tom; “do you know what it’s worth?”
“Ten shillings is all I can give you,” curtly replied the pawnbroker.
Tom gulped down a groan. “Give me the money, then, for goodness’ sake,” he said.
The pawnbroker coolly and deliberately made out the ticket, while Tom stood chafing impatiently.
“Be quick, please!” he said, as though fearful of some one detecting him in a crime.
“Don’t you be in a hurry,” said the pawnbroker.
“Here’s the ticket.”
“And the ten shillings?” broke in Tom.
“You shall have it,” said my master, going to his drawer.
To Tom it seemed ages while the silver was being counted, and when he had got it he darted from the shop as swiftly as he had entered it.
“That fellow’s going wrong,” muttered the pawnbroker to himself, as he laid the pin on the shelf beside me.
I recognised it at once as having often been my companion on Tom’s dressing-table at nights, but I myself was so discoloured and ill that it did not at first know me. I was too anxious, however, to hear some thing about Tom to allow myself to remain disguised.
“Don’t you know me, scarf-pin?” I asked.
He looked hard at me. “Not a bit,” he said.
“I’m Tom Drift’s old watch.”
“You don’t say so! So you are! How ever did you come here? Did he pawn you?”
“No; I was stolen from him one night at the music-hall, and pawned here by the thief.”
“Ah, that music-hall!” groaned the pin; “that place has ruined Tom Drift.”
“When I left him,” I said, “he was just going to the bad as hard as he could. He had broken with his best friend, and seemed completely—”
“Hold hard! what friend?” interposed the pin.
“Charlie Newcome, my first master; they had a quarrel the day I was stolen.”
“That must be nearly two years ago?” said the pin.
“Just,” said I. “Do tell me what has happened since then.”
“It’s a long story,” said the pin.
“Never mind, we’ve nothing else to do here,” I said encouragingly.
“Well,” said the pin, “the night you were lost Tom never turned up at home at all.”
“He was utterly drunk,” I said, by way of explanation.
“Don’t you interrupt,” said the pin, “or I won’t tell you anything.”
I was silenced.
“Tom never turned up at all until the next morning; and he sat all that day in his chair, and did nothing but look at the wall in front of him.”
“Poor fellow!” I could not help saying.
“There you go!” said the pin; “be good enough to remember what I said, and if you can’t endure to hear of anybody sitting and looking at a wail, it’s no use my going on with my story.”
“I only meant that I could imagine how miserable he was that day,” said I; “but go on, please.”
“Two or three days after, Charlie Newcome called. Tom was alone, but he refused to see him. He cursed to himself when he heard the name. Charlie went back disappointed, but Tom made a great boast to his ‘friends’ that same night of his ‘cold shoulder to the prig,’ as he called it, and they highly applauded him for his sense.
“Again, a week later, Charlie called once more, but with the same result. He wrote letters, but Tom put them in the fire unread; he sent books, but they were all flung into a corner. In a thousand different ways he contrived to show Tom that, though ill-used and in suited, he was still his friend, and ready to serve him whenever opportunity should offer.
“All this while Tom was sinking lower and lower in self-respect. He was contracting a habit of drinking, and in a month or two after you had left he rarely came home sober.”
“And what about his bad friends?” asked I.
“There you are! why can’t you let me tell my story in peace? His bad friends visited him daily at first, made a lot of him, and praised him loudly for his resolution in dismissing Charlie, and for his ‘growing a man at last.’ They lent him money, they lost to him at cards and billiards, and they made his downward path as easy for him as possible.
“At last, about six months ago, Tom was found tipsy in the dissecting-room at the hospital, and cautioned by the Board. A fortnight later he was found in a similar state in one of the wards, and then he was summarily expelled from the place, and his name was struck off the roll of students.”
“Has it come to that?” I groaned.
“Come to that? Of course it has; I shouldn’t have said so if it hadn’t,” replied the testy pin, who seemed unable to brook the slightest interruption. “He took a fit of blues after that; he went to the Board, and begged to be allowed to return to his studies, representing that all his prospects in life depended on his finishing his course there. They gave him one more chance. In his gratitude he resolved to discard his companions, and actually sat down and wrote a letter to Charlie, begging him to come and see him.”
“Did he really?” I exclaimed, trembling with eagerness.
“All right, I shall not tell you of it again. Stop me once more, and you’ll have to find the rest of my story out for yourself.”
“I’m very sorry,” said I.
“So you ought to be. When it came to the time, however, Tom’s resolutions failed him. Gus and his friends called as usual that evening and laughed him to scorn. He dare not quarrel with them, dare not resist them. He crumpled up the letter in his pocket and never posted it, and that night returned to his evil ways without a struggle.
“For a week or two, however, he kept up appearances at the hospital; but it could not last. A misdemeanour more serious than the former one caused his second expulsion, and this time with an intimation that under no circumstances would he be readmitted. That was three months ago. He became desperate, and at the same time the behaviour of Gus altered. Instead of flattering and humouring him, he became imperious and spiteful. And still further, he demanded to be repaid the money he had advanced to Tom. Tom paid what little he could, and borrowed the rest from Mortimer. He got behindhand with his rent, and his landlady has given him notice. As usual, everybody to whom he owes money has found out his altered circumstances, and is down on him. The keeper of the music-hall, the tailor, the cigar merchant, are among the most urgent.”
“And your being here is a result of all this, I see,” said I, knowing the story was at an end, and considering my tongue to be released.
“Find out!” angrily retorted the pin, relapsing into ill-tempered silence.
I had little enough inclination to revert to the sad topic, and for the rest of that day gave myself up to sorrow and pity for Tom Drift. One thing I felt pretty sure of—it would not be long before he came again; and I was right.
In two days he entered the office, wild and haggard as before, but with less care to conceal his visit.
This time he laid on the counter the famous lance-wood fishing-rod which Charlie had given him months ago, and which surely ought to have been a reminder to him of better times.
He flung it down, and taking the few shillings the pawnbroker advanced on it, hurried from the shop.
The next time he came some one else was in the shop. A passing flush came over Tom’s face on discovering a witness to his humiliation; but he transacted his business with an assumed swagger which ill accorded with his inward misery. For even yet Tom Drift had this much of hope left in him—that he knew he was fallen, and was miserable at the thought. His self-respect and sensitiveness had been growing less day by day, and he himself growing proportionately hardened; but still he knew what remorse was, and by the very agony of his shame was still held out of the lowest of all depths—the depths of ruthless sin.
The stranger in the shop eyed him keenly, and when he had gone said to the pawnbroker, “He’s a nice article, he is!”
“Not much good, I’m thinking,” observed the pawnbroker, dryly.
“So you may say; I know the beauty. He banged me on the ’ed with a chair once, when he was screwed. Never mind, I know of two or three as is after him.”
And so saying, the disreputable man departed.
After that Tom came daily. Now it was an article of clothing, now some books, now some furniture, that he brought. It was soon evident that not only was he miserable and destitute, but ill too; and when presently for a fortnight he never passed the now well-known door, I knew that the fever had laid him low.
Poor Tom Drift! I wondered who was there now to nurse him in his weakness and comfort him in his wretchedness. He must be untended and unheeded. Well I knew his “friends” (oh, sad perversion of the sacred title!) would keep their distance, or return only in time to quench the first sparks of repentance. If only Charlie could have seen him at this time, with his spirit cowed and his weary heart beating about in vain for peace and hope, how would he not have flown to his bedside, and from those ruins have striven to help him to rise again to purity and honesty.
But no Charlie was there. Since the last appealing letter so scornfully rejected, Tom had heard not a word of him or from him. What wonder indeed if after so many disappointments and insults, the boy should at length leave his old schoolfellow to his fate?
With returning health there came to Tom no returning resolutions or efforts. The friends who had deserted his sick-bed were ready, as soon as ever he rose from it, with their temptations and baneful influence. One of his first visits after his recovery was to my master with a pair of boots. He looked so pale and feeble that the pawnbroker inquired after his health—a most unusual departure from business on the part of that merchant.
“Hope you’re feeling better,” he said.
“Yes; so much the better for you,” replied Tom with a ghastly smile. “What can you give me for these, they are nearly new?”
“Five shillings?”
“Oh, anything you like; I’ve to pay two pounds to-morrow. What you give me is all I shall have to do it with—I don’t care!”
The pawnbroker counted out the five shillings, and handed them across the counter.
“Good-bye!” said Tom, with another attempt at a smile; “I shall have to change my address to-morrow.”
And with that he turned on his heel. I watched him through the window as he left the shop. He walked straight across the road and went in at the public-house opposite.
And that glimpse was the last sight I had of Tom Drift for many, many months.
