Chapter XII.
Slowgoe.(With paper.) Oh yes; it’s plain enough: more danger in the Church of England. Here’s something taken from theMorning Heraldthat shows how the cat jumps.
Nutts.Well, I’m not partic’lar about cats in common, buthowdoes she jump?
Slowgoe.Towards Rome, Mr Nutts; yes, towards the Scarlet——
Nutts.Mr Slowgoe, beg your pardon, but Mrs Nutts is in the shop.
Mrs Nutts.Never mind me, Mr Slowgoe, if I am in the shop. The children’s washed, the meat’s sent to the bakehouse, and I shall just sit down and enjoy myself. Go on, Mr Slowgoe.
Slowgoe.TheMorning Herald, talking of the danger to the Church, says this much, that English people going to Rome, catch the Catholicreligion without knowing it. Listen. “Such families were generally lodged in some portion of a vacant palace or mansion. Commonly there was soon found dwelling in some adjacent part of the same buildingan accomplished and agreeablepriest or Jesuit. This person soon found an opportunity of rendering some service; obtaining access for the family to some gallery or museum, or an invitation to some concert.” You see, Mr Nutts, how the thing’s done?
Mrs Nutts.Taking advantage of pleasure to undermine our principles! Playing us into Popery with flutes and fiddles!
Nosebag.Well, but if folks will go to see the shows at Rome, when they’d better stay at home and be edified at their own playhouses—what’s to become on ’em?
Tickle.Why, it just strikes me that we might fight ’em with their own weapons. For instance, you say “an agreeable and accomplished priest or Jesuit” is the disturber of the peace of families. Well, before the family starts, why don’t they take with ’em—just as they take cork jackets and life-preservers—“an agreeable and accomplished” ’Stablished chaplain to battle for ’em on the other side?
Mrs Nutts.Very right, Mr Tickle; and if I was the Queen o’ England, I’d make a law that should force ’em. I thank my stars I shall never go toRome; but if I should, I wouldn’t think myself safe with anything less than a bishop.
Slowgoe.Nor I. Not that I’d think of turning my religion for——
Nutts.Tell you what, Slowgoe, some folk’s religion’s like some folk’s coats—too poor to be worth turning.
Mrs Nutts.Never mind him, Mr Slowgoe. You know the sort o’ husband I’m blessed with. As for the Papists, I often say to Mrs Biggleswade over the way, “I wonder you can buy your cat’s-meat o’ that Biddy Maloney, when you know he’s a Papist and goes to a Catholic chapel. No wonder, my dear,” says I to Mrs Biggleswade, “that you can’t keep a linnet or canary from the claws o’ that cat. Think what she’s fed on, and who brings it her.”
Slowgoe.As for the Jesoots, Mrs Nutts, they’re swarming in every house—swarming like fleas, and we don’t know it.
Nutts.Not at all like our fleas, then! Ecod, you’d soon knowthem!
Mrs Nutts.A pretty speech, I think, for a husband. I assure you, Mr Slowgoe, if we’ve a single flea in the house, that is, a flea to speak of, I’m—but what—you know Mr Nutts!—always likes to make his wife little before strangers.
Slowgoe.I was speaking of the Jesoots——
Mrs Nutts.I know ’em, Mr Slowgoe. I had the ague once; and didn’t folks want me to take their bark: but no, said I—I’ll die first.
Slowgoe.And I was going to say that this last blessed Thursday—fifth o’ November as was—Guy Fox Day, Dunpowder Day—why, it only proves the Jesoots are everywhere. When I was a boy, Guys was respected. Where are they now? I didn’t see ten in all Lunnun, Mrs Nutts; and I made it my business to walk about and count ’em. And what Guys, too! But it’s the fashion to sneer at and put down the wisdom of ancestors; and that’s why the fifth o’ November is come to what it is. The church bells ring, to be sure, but with nothing hearty in ’em; they ring as if the whole thing was a joke. Oh, when I was a boy, didn’t my father make squibs and crackers, what I call a moral duty on Bonfire Day! And didn’t the neighbours club their old coats, and waistcoats, and breeches, as if they was proud on ’em being made up into Guys: that was turning out handsome, splendid-looking Popes; things really worth the burning. And now, what are they? Well, I’ve lived to see something! When I looked upon the things they called Guys o’ Thursday, things no bigger than Tom