Chapter Eighteen.How I was knocked down by an auctioneer, and picked up by a countryman.One day, about two years after my arrival at the pawnbroker’s shop, an unusual circumstance happened to break the monotony of my unruffled existence. This was nothing more nor less than a Clearance Sale. I must tell you how it happened.For a week, every night, I saw my master poring over a big account-book in his parlour, comparing the entries in it with those of his pawn-tickets, and marking off on one list what articles had been pawned and redeemed, and on another what had been pawned and still remained unredeemed. So lengthy and complicated a process was this that it consumed the entire week. The next week further indications of a coming change manifested themselves. A printer came to the office with a bill for approval, worded as follows:—“Great Clearance Sale! The entire valuable and miscellaneous unredeemed stock of a pawnbroker will be sold by auction at the Central Mart, on Monday next, by Mr Hammer. Sale to commence at twelve o’clock precisely. Catalogues will be ready on Saturday, and may be had on application.”Thus I, and one or two of my neighbours on the shelf, read as we peeped through the crack at the printer’s proof-sheet.“‘Entire valuable and miscellaneous unredeemed stock!’ that’s a good bit of writing,” observed a pair of silver sugar-tongs near me; “that means you and me and the rest, Ticker. Who’d have thought of us getting such a grand name!”“Well, it strikes me we, at least I, have been lying here idle long enough,” said I; “it’s two years since I came here.”“Bless you, that’s no time,” said the tongs. “I knew a salt-spoon lay once ten years before he was put up—but then, you know, we silver things are worth our money any time.”“Yes,” said I, “we are.”The tongs laughed. “You don’t suppose I meant you when I talked of silver things, do you?”“Of course I am a silver watch.”“You’re a bigger muff than I took you for,” replied the aristocratic tongs, turning his hall-mark towards me. It was humiliating. Of course I ought to have known I was not solid silver, and had no claim to class myself of the same metal as a genuine silver pair of tongs.It was but one of many painful lessons I have had during my life not to give myself airs beyond my station.These solid silver goods certainly constituted the “upper ten thousand” of our valuable and miscellaneous community. When the time came for cataloguing us all, they separated themselves from the rest of us, and formed a distinct society, having their several names recorded in full at the head of the list.What a scene it was the day the catalogue came to our department! I suffered a further humiliation then by being almost entirely overlooked. A great tray of silver watches lay on the bench, brought together from all parts of the shop; and, to my horror, I found I was not among them.“That’s the lot,” said the pawnbroker.“Very good,” said the auctioneer, who was making the catalogue; “shall we take leather bags next?”“As you please,” said my master.“Hold hard,” said the auctioneer, hastily counting the watches on the tray and comparing the number with a list he held in his hand, “there’s one short.”“Is there? I don’t know how that can be.”“You’ve got twenty-two down here and there’s only twenty-one on the tray.”The pawnbroker looked puzzled.“Better call over the number,” said the auctioneer. So my master called out the number attached to each watch, and the auctioneer ticked it off on his list. When the last had been called, he said,—“Where’s Number 2222?”“Ah, to be sure, that’s the one,” said the pawnbroker, reaching up to where I lay, and taking me down; “this one. I’d forgotten all about him.”Flattering, certainly! and still more so when the auctioneer, surveying my tarnished and dingy appearance, said, “Well, he’s not much of a show after all. You’d better rub him up a bit, or we shan’t get him off hand at all.”“Very good,” said the pawnbroker, and I was handed over forthwith to an assistant to be cleaned. And much I needed it. My skin was nearly as black as a negro’s, and my joints and muscles were perfectly clogged with dust. I had a regular watch’s Turkish bath. I was scrubbed and powdered, my works were taken out and cleaned, my joints were oiled, my face was washed, and my hands were polished. Altogether I was overhauled, and when I took my place on the tray with my twenty-one companions I was altogether a new being, and by no means the least presentable of the company.How we quarrelled and wrangled, and shouldered one another on that tray! There was such a Babel of voices (for each of us had been set going) that scarcely any one could hear himself speak. Nothing but recriminations and vituperations rose on every hand.“Get out of the way, ugly lever,” snarled one monstrous hunter watch near me, big enough for an ordinary clock. “Who do you suppose wants you? Get out of the way, do you hear?”“Where to?” I inquired, not altogether liking to be so summarily ordered about, and yet finding the excitement of a little quarrel pleasant after two years’ monotony.“Anywhere, as long as you get out of my way. Do you know I’m a hundred years old?”“Are you, though?” said I. “People must have had bigger pockets in those days than they have now!”This I considered a very fair retort for his arrogance, and left him snorting and croaking to himself, and bullying some other little watches, whom, I suppose, he imagined would be more deferential to his grey hairs than I was.I was not destined, however, to be left in peace.“Who are you?” I heard a sharp voice say. Looking round, I saw a creature with a great eye in the middle of his face, and a long, lanky hand spinning round and round over his visage.“Who areyou, rather?” I replied.It was evidently what he wanted, for he began at once: “I’m all the latest improvements—compensation balance and jewelled in four holes; perfect for time, beauty, and workmanship; sound, strong, and accurate; with keyless action, and large full-dial second hand; air-tight, damp-tight, and dust-tight; seven guineas net and five per cent, to teetotalers. There, what do you think of that?”“I think,” said I, with a laugh, in which a good many others joined, “that if you’re so tight as all that teetotalers had better do without you.”It will be observed the scenes and company I had been in of late years had tended to improve neither my temper nor my manners.In this way we spent most of the day before the auction, and it was quite a relief early next morning to find ourselves being removed to the “Central Mart.”It was impossible, however, to resist the temptation of another quarrel in our tray while we were waiting for the sale to begin. The culprit in this instance was a certain Queen Anne’s shilling attached to the chain of an insignificant-looking watch.“What business has that ugly bit of tin here?” asked a burly hunter.“Who calls me an ugly bit of tin?” squeaked out the coin.“I do; there!” said the hunter; “now what have you got to say?”“Only that you’re a falsehood. Why, you miserable, machine-made, wheezing, old make-believe of a turnip—”“Draw it mild, young fellow,” said the hunter.“Do you know that I was current coin of the realm before the tin mine that supplied your carcass was so much as discovered? I’m a Queen Anne’s shilling!”“Are you, though? And what good are you now, my ancient Bob?”The shilling grew, so to speak, black in the face.“I won’t be called a Bob! I’m not a Bob! Who dares call me a Bob?”“I do, Bob; there, Bob. What do you think of that, Bob? What’s the use of you, Bob, eh? Canyoutell the time, Bob, eh, Bob, Bob, Bob?”And we all took up the cry, and from that moment until the time of our sale every sound, for us, was drowned in a ceaseless cry of “Bob!” in the midst of which the unlucky Queen Anne’s shilling crawled under his watch, and devoutly wished he were as undoubtedly dead as the illustrious royal lady whose image and superscription he had the misfortune to bear.In due time the sale began. Among the earliest lots I recognised my acquaintance the solid silver sugar-tongs, which went for very nearly his full value, thus confirming me in my belief that, after all, there’s nothing like the genuine thing all the world over.After the disposal of the silver goods—for which comparatively few people bid, and that with little or no competition—the real excitement of the auction began.“I have here, ladies and gentlemen,” said the auctioneer, “a remarkably fine and superior lot of silver watches, all of which have been carefully cleaned and kept in order, and which, I can safely say, are equal to, if not better than, new. In many cases the watches are accompanied by chains of a very elegant and chaste description, which appendages considerably enhance their value. When I inform you that we value the contents of this tray, at the very lowest, at £90, being an average of £4 per watch, you will see I am not presenting to you any ordinary lot of goods. I will put up the watches singly in the order in which they are described in the catalogue.”Some of the company looked as if they were not sure whether they ought not to say “Hear, hear!” after this very elegant and polished speech, but they restrained their admiration, and reserved their energies for the bidding.As I was last on the list I had full opportunity of noticing how my fellows fared, and was specially curious to see how the three or four watches whose acquaintance I had chanced to make went off.The common-looking watch with the unlucky “Bob” attached to its chain was knocked down for £3 5 shillings, which, on the whole, was a triumph to the mortified coin, for it is certain without him the lot would not have fetched nearly so much, and his triumph was further enhanced by the fact that the hunter with whom he had had his altercation fetched only £2 17 shillings 6 pence. However, there was no time for jeers and recriminations at present, we were all too deeply absorbed in watching the fate of our fellows and speculating on our own.The compensation balance, keyless, air-tight, seven-guinea grandee was the next to be put up, and the first bid for him was £1 10s.“That I should have lived to hear that!” I heard the poor creature gasp.“And if he’s a teetotaler,” I murmured, by way of encouragement, “that only means £1 8 shillings 6 pence!”“Scoffer! be silent and leave me to my misery,” said the keyless one, in a solemn tone.The bidding improved considerably. He was run up to £2, £2 10 shillings, £3, £3 10 shillings, and finally to £4.“Nothing more for this very magnificent watch?” said the auctioneer; “I positively cannot let him go for a song.”No answer.“I wish gentlemen would take the trouble to look at it,” continued the persevering official; “they could not fail to see it was worth twice the money bid.”Still no answer.“Did I understand you to bid four five, sir?” said the auctioneer to an innocent-looking stripling near the door. “Thank you.”The stripling, however, disclaimed the soft impeachment, and looked very guilty as he did so.“Well, there seems no help for it. I wish I were down among you gentlemen. I’d take good care not to lose this chance.”No answer.“Then I must knock it down. Going, going, gone, sir; it’s yours, and dirt cheap, too.”All this was encouraging for me. If a seven-guinea watch goes for four pounds, for how much will a three-guinea one go?This was a problem which I feebly endeavoured to solve as I lay waiting my turn.It came at last. I felt myself lifted on high, and heard my merits pronounced in the words of the catalogue.“Lot 68. London made, lever, open-face watch, capped and jewelled, in very fine order.”“Look for yourselves, gentlemen.”The gentlemen did look for themselves, and complimented me by a preliminary bid of 15 shillings.The auctioneer laughed a pleasant laugh, as much as to say, “That is a capital joke,” and waited for the next bid.It was not long in coming, and I advanced rapidly by half-crowns to thirty shillings. Here I made sure I should stop, for this was the figure at which the pawnbroker himself had valued me. But no; such are the vagaries of an auction, I went on still, up to £2, and from that to £2 10 shillings. Surely there was some mistake. I looked out to see who they were who were thus bidding for me, and fancied I detected in that scrutiny the secret of my unexpected value.It was a countryman bidding—endeavouring in his downright way to become my possessor, and wholly unconscious of the array of Jews against him, who bid him up from half-crown to half-crown until I had nearly reached my original value.“Three pounds,” at last said one of the Jews.The countryman had evidently come to the end of his tether, and did not answer the challenge.“Three pounds,” said the auctioneer; “you’re not going to stop, sir?”The countryman said nothing.“Try once more,” said the auctioneer; but the rustic was silent.“Three pounds; no more? Going, going—”“Guineas!” roared the countryman, at the last moment.“Thank you, sir; I thought you were not going to be beaten. Three guineas, gentlemen; who says more? Nobody? Going, then, to you, sir; going, going, gone!”And so, once more, I changed masters.
One day, about two years after my arrival at the pawnbroker’s shop, an unusual circumstance happened to break the monotony of my unruffled existence. This was nothing more nor less than a Clearance Sale. I must tell you how it happened.
For a week, every night, I saw my master poring over a big account-book in his parlour, comparing the entries in it with those of his pawn-tickets, and marking off on one list what articles had been pawned and redeemed, and on another what had been pawned and still remained unredeemed. So lengthy and complicated a process was this that it consumed the entire week. The next week further indications of a coming change manifested themselves. A printer came to the office with a bill for approval, worded as follows:—
“Great Clearance Sale! The entire valuable and miscellaneous unredeemed stock of a pawnbroker will be sold by auction at the Central Mart, on Monday next, by Mr Hammer. Sale to commence at twelve o’clock precisely. Catalogues will be ready on Saturday, and may be had on application.”
“Great Clearance Sale! The entire valuable and miscellaneous unredeemed stock of a pawnbroker will be sold by auction at the Central Mart, on Monday next, by Mr Hammer. Sale to commence at twelve o’clock precisely. Catalogues will be ready on Saturday, and may be had on application.”
Thus I, and one or two of my neighbours on the shelf, read as we peeped through the crack at the printer’s proof-sheet.
“‘Entire valuable and miscellaneous unredeemed stock!’ that’s a good bit of writing,” observed a pair of silver sugar-tongs near me; “that means you and me and the rest, Ticker. Who’d have thought of us getting such a grand name!”
“Well, it strikes me we, at least I, have been lying here idle long enough,” said I; “it’s two years since I came here.”
“Bless you, that’s no time,” said the tongs. “I knew a salt-spoon lay once ten years before he was put up—but then, you know, we silver things are worth our money any time.”
“Yes,” said I, “we are.”
The tongs laughed. “You don’t suppose I meant you when I talked of silver things, do you?”
“Of course I am a silver watch.”
“You’re a bigger muff than I took you for,” replied the aristocratic tongs, turning his hall-mark towards me. It was humiliating. Of course I ought to have known I was not solid silver, and had no claim to class myself of the same metal as a genuine silver pair of tongs.
It was but one of many painful lessons I have had during my life not to give myself airs beyond my station.
These solid silver goods certainly constituted the “upper ten thousand” of our valuable and miscellaneous community. When the time came for cataloguing us all, they separated themselves from the rest of us, and formed a distinct society, having their several names recorded in full at the head of the list.
What a scene it was the day the catalogue came to our department! I suffered a further humiliation then by being almost entirely overlooked. A great tray of silver watches lay on the bench, brought together from all parts of the shop; and, to my horror, I found I was not among them.
“That’s the lot,” said the pawnbroker.
“Very good,” said the auctioneer, who was making the catalogue; “shall we take leather bags next?”
“As you please,” said my master.
“Hold hard,” said the auctioneer, hastily counting the watches on the tray and comparing the number with a list he held in his hand, “there’s one short.”
“Is there? I don’t know how that can be.”
“You’ve got twenty-two down here and there’s only twenty-one on the tray.”
The pawnbroker looked puzzled.
“Better call over the number,” said the auctioneer. So my master called out the number attached to each watch, and the auctioneer ticked it off on his list. When the last had been called, he said,—
“Where’s Number 2222?”
“Ah, to be sure, that’s the one,” said the pawnbroker, reaching up to where I lay, and taking me down; “this one. I’d forgotten all about him.”
Flattering, certainly! and still more so when the auctioneer, surveying my tarnished and dingy appearance, said, “Well, he’s not much of a show after all. You’d better rub him up a bit, or we shan’t get him off hand at all.”
“Very good,” said the pawnbroker, and I was handed over forthwith to an assistant to be cleaned. And much I needed it. My skin was nearly as black as a negro’s, and my joints and muscles were perfectly clogged with dust. I had a regular watch’s Turkish bath. I was scrubbed and powdered, my works were taken out and cleaned, my joints were oiled, my face was washed, and my hands were polished. Altogether I was overhauled, and when I took my place on the tray with my twenty-one companions I was altogether a new being, and by no means the least presentable of the company.
How we quarrelled and wrangled, and shouldered one another on that tray! There was such a Babel of voices (for each of us had been set going) that scarcely any one could hear himself speak. Nothing but recriminations and vituperations rose on every hand.
“Get out of the way, ugly lever,” snarled one monstrous hunter watch near me, big enough for an ordinary clock. “Who do you suppose wants you? Get out of the way, do you hear?”
“Where to?” I inquired, not altogether liking to be so summarily ordered about, and yet finding the excitement of a little quarrel pleasant after two years’ monotony.
“Anywhere, as long as you get out of my way. Do you know I’m a hundred years old?”
“Are you, though?” said I. “People must have had bigger pockets in those days than they have now!”
This I considered a very fair retort for his arrogance, and left him snorting and croaking to himself, and bullying some other little watches, whom, I suppose, he imagined would be more deferential to his grey hairs than I was.
I was not destined, however, to be left in peace.
“Who are you?” I heard a sharp voice say. Looking round, I saw a creature with a great eye in the middle of his face, and a long, lanky hand spinning round and round over his visage.
“Who areyou, rather?” I replied.
It was evidently what he wanted, for he began at once: “I’m all the latest improvements—compensation balance and jewelled in four holes; perfect for time, beauty, and workmanship; sound, strong, and accurate; with keyless action, and large full-dial second hand; air-tight, damp-tight, and dust-tight; seven guineas net and five per cent, to teetotalers. There, what do you think of that?”
“I think,” said I, with a laugh, in which a good many others joined, “that if you’re so tight as all that teetotalers had better do without you.”
It will be observed the scenes and company I had been in of late years had tended to improve neither my temper nor my manners.
In this way we spent most of the day before the auction, and it was quite a relief early next morning to find ourselves being removed to the “Central Mart.”
It was impossible, however, to resist the temptation of another quarrel in our tray while we were waiting for the sale to begin. The culprit in this instance was a certain Queen Anne’s shilling attached to the chain of an insignificant-looking watch.
“What business has that ugly bit of tin here?” asked a burly hunter.
“Who calls me an ugly bit of tin?” squeaked out the coin.
“I do; there!” said the hunter; “now what have you got to say?”
“Only that you’re a falsehood. Why, you miserable, machine-made, wheezing, old make-believe of a turnip—”
“Draw it mild, young fellow,” said the hunter.
“Do you know that I was current coin of the realm before the tin mine that supplied your carcass was so much as discovered? I’m a Queen Anne’s shilling!”
“Are you, though? And what good are you now, my ancient Bob?”
The shilling grew, so to speak, black in the face.
“I won’t be called a Bob! I’m not a Bob! Who dares call me a Bob?”
“I do, Bob; there, Bob. What do you think of that, Bob? What’s the use of you, Bob, eh? Canyoutell the time, Bob, eh, Bob, Bob, Bob?”
And we all took up the cry, and from that moment until the time of our sale every sound, for us, was drowned in a ceaseless cry of “Bob!” in the midst of which the unlucky Queen Anne’s shilling crawled under his watch, and devoutly wished he were as undoubtedly dead as the illustrious royal lady whose image and superscription he had the misfortune to bear.
In due time the sale began. Among the earliest lots I recognised my acquaintance the solid silver sugar-tongs, which went for very nearly his full value, thus confirming me in my belief that, after all, there’s nothing like the genuine thing all the world over.
After the disposal of the silver goods—for which comparatively few people bid, and that with little or no competition—the real excitement of the auction began.
“I have here, ladies and gentlemen,” said the auctioneer, “a remarkably fine and superior lot of silver watches, all of which have been carefully cleaned and kept in order, and which, I can safely say, are equal to, if not better than, new. In many cases the watches are accompanied by chains of a very elegant and chaste description, which appendages considerably enhance their value. When I inform you that we value the contents of this tray, at the very lowest, at £90, being an average of £4 per watch, you will see I am not presenting to you any ordinary lot of goods. I will put up the watches singly in the order in which they are described in the catalogue.”
Some of the company looked as if they were not sure whether they ought not to say “Hear, hear!” after this very elegant and polished speech, but they restrained their admiration, and reserved their energies for the bidding.
As I was last on the list I had full opportunity of noticing how my fellows fared, and was specially curious to see how the three or four watches whose acquaintance I had chanced to make went off.
The common-looking watch with the unlucky “Bob” attached to its chain was knocked down for £3 5 shillings, which, on the whole, was a triumph to the mortified coin, for it is certain without him the lot would not have fetched nearly so much, and his triumph was further enhanced by the fact that the hunter with whom he had had his altercation fetched only £2 17 shillings 6 pence. However, there was no time for jeers and recriminations at present, we were all too deeply absorbed in watching the fate of our fellows and speculating on our own.
The compensation balance, keyless, air-tight, seven-guinea grandee was the next to be put up, and the first bid for him was £1 10s.
“That I should have lived to hear that!” I heard the poor creature gasp.
“And if he’s a teetotaler,” I murmured, by way of encouragement, “that only means £1 8 shillings 6 pence!”
“Scoffer! be silent and leave me to my misery,” said the keyless one, in a solemn tone.
The bidding improved considerably. He was run up to £2, £2 10 shillings, £3, £3 10 shillings, and finally to £4.
“Nothing more for this very magnificent watch?” said the auctioneer; “I positively cannot let him go for a song.”
No answer.
“I wish gentlemen would take the trouble to look at it,” continued the persevering official; “they could not fail to see it was worth twice the money bid.”
Still no answer.
“Did I understand you to bid four five, sir?” said the auctioneer to an innocent-looking stripling near the door. “Thank you.”
The stripling, however, disclaimed the soft impeachment, and looked very guilty as he did so.
“Well, there seems no help for it. I wish I were down among you gentlemen. I’d take good care not to lose this chance.”
No answer.
“Then I must knock it down. Going, going, gone, sir; it’s yours, and dirt cheap, too.”
All this was encouraging for me. If a seven-guinea watch goes for four pounds, for how much will a three-guinea one go?
This was a problem which I feebly endeavoured to solve as I lay waiting my turn.
It came at last. I felt myself lifted on high, and heard my merits pronounced in the words of the catalogue.
“Lot 68. London made, lever, open-face watch, capped and jewelled, in very fine order.”
“Look for yourselves, gentlemen.”
The gentlemen did look for themselves, and complimented me by a preliminary bid of 15 shillings.
The auctioneer laughed a pleasant laugh, as much as to say, “That is a capital joke,” and waited for the next bid.
It was not long in coming, and I advanced rapidly by half-crowns to thirty shillings. Here I made sure I should stop, for this was the figure at which the pawnbroker himself had valued me. But no; such are the vagaries of an auction, I went on still, up to £2, and from that to £2 10 shillings. Surely there was some mistake. I looked out to see who they were who were thus bidding for me, and fancied I detected in that scrutiny the secret of my unexpected value.
It was a countryman bidding—endeavouring in his downright way to become my possessor, and wholly unconscious of the array of Jews against him, who bid him up from half-crown to half-crown until I had nearly reached my original value.
“Three pounds,” at last said one of the Jews.
The countryman had evidently come to the end of his tether, and did not answer the challenge.
“Three pounds,” said the auctioneer; “you’re not going to stop, sir?”
The countryman said nothing.
“Try once more,” said the auctioneer; but the rustic was silent.
“Three pounds; no more? Going, going—”
“Guineas!” roared the countryman, at the last moment.
“Thank you, sir; I thought you were not going to be beaten. Three guineas, gentlemen; who says more? Nobody? Going, then, to you, sir; going, going, gone!”
And so, once more, I changed masters.
Chapter Nineteen.How, after much ceremony, I found myself in the pocket of a genius.Muggerbridge is a straggling, picturesque little midland village, with one principal street, an old church, a market-place, and a pound. Its population, all told, does not number a thousand, the majority of whom are engaged in agriculture; its houses are for the most part old-fashioned and poor, though clean; and altogether its general character and appearance combine to proclaim the village an unpretending English hamlet, with nothing whatever but its name to distinguish it from a hundred others like it.It was here I found myself duly installed in the window of the village jeweller’s—held out as a bait to the purses of Muggerbridge. The countryman who had purchased me was a big enough man in his own place, though very little had been made of him in the “Central Mart.” He was jeweller, silversmith, church warden, postmaster, and special Muggerbridge correspondent to the LondonThunderboltall in one here, and appeared to be aware of his accumulated dignities!It was his custom twice a year to visit London for the purpose of replenishing his stock. It was the common talk of the place that he always returned from such expeditions with prodigies of bargains, which went far to encourage the popular tradition as to the prodigal wealth of the metropolis. People who knew him in town, on the other hand, always laughed at him, and were unkind enough to hint that he never by any chance bought an article at less than its full price, and often paid an extremely fanciful ransom for his purchases.The churchwarden and postmaster of Muggerbridge would have been very indignant had such an insinuation ever reached his ears. It never did, happily, and the worthy man was consequently always well satisfied with his purchases; which—whatever he gave for them—he always contrived to sell at a very respectable profit.It was with a view to this profit that I found myself looking out of Mr Argent’s window, in the High Street of Muggerbridge, with a ticket round my neck, conveying the (to me) very gratifying information that “this superb watch was to be disposed of for the moderate amount of £4 10 shillings only,” and a parenthesis below further indulged my vanity by volunteering the information that I was worth £6. Itdidoccur to me to wonder why, if I was worth £6, Mr Argent should be such a donkey as to sell me for only three-quarters of that sum. Either he was a very benevolent man, or he was in immediate want of £4 10 shillings, or he had his doubts as to my alleged value. I somehow fancied the last was the true reason, and was half afraid he was right too.Well, I looked out of Mr Argent’s windows for two months, and by that time became acquainted with nearly all the inhabitants of Muggerbridge.On my first arrival I was an object of a good deal of curiosity and admiration, for any change in a country shop window is an excitement, and when that change takes the form of a £6 “superb” watch offered for £4 10 shillings, it was no wonder the honest Muggerbridgians gaped in at me and read my label.But in a very little time familiarity had bred contempt, and I lay almost unheeded by the outside world. The grocer opposite, with his triumphal arch of jam-pots monopolised all the wonder, and most of the admiration, and I had the mortification of seeing passers turn their backs on me, and step over the way to contemplate that vulgar structure.I had, however, one or two constant admirers. One of these was a youth, scarcely more than a boy, with a very pale, thoughtful face. He was poorly dressed, but respectable. A book was generally tucked under his arm, and very often I could see his lips moving, as if repeating something to himself.He paid me more attention than anybody. Every time he passed the shop he halted and looked at me, as I thought, wistfully, and usually appeared relieved to find me still in my place.“George Reader’s took a fancy to the new watch, I can see,” I heard Mr Argent say one day to his wife.He spoke, let me observe, in a very broad country dialect, which I do not feel equal to reproducing here.“Poor lad!” said Mrs Argent; “I dare say he’d like to have it in his pocket when he goes to college.”“He is going, then?”“Yes, for certain; the clergyman says it would be a sin for a boy of his cleverness not to go, and so I think.”“Well, learning’s a great thing; and when a gamekeeper’s son does take a fit of it, I suppose it’s all right to humour it. But you and I, wife, can get on very well without it.”“Speak for yourself,” retorted Mrs Argent; “I wish you had half as much in your head as that boy has got, that’s all!”“And I suppose you wish you’d got the other half, eh? Stuff!”And after this little tiff the worthy couple were silent for a while. Presently Mrs Argent again spoke. “I wonder what they’ll do about the church organ when George’s gone?”“Ah! you may say so,” said the husband, with a touch of importance in his voice which became a churchwarden when speaking of church matters; “it’ll be hard to fill his place there.”“So it will. Did you stay after the service on Sunday?”“No; you know I had to go round to the curate’s. Why?”“Just because if you’d heard him play you’d have been glued to your chair, as I was. It was beautiful. I couldn’t have got up from that chair if I’d tried.”“Good job you didn’t try, if you were glued down, especially in your Sunday gown. I shouldn’t care to have to buy many of them a month.”“Now, John, you know I’ve not had a new gown for nearly a year.”And then the talk took a departure over a range of topics to which I need not drag my unoffending reader. This short conversation sufficed to satisfy my curiosity in part as to the boy who was paying me such constant attention; and another event which shortly happened served to bring me into still closer acquaintance with George Reader. One day there entered the shop a party consisting of half a dozen persons. One of them was a young man in the dress of a clergyman, and the others I knew well by sight as respectable and respected villagers.“Good-morning, Mr Argent,” said the curate, for the clerical gentleman was none other; “we’ve come to see you on a little matter of business.”“Hope there’s nothing wrong with the heating stoves in the church, sir,” said Mr Argent, with an anxious face, “I was always against them being used at all.”“The stoves are quite well, I believe,” said the curate, smiling; “our business is of quite a different kind. We’ve come to make a purchase, in fact.”Mr Argent’s face brightened considerably, partly at the assurance as to the salubrity of the gas-stoves and partly at the prospect of business.“What can I do for you, sir?” he said, no longer with his churchwarden’s voice, but as the Muggerbridge silversmith.“Well, we have been asked to select a small present to be given by the choir and congregation of our church to George Reader, who, I suppose you know, is going next week to college.”“I have heard tell of it, sir,” said Mr Argent, “and my wife and I were only wondering the other day what was to become of the music at the church when he’s gone.”“We don’t like to think of it,” said one of the party. “It would want a good one to take his place,” said another.“We shall all miss him,” said the curate; “and we are anxious before he leaves us to present him with some little token of our regard. We have kept the thing from you, Mr Argent, as of course we should have to come to you to procure whatever we decided on getting, so your contribution to the gift will have to be some good advice on the matter we are still undecided about—what to get.”“I shall be very glad to help—have you decided—er—I mean—has anything been said—that is—about what—”“About how much? Well, we have nearly four pounds—in fact, we might call it four. What have you about that price that would be suitable?”Oh! how my heart fluttered, for I could guess by this time what was coming.Mr Argent looked profound for a minute, and then said, “There’s one thing, I think, would do.”“What?” asked the deputation.He pulled me out of the window and laid me on the counter.“A watch! Dear me! we thought of all sorts of things, but not once of that!”“It would be a suitable present,” said one of the party; “but this one is £4 10.”“That needn’t matter,” said Mr Argent; “if you like it my wife and I will settle about the difference.”“That’s very kind of you, Mr Argent. Does any one know if George has a watch?”“I know he hasn’t,” said one of the party. “And what’s more, I’ve heard him say he wishes he had one.”“And I can answer for it he’s been looking in at my window at this very one every day for the last month,” said the silversmith.“Well, what do you say to getting this, then? We needn’t ask you if it’s a good one, Mr Argent.”“No, you needn’t, sir,” replied the smiling Mr Argent, who, as I had remained run down since the day he bought me, could not well have answered the question more definitely.“You’ll clean it up, will you, and set it going, and send it to me this afternoon?” said the curate;—“and perhaps you would like to come with us to Reader’s cottage this evening, when we are going to present it?”Mr Argent promised to form one of the party, and the deputation then left.I was swiftly subjected to all the cleaning and polishing which brushes, wash-leather, and whiting could give me. I was wound up and set to the right time, and a neat piece of black watered ribbon was attached to my neck, and then I waited patiently till the time came for my presentation to my new master.The gamekeeper’s cottage to which I was conducted in state that evening was not an imposing habitation. It boasted of only three rooms, and just as many occupants. George, the hero of the occasion, was the son of its humble owner and his wife, and, as will have been gathered, had turned out a prodigy. From his earliest days he had displayed a remarkable aptitude for study. Having once learned to read at the village school, he became insatiable after books, and devoured all that came within his reach.Happily he fell into the hands of a wise and able guide, the clergyman of the parish, who, early recognising the cleverness of the boy, strove to turn his thirst for learning into profitable channels, lent him books, explained to him what he failed to understand, incited him to thoroughness, and generally constituted himself his kind and helpful adviser.The consequence of this timely tuition had been that George had grown up, not a boisterous, over bearing prig, showing off his learning at every available chance, and making himself detestable, and everybody else miserable, by his conceited air, but a modest, quiet scholar, with plenty of hidden fire and ambition, and not presuming on his talents to scorn his humble origin, or be ashamed of his home and parents—on the contrary, connecting them with all his dearest hopes of success and advancement in the world.They, good souls, were quite bewildered by the sudden blaze of their son’s celebrity. They hardly seemed to understand what it all meant, but had a vague sort of idea that they were implicated in “Garge’s” achievements. They would sit and listen to him as he read to them, as if they were at an exhibition at which they had paid for admission, and it is not too much to say “Garge” was, in their eyes, almost as dreadful a personage as the lord of the manor himself.Among his fellow-villagers George was, as the reader will have gathered, somewhat of a hero, and not a little of a favourite. This distinction he owed to a talent for music, which had at a very early age displayed itself, and had been heartily encouraged by the rector. In this pursuit, which he followed as his only recreation, he had made such progress that, while yet a boy, he became voluntary organist at the church, and as such had won the hearts of the neighbours.They didn’t know much about music, but they knew the organ sounded beautiful on Sundays, and that “Garge” played it. And so it was a real trouble to them now that he was about to leave Muggerbridge.You may imagine the state of excitement into which this unexpected visit threw simple Mr and Mrs Reader. The good lady was too much taken aback even to offer her customary welcome, and as for the gamekeeper, he sat stock still in his chair, with his eyes on his son, like a hound that waits the signal for action.“We are rather an invasion, I’m afraid,” said the curate, squeezing himself into the little kitchen between a clothes-horse and a dresser.“Not at all,” said George, looking very bewildered.“Perhaps you’ll wonder why we’ve come?” added the curate, turning to the gamekeeper.“Maybe you’ve missed something, and thinks one of us has got it,” was the cheerful suggestion.The curate laughed, and the deputation laughed, and George laughed, and George’s mother laughed, which made things much easier for all parties.“No, we haven’t missed anything, Mr Reader,” replied the curate, “but we expect to misssomebody—George, and that is the reason of our visit.”And then the curate explained what the business was, and one of the churchwardens made a speech (the composition of which had kept him awake all the previous night), and then I was produced and handed over. And George blushed and stammered out something which nobody could understand, and George’s mother began to cry, and George’s father, unable otherwise to express his sense of the occasion, began to whistle. And so the little business was satisfactorily concluded, and the deputation withdrew, leaving me in the pocket of a new master. Three days afterwards both of us took our departure for Cambridge.
Muggerbridge is a straggling, picturesque little midland village, with one principal street, an old church, a market-place, and a pound. Its population, all told, does not number a thousand, the majority of whom are engaged in agriculture; its houses are for the most part old-fashioned and poor, though clean; and altogether its general character and appearance combine to proclaim the village an unpretending English hamlet, with nothing whatever but its name to distinguish it from a hundred others like it.
It was here I found myself duly installed in the window of the village jeweller’s—held out as a bait to the purses of Muggerbridge. The countryman who had purchased me was a big enough man in his own place, though very little had been made of him in the “Central Mart.” He was jeweller, silversmith, church warden, postmaster, and special Muggerbridge correspondent to the LondonThunderboltall in one here, and appeared to be aware of his accumulated dignities!
It was his custom twice a year to visit London for the purpose of replenishing his stock. It was the common talk of the place that he always returned from such expeditions with prodigies of bargains, which went far to encourage the popular tradition as to the prodigal wealth of the metropolis. People who knew him in town, on the other hand, always laughed at him, and were unkind enough to hint that he never by any chance bought an article at less than its full price, and often paid an extremely fanciful ransom for his purchases.
The churchwarden and postmaster of Muggerbridge would have been very indignant had such an insinuation ever reached his ears. It never did, happily, and the worthy man was consequently always well satisfied with his purchases; which—whatever he gave for them—he always contrived to sell at a very respectable profit.
It was with a view to this profit that I found myself looking out of Mr Argent’s window, in the High Street of Muggerbridge, with a ticket round my neck, conveying the (to me) very gratifying information that “this superb watch was to be disposed of for the moderate amount of £4 10 shillings only,” and a parenthesis below further indulged my vanity by volunteering the information that I was worth £6. Itdidoccur to me to wonder why, if I was worth £6, Mr Argent should be such a donkey as to sell me for only three-quarters of that sum. Either he was a very benevolent man, or he was in immediate want of £4 10 shillings, or he had his doubts as to my alleged value. I somehow fancied the last was the true reason, and was half afraid he was right too.
Well, I looked out of Mr Argent’s windows for two months, and by that time became acquainted with nearly all the inhabitants of Muggerbridge.
On my first arrival I was an object of a good deal of curiosity and admiration, for any change in a country shop window is an excitement, and when that change takes the form of a £6 “superb” watch offered for £4 10 shillings, it was no wonder the honest Muggerbridgians gaped in at me and read my label.
But in a very little time familiarity had bred contempt, and I lay almost unheeded by the outside world. The grocer opposite, with his triumphal arch of jam-pots monopolised all the wonder, and most of the admiration, and I had the mortification of seeing passers turn their backs on me, and step over the way to contemplate that vulgar structure.
I had, however, one or two constant admirers. One of these was a youth, scarcely more than a boy, with a very pale, thoughtful face. He was poorly dressed, but respectable. A book was generally tucked under his arm, and very often I could see his lips moving, as if repeating something to himself.
He paid me more attention than anybody. Every time he passed the shop he halted and looked at me, as I thought, wistfully, and usually appeared relieved to find me still in my place.
“George Reader’s took a fancy to the new watch, I can see,” I heard Mr Argent say one day to his wife.
He spoke, let me observe, in a very broad country dialect, which I do not feel equal to reproducing here.
“Poor lad!” said Mrs Argent; “I dare say he’d like to have it in his pocket when he goes to college.”
“He is going, then?”
“Yes, for certain; the clergyman says it would be a sin for a boy of his cleverness not to go, and so I think.”
“Well, learning’s a great thing; and when a gamekeeper’s son does take a fit of it, I suppose it’s all right to humour it. But you and I, wife, can get on very well without it.”
“Speak for yourself,” retorted Mrs Argent; “I wish you had half as much in your head as that boy has got, that’s all!”
“And I suppose you wish you’d got the other half, eh? Stuff!”
And after this little tiff the worthy couple were silent for a while. Presently Mrs Argent again spoke. “I wonder what they’ll do about the church organ when George’s gone?”
“Ah! you may say so,” said the husband, with a touch of importance in his voice which became a churchwarden when speaking of church matters; “it’ll be hard to fill his place there.”
“So it will. Did you stay after the service on Sunday?”
“No; you know I had to go round to the curate’s. Why?”
“Just because if you’d heard him play you’d have been glued to your chair, as I was. It was beautiful. I couldn’t have got up from that chair if I’d tried.”
“Good job you didn’t try, if you were glued down, especially in your Sunday gown. I shouldn’t care to have to buy many of them a month.”
“Now, John, you know I’ve not had a new gown for nearly a year.”
And then the talk took a departure over a range of topics to which I need not drag my unoffending reader. This short conversation sufficed to satisfy my curiosity in part as to the boy who was paying me such constant attention; and another event which shortly happened served to bring me into still closer acquaintance with George Reader. One day there entered the shop a party consisting of half a dozen persons. One of them was a young man in the dress of a clergyman, and the others I knew well by sight as respectable and respected villagers.
“Good-morning, Mr Argent,” said the curate, for the clerical gentleman was none other; “we’ve come to see you on a little matter of business.”
“Hope there’s nothing wrong with the heating stoves in the church, sir,” said Mr Argent, with an anxious face, “I was always against them being used at all.”
“The stoves are quite well, I believe,” said the curate, smiling; “our business is of quite a different kind. We’ve come to make a purchase, in fact.”
Mr Argent’s face brightened considerably, partly at the assurance as to the salubrity of the gas-stoves and partly at the prospect of business.
“What can I do for you, sir?” he said, no longer with his churchwarden’s voice, but as the Muggerbridge silversmith.
“Well, we have been asked to select a small present to be given by the choir and congregation of our church to George Reader, who, I suppose you know, is going next week to college.”
“I have heard tell of it, sir,” said Mr Argent, “and my wife and I were only wondering the other day what was to become of the music at the church when he’s gone.”
“We don’t like to think of it,” said one of the party. “It would want a good one to take his place,” said another.
“We shall all miss him,” said the curate; “and we are anxious before he leaves us to present him with some little token of our regard. We have kept the thing from you, Mr Argent, as of course we should have to come to you to procure whatever we decided on getting, so your contribution to the gift will have to be some good advice on the matter we are still undecided about—what to get.”
“I shall be very glad to help—have you decided—er—I mean—has anything been said—that is—about what—”
“About how much? Well, we have nearly four pounds—in fact, we might call it four. What have you about that price that would be suitable?”
Oh! how my heart fluttered, for I could guess by this time what was coming.
Mr Argent looked profound for a minute, and then said, “There’s one thing, I think, would do.”
“What?” asked the deputation.
He pulled me out of the window and laid me on the counter.
“A watch! Dear me! we thought of all sorts of things, but not once of that!”
“It would be a suitable present,” said one of the party; “but this one is £4 10.”
“That needn’t matter,” said Mr Argent; “if you like it my wife and I will settle about the difference.”
“That’s very kind of you, Mr Argent. Does any one know if George has a watch?”
“I know he hasn’t,” said one of the party. “And what’s more, I’ve heard him say he wishes he had one.”
“And I can answer for it he’s been looking in at my window at this very one every day for the last month,” said the silversmith.
“Well, what do you say to getting this, then? We needn’t ask you if it’s a good one, Mr Argent.”
“No, you needn’t, sir,” replied the smiling Mr Argent, who, as I had remained run down since the day he bought me, could not well have answered the question more definitely.
“You’ll clean it up, will you, and set it going, and send it to me this afternoon?” said the curate;—“and perhaps you would like to come with us to Reader’s cottage this evening, when we are going to present it?”
Mr Argent promised to form one of the party, and the deputation then left.
I was swiftly subjected to all the cleaning and polishing which brushes, wash-leather, and whiting could give me. I was wound up and set to the right time, and a neat piece of black watered ribbon was attached to my neck, and then I waited patiently till the time came for my presentation to my new master.
The gamekeeper’s cottage to which I was conducted in state that evening was not an imposing habitation. It boasted of only three rooms, and just as many occupants. George, the hero of the occasion, was the son of its humble owner and his wife, and, as will have been gathered, had turned out a prodigy. From his earliest days he had displayed a remarkable aptitude for study. Having once learned to read at the village school, he became insatiable after books, and devoured all that came within his reach.
Happily he fell into the hands of a wise and able guide, the clergyman of the parish, who, early recognising the cleverness of the boy, strove to turn his thirst for learning into profitable channels, lent him books, explained to him what he failed to understand, incited him to thoroughness, and generally constituted himself his kind and helpful adviser.
The consequence of this timely tuition had been that George had grown up, not a boisterous, over bearing prig, showing off his learning at every available chance, and making himself detestable, and everybody else miserable, by his conceited air, but a modest, quiet scholar, with plenty of hidden fire and ambition, and not presuming on his talents to scorn his humble origin, or be ashamed of his home and parents—on the contrary, connecting them with all his dearest hopes of success and advancement in the world.
They, good souls, were quite bewildered by the sudden blaze of their son’s celebrity. They hardly seemed to understand what it all meant, but had a vague sort of idea that they were implicated in “Garge’s” achievements. They would sit and listen to him as he read to them, as if they were at an exhibition at which they had paid for admission, and it is not too much to say “Garge” was, in their eyes, almost as dreadful a personage as the lord of the manor himself.
Among his fellow-villagers George was, as the reader will have gathered, somewhat of a hero, and not a little of a favourite. This distinction he owed to a talent for music, which had at a very early age displayed itself, and had been heartily encouraged by the rector. In this pursuit, which he followed as his only recreation, he had made such progress that, while yet a boy, he became voluntary organist at the church, and as such had won the hearts of the neighbours.
They didn’t know much about music, but they knew the organ sounded beautiful on Sundays, and that “Garge” played it. And so it was a real trouble to them now that he was about to leave Muggerbridge.
You may imagine the state of excitement into which this unexpected visit threw simple Mr and Mrs Reader. The good lady was too much taken aback even to offer her customary welcome, and as for the gamekeeper, he sat stock still in his chair, with his eyes on his son, like a hound that waits the signal for action.
“We are rather an invasion, I’m afraid,” said the curate, squeezing himself into the little kitchen between a clothes-horse and a dresser.
“Not at all,” said George, looking very bewildered.
“Perhaps you’ll wonder why we’ve come?” added the curate, turning to the gamekeeper.
“Maybe you’ve missed something, and thinks one of us has got it,” was the cheerful suggestion.
The curate laughed, and the deputation laughed, and George laughed, and George’s mother laughed, which made things much easier for all parties.
“No, we haven’t missed anything, Mr Reader,” replied the curate, “but we expect to misssomebody—George, and that is the reason of our visit.”
And then the curate explained what the business was, and one of the churchwardens made a speech (the composition of which had kept him awake all the previous night), and then I was produced and handed over. And George blushed and stammered out something which nobody could understand, and George’s mother began to cry, and George’s father, unable otherwise to express his sense of the occasion, began to whistle. And so the little business was satisfactorily concluded, and the deputation withdrew, leaving me in the pocket of a new master. Three days afterwards both of us took our departure for Cambridge.
Chapter Twenty.How my new master made trial of a pursuit of knowledge under difficulties.But now let us follow Reader. My master’s rooms at Saint George’s College were of the poorest and meanest description; in fact it would not be too much to describe them—the bedroom and study—as being like a pair of big cupboards under a great staircase. They looked out on nothing more picturesque than a blank wall. They were carpeted with nothing better than an old drugget; and as for paper, the place would have looked better simply whitewashed. They were suffocating in summer and draughty in winter, and at nights afforded rendezvous to a whole colony of rats. Every step on the staircase above thundered down into the study; the loosely-hung windows rattled even in a light breeze, and the flavours of the college dustbins, hard by, appeared to have selected these chambers, above all others, for their favourite haunt. I am told Saint George’s College has recently undergone renovation. It so, it is probable “the Mouse-trap”—for this was the designation by which George Reader’s classical domain was familiarly styled—has disappeared. Let us hope so, for a more miserable, uncomfortable, and uninviting couple of rooms I never saw.But they had one merit, and that a great one: they were cheap, which to George Reader meant everything. He had gained a small entrance scholarship, by the help of which he hoped, with the most rigid economy, to support himself during his college career. Most other young fellows would have shrunk from the prospect, but such was my master’s ambition that I believe he would have endured life in a stable if only he could have there enjoyed the advantages and encouragements of a college course.It was, at any rate, a fine sight to see him settle down in his new dispiriting quarters, determined to make the best of everything, and suffer nothing to damp his ardour for work. He unpacked his few precious books and laid them on the shelf; he hung up the likenesses of his father and mother over the chimney-piece; he produced the cheese which the latter had insisted on his bringing with him, and, as a crowning-effect, set me up on the mantel-shelf with as much pride as if I had been a marble clock.“That looks something like!” he said to himself. “Now for a little tea, and then—grind!”The little tea, however, was “sooner said than done.” It involved a prolonged hunt for the “gyp,” or attendant, and a still more prolonged conference on the subject of hot water, tea, and bread. The suggestions thrown out by the college official, too, were so very lordly and extravagant—such, for instance, as ham and eggs, chicken, marmalade, and chocolate—that poor George’s heart fluttered as much as his mouth watered while he listened. Chicken and chocolate for a poor student who had barely enough money to afford so much as the luxury of living in the “Mouse-trap” of Saint George’s! Well he might be scared at the idea! He politely declined the grand offer of his scout, and asking him to light a small fire and procure him a loaf, sallied out himself into the town and purchased a small and very cheap quantity of groceries. With these he returned in triumph to his rooms, and, with the utmost satisfaction, partook of his first college meal, with a Euclid open on the table beside him.Then pouring out a final cup of tea to enjoy, cold, later on, he “cleared the decks for action,” as he called it, which meant putting away the tea, butter, sugar, and bread in a cupboard, and folding up the table cloth. Poor George! he had no false pride to forbid such menial offices; he had not the brag about him which would have led another to stand on the staircase and howl “Gyp” till every one far and near should be made aware that he had had a meal which required clearing away. No; he was only a gamekeeper’s son, in a hurry to get at his books; and to him it was far more natural to wait on his own frugal table than sit in state till a servant should come and clear it.“Now,” said he to himself, “I shall get a good quiet time for work. After all it’s not bad to be one’s own master where reading is concerned.”And without more ado he set himself down to his books, with me on the table at his elbow, and his cup of tea within reach, when such refreshment should be desirable. It was a fine thing to see this young fellow plunging straight into his work.Assuredly he had not come to college to fritter away his time—to row, play cricket, give wine-parties, or drive dog-carts; he had not even come because it was “the thing,” or afforded a “good introduction into the world.” No, he was here for one purpose, and one alone. That was work. To him the days were as precious mines, and every minute a nugget. It mattered nothing to him who won the cricket-match this year, who occupied the rooms next his, how many bumps the Saint George’s boat made on the river; far more important was the thought that perhaps the oil in his lamp would run short before the night was out, or whether the edition of Plato his friend the Muggerbridge clergyman had given him was the best, and contained the fullest notes. In short, George Reader was in earnest.But, like the tea, the “good quiet time” he hoped for was not so easy to secure. Scarcely had he settled down when the voices of two men in loud conversation rose, immediately under his window. Now, when one is in the agony of trying to understand how it comes that a certain number of angles in one figure are equal to a certain number of angles in another, it is, to say the least of it, confusing to have to listen to a spirited account of a boxing-match between Jack Straight and the Hon. Wilfred Dodge; and when that account manages to get interwoven inextricably with the problem in hand the effect is likely to be distracting; for instance:—“Since the solid angle at B is contained by three plane angles, BAF, FAC, and CAB, then—”“Jack let out and got in sweetly under his man’s guard,” and so on.“Therefore,” persevered George, “the angles ABC and ABF—”“Rounded on him grandly, and—”“The angles ABC and ABF are together greater than the angle CBF; and, similarly—”Here the conversation was continued in language far more worthy of the disgraceful prize-ring than a college, until George could bear it no longer. He leapt from his seat and sprang to the window, which he opened. Leaning out, he surveyed the two disturbers of his peace with very little affection, but controlled himself sufficiently to say politely,—“Would you mind not talking just here? I’m reading.”One of the two scowled up at him, and replied,—“What business is it of yours where we talk?”“Come on, Fisher,” said the other, taking his arm; “let the man read if he wants; I suppose that’s the poor beggar who’s come to the ‘trap.’”“He’s got a cool cheek of his own, whoever he is,” retorted the indignant Fisher.George was too relieved to be rid of their clatter under his window to trouble himself as to their sentiments towards himself, and he therefore once again settled down to work.But now a new interruption occurred.There arose a sudden rush of feet outside his door, a laughing and a cheering, in the midst of which he caught the following confused utterances:“George’s has bumped Corpus!” cried a voice.(See Note 1.)“Hurrah!” yelled half a dozen voices.“It was the finest bit of rowing ever you saw,” continued the first speaker. “Bailey put it on from the very first stroke, and was on the top of them before the Point.”And then the three cheers and yells rose again.“You can fancy how black and blue Corpus looked—it’s the biggest sell they’ve had for a long time.”Once more the shouts.“And what do you think?” resumed the first speaker. “Old Bailey vows he won’t come to the supper to-night. Did ever you hear of such an old bear?”“He’ll have to come,” cried the rest; “let’s waylay him here and carry him off.”“All serene,” said the leader; “he’s sure to come here—let’s hang about on the stairs.”Oh, horrors! here were six noisy men going to establish themselves on the stairs over poor George’s head, and remain there until their victim arrived, when, unless college traditions were utterly false, there would certainly be a battle royal. It was impossible, with the cheering and stamping and shouting and laughing, and scuffling overhead, to do a stroke of work, and yet George did his best. He pulled his table into the corner of the room farthest away from the noise, and, burying his head in his hands, struggled desperately to abstract himself from the disturbance. But as sure as he succeeded for a minute, a clamour louder than ever would driveeveryidea out of his head. It was vain to attempt expostulation—what would these jubilant revellers care for a poor new man like him!—and he had nowhere else to go to escape them there was nothing for it but to be patient. In due time the victorious and unsuspecting Bailey, accompanied by four of his friends, appeared on the scene, and their approach was the immediate signal for action. With a cheer and a howl the ambush sprang upon their victims; and, with equal vehemence, these, having rapidly taken in the state of affairs, prepared to defend themselves. Poor George might as well have been sitting under Niagara. Step by step, the new-comers strove to force a passage up to Bailey’s rooms, and step by step the opposing force strove to repulse them. The balustrades creaked, the ceiling of George’s room quaked, and the walls thundered with the weight of conflicting bodies. The occupants of every room on the staircase turned out to see the fun, and on hearing of Bailey’s contumacy, joined with his persecutors in refusing him the shelter of his own sanctuary. Bailey’s party, on the other hand, was joined by reinforcements from without, who stormed up the stairs with the noise of an earthquake. The opposing forces soon became so great that the press of battle raged even to the door of George’s study, which creaked and rattled as if every moment it were about to yield and admit the whole tide of conflict.For half an hour the tumult roared and the battle swayed, and neither party gained nor yielded a foot.Then suddenly from the confines of the battle rose and spread a cry of “Cave canem!” on which, as if by magic, the action was suspended, and retreating footsteps betokened a panic. A rally was sounded by Bailey’s foes, but too late; the hero of the day had taken advantage of the momentary pause to dash past his persecutors and gain his study, and once there no force could dislodge him. The vanquished ones stormed and raged outside his door for another ten minutes, threatening all sorts of vengeance; then with three mighty cheers they struck camp and retired, leaving the staircase in peace.Thus ended the famous battle of Bailey’s Staircase, at the end of which George, with sunken spirits but indomitable resolution, sat down again to work.For half an hour he made good progress, without let or hindrance, when—ah, cruel fate!—a wretch calling himself a man, in a neighbouring apartment, began to practise on the ophicleide! At the first note George bounded from his seat as if he had been shot, and literally tore his hair. This was worse than all that had gone before. To one of his musical inspiration, the human voice divine in conversation was, endurable, and the roar of battle might even be tolerable, but to hear a creature attempt to play one of the “songs without words” on an instrument he knew as little of as the music he was parodying, was beyond all bearing! Then, if ever, did my wretched master dig his fingers into his ears, and writhe and shiver and groan at each discord produced by that inhuman performer. He retreated into the innermost recess of his bedroom; he even hid his unhappy head beneath the clothes, if haply he might escape the agony of this torture. But it was hopeless. The shrieks and groans of that brutal ophicleide would have penetrated the walls of the Tower of London.It lasted, I should not like to say how long; and when it was over, the recollection of its horrors was almost as bad as their endurance. When George set himself again to work, it was with nerves unstrung and unutterable forebodings, yet still unconquered.“At any rate,” said he to himself, with a sigh, “there can’t be anything worse than that—unless, indeed, he invites a friend like himself to practise duets with him!”Happily this climax was not reached, and for one evening the worst of George Reader’s persecutions had been suffered—but not the last.By the time the last wail of the ophicleide had wriggled away into silence it was getting late, and the college was meditating retirement to rest. This operation was not got through, as may be imagined, without a good deal of clamour and a good deal of scuffling on the staircase, and a good deal of dialogue outside the window; but in due time silence reigned, and George congratulated himself that he had a quiet time at last before him.Unlucky boast! Not an hour had passed, the lights in the windows round the courtyard had vanished, the distant shouts had ceased, and the footsteps on the pavement without had died away, when George was startled by a sound that seemed like the boring of a hole under his fireplace. The noise grew, and other similar noises rose in different parts. What was it? Surely the gay students of Saint George’s were not about to effect an amateur burglary on the friendless owner of the “Mouse-trap?”Nearer and nearer came the sounds, and George’s heart beat loud. He closed his book and pushed his chair back from the table, ready to defend himself, on an emergency, to the bitter end. Then, under the hearth, there was a sound of scraping and grating, then a rushing noise, and then George saw—two enormous rats!Loud and long laughed my master to himself at the discovery. What caredhefor rats? He pulled his chair back to the table, and buried himself in his book for the next three hours, until his lamp began to burn low, and the letters on the pages grew blurred and dim, and the rats had scuffled back by the way they came, and my flagging hands pointed to four o’clock.Then George Reader, after kneeling in silent prayer, went to bed.Note 1. At the college races at Cambridge the boats start one behind the other at fixed distances, and any boat overtaking and “bumping” the one in front of it moves up a place nearer to the “Head of the River.”
But now let us follow Reader. My master’s rooms at Saint George’s College were of the poorest and meanest description; in fact it would not be too much to describe them—the bedroom and study—as being like a pair of big cupboards under a great staircase. They looked out on nothing more picturesque than a blank wall. They were carpeted with nothing better than an old drugget; and as for paper, the place would have looked better simply whitewashed. They were suffocating in summer and draughty in winter, and at nights afforded rendezvous to a whole colony of rats. Every step on the staircase above thundered down into the study; the loosely-hung windows rattled even in a light breeze, and the flavours of the college dustbins, hard by, appeared to have selected these chambers, above all others, for their favourite haunt. I am told Saint George’s College has recently undergone renovation. It so, it is probable “the Mouse-trap”—for this was the designation by which George Reader’s classical domain was familiarly styled—has disappeared. Let us hope so, for a more miserable, uncomfortable, and uninviting couple of rooms I never saw.
But they had one merit, and that a great one: they were cheap, which to George Reader meant everything. He had gained a small entrance scholarship, by the help of which he hoped, with the most rigid economy, to support himself during his college career. Most other young fellows would have shrunk from the prospect, but such was my master’s ambition that I believe he would have endured life in a stable if only he could have there enjoyed the advantages and encouragements of a college course.
It was, at any rate, a fine sight to see him settle down in his new dispiriting quarters, determined to make the best of everything, and suffer nothing to damp his ardour for work. He unpacked his few precious books and laid them on the shelf; he hung up the likenesses of his father and mother over the chimney-piece; he produced the cheese which the latter had insisted on his bringing with him, and, as a crowning-effect, set me up on the mantel-shelf with as much pride as if I had been a marble clock.
“That looks something like!” he said to himself. “Now for a little tea, and then—grind!”
The little tea, however, was “sooner said than done.” It involved a prolonged hunt for the “gyp,” or attendant, and a still more prolonged conference on the subject of hot water, tea, and bread. The suggestions thrown out by the college official, too, were so very lordly and extravagant—such, for instance, as ham and eggs, chicken, marmalade, and chocolate—that poor George’s heart fluttered as much as his mouth watered while he listened. Chicken and chocolate for a poor student who had barely enough money to afford so much as the luxury of living in the “Mouse-trap” of Saint George’s! Well he might be scared at the idea! He politely declined the grand offer of his scout, and asking him to light a small fire and procure him a loaf, sallied out himself into the town and purchased a small and very cheap quantity of groceries. With these he returned in triumph to his rooms, and, with the utmost satisfaction, partook of his first college meal, with a Euclid open on the table beside him.
Then pouring out a final cup of tea to enjoy, cold, later on, he “cleared the decks for action,” as he called it, which meant putting away the tea, butter, sugar, and bread in a cupboard, and folding up the table cloth. Poor George! he had no false pride to forbid such menial offices; he had not the brag about him which would have led another to stand on the staircase and howl “Gyp” till every one far and near should be made aware that he had had a meal which required clearing away. No; he was only a gamekeeper’s son, in a hurry to get at his books; and to him it was far more natural to wait on his own frugal table than sit in state till a servant should come and clear it.
“Now,” said he to himself, “I shall get a good quiet time for work. After all it’s not bad to be one’s own master where reading is concerned.”
And without more ado he set himself down to his books, with me on the table at his elbow, and his cup of tea within reach, when such refreshment should be desirable. It was a fine thing to see this young fellow plunging straight into his work.
Assuredly he had not come to college to fritter away his time—to row, play cricket, give wine-parties, or drive dog-carts; he had not even come because it was “the thing,” or afforded a “good introduction into the world.” No, he was here for one purpose, and one alone. That was work. To him the days were as precious mines, and every minute a nugget. It mattered nothing to him who won the cricket-match this year, who occupied the rooms next his, how many bumps the Saint George’s boat made on the river; far more important was the thought that perhaps the oil in his lamp would run short before the night was out, or whether the edition of Plato his friend the Muggerbridge clergyman had given him was the best, and contained the fullest notes. In short, George Reader was in earnest.
But, like the tea, the “good quiet time” he hoped for was not so easy to secure. Scarcely had he settled down when the voices of two men in loud conversation rose, immediately under his window. Now, when one is in the agony of trying to understand how it comes that a certain number of angles in one figure are equal to a certain number of angles in another, it is, to say the least of it, confusing to have to listen to a spirited account of a boxing-match between Jack Straight and the Hon. Wilfred Dodge; and when that account manages to get interwoven inextricably with the problem in hand the effect is likely to be distracting; for instance:—
“Since the solid angle at B is contained by three plane angles, BAF, FAC, and CAB, then—”
“Jack let out and got in sweetly under his man’s guard,” and so on.
“Therefore,” persevered George, “the angles ABC and ABF—”
“Rounded on him grandly, and—”
“The angles ABC and ABF are together greater than the angle CBF; and, similarly—”
Here the conversation was continued in language far more worthy of the disgraceful prize-ring than a college, until George could bear it no longer. He leapt from his seat and sprang to the window, which he opened. Leaning out, he surveyed the two disturbers of his peace with very little affection, but controlled himself sufficiently to say politely,—
“Would you mind not talking just here? I’m reading.”
One of the two scowled up at him, and replied,—
“What business is it of yours where we talk?”
“Come on, Fisher,” said the other, taking his arm; “let the man read if he wants; I suppose that’s the poor beggar who’s come to the ‘trap.’”
“He’s got a cool cheek of his own, whoever he is,” retorted the indignant Fisher.
George was too relieved to be rid of their clatter under his window to trouble himself as to their sentiments towards himself, and he therefore once again settled down to work.
But now a new interruption occurred.
There arose a sudden rush of feet outside his door, a laughing and a cheering, in the midst of which he caught the following confused utterances:
“George’s has bumped Corpus!” cried a voice.
(See Note 1.)
“Hurrah!” yelled half a dozen voices.
“It was the finest bit of rowing ever you saw,” continued the first speaker. “Bailey put it on from the very first stroke, and was on the top of them before the Point.”
And then the three cheers and yells rose again.
“You can fancy how black and blue Corpus looked—it’s the biggest sell they’ve had for a long time.”
Once more the shouts.
“And what do you think?” resumed the first speaker. “Old Bailey vows he won’t come to the supper to-night. Did ever you hear of such an old bear?”
“He’ll have to come,” cried the rest; “let’s waylay him here and carry him off.”
“All serene,” said the leader; “he’s sure to come here—let’s hang about on the stairs.”
Oh, horrors! here were six noisy men going to establish themselves on the stairs over poor George’s head, and remain there until their victim arrived, when, unless college traditions were utterly false, there would certainly be a battle royal. It was impossible, with the cheering and stamping and shouting and laughing, and scuffling overhead, to do a stroke of work, and yet George did his best. He pulled his table into the corner of the room farthest away from the noise, and, burying his head in his hands, struggled desperately to abstract himself from the disturbance. But as sure as he succeeded for a minute, a clamour louder than ever would driveeveryidea out of his head. It was vain to attempt expostulation—what would these jubilant revellers care for a poor new man like him!—and he had nowhere else to go to escape them there was nothing for it but to be patient. In due time the victorious and unsuspecting Bailey, accompanied by four of his friends, appeared on the scene, and their approach was the immediate signal for action. With a cheer and a howl the ambush sprang upon their victims; and, with equal vehemence, these, having rapidly taken in the state of affairs, prepared to defend themselves. Poor George might as well have been sitting under Niagara. Step by step, the new-comers strove to force a passage up to Bailey’s rooms, and step by step the opposing force strove to repulse them. The balustrades creaked, the ceiling of George’s room quaked, and the walls thundered with the weight of conflicting bodies. The occupants of every room on the staircase turned out to see the fun, and on hearing of Bailey’s contumacy, joined with his persecutors in refusing him the shelter of his own sanctuary. Bailey’s party, on the other hand, was joined by reinforcements from without, who stormed up the stairs with the noise of an earthquake. The opposing forces soon became so great that the press of battle raged even to the door of George’s study, which creaked and rattled as if every moment it were about to yield and admit the whole tide of conflict.
For half an hour the tumult roared and the battle swayed, and neither party gained nor yielded a foot.
Then suddenly from the confines of the battle rose and spread a cry of “Cave canem!” on which, as if by magic, the action was suspended, and retreating footsteps betokened a panic. A rally was sounded by Bailey’s foes, but too late; the hero of the day had taken advantage of the momentary pause to dash past his persecutors and gain his study, and once there no force could dislodge him. The vanquished ones stormed and raged outside his door for another ten minutes, threatening all sorts of vengeance; then with three mighty cheers they struck camp and retired, leaving the staircase in peace.
Thus ended the famous battle of Bailey’s Staircase, at the end of which George, with sunken spirits but indomitable resolution, sat down again to work.
For half an hour he made good progress, without let or hindrance, when—ah, cruel fate!—a wretch calling himself a man, in a neighbouring apartment, began to practise on the ophicleide! At the first note George bounded from his seat as if he had been shot, and literally tore his hair. This was worse than all that had gone before. To one of his musical inspiration, the human voice divine in conversation was, endurable, and the roar of battle might even be tolerable, but to hear a creature attempt to play one of the “songs without words” on an instrument he knew as little of as the music he was parodying, was beyond all bearing! Then, if ever, did my wretched master dig his fingers into his ears, and writhe and shiver and groan at each discord produced by that inhuman performer. He retreated into the innermost recess of his bedroom; he even hid his unhappy head beneath the clothes, if haply he might escape the agony of this torture. But it was hopeless. The shrieks and groans of that brutal ophicleide would have penetrated the walls of the Tower of London.
It lasted, I should not like to say how long; and when it was over, the recollection of its horrors was almost as bad as their endurance. When George set himself again to work, it was with nerves unstrung and unutterable forebodings, yet still unconquered.
“At any rate,” said he to himself, with a sigh, “there can’t be anything worse than that—unless, indeed, he invites a friend like himself to practise duets with him!”
Happily this climax was not reached, and for one evening the worst of George Reader’s persecutions had been suffered—but not the last.
By the time the last wail of the ophicleide had wriggled away into silence it was getting late, and the college was meditating retirement to rest. This operation was not got through, as may be imagined, without a good deal of clamour and a good deal of scuffling on the staircase, and a good deal of dialogue outside the window; but in due time silence reigned, and George congratulated himself that he had a quiet time at last before him.
Unlucky boast! Not an hour had passed, the lights in the windows round the courtyard had vanished, the distant shouts had ceased, and the footsteps on the pavement without had died away, when George was startled by a sound that seemed like the boring of a hole under his fireplace. The noise grew, and other similar noises rose in different parts. What was it? Surely the gay students of Saint George’s were not about to effect an amateur burglary on the friendless owner of the “Mouse-trap?”
Nearer and nearer came the sounds, and George’s heart beat loud. He closed his book and pushed his chair back from the table, ready to defend himself, on an emergency, to the bitter end. Then, under the hearth, there was a sound of scraping and grating, then a rushing noise, and then George saw—two enormous rats!
Loud and long laughed my master to himself at the discovery. What caredhefor rats? He pulled his chair back to the table, and buried himself in his book for the next three hours, until his lamp began to burn low, and the letters on the pages grew blurred and dim, and the rats had scuffled back by the way they came, and my flagging hands pointed to four o’clock.
Then George Reader, after kneeling in silent prayer, went to bed.
Note 1. At the college races at Cambridge the boats start one behind the other at fixed distances, and any boat overtaking and “bumping” the one in front of it moves up a place nearer to the “Head of the River.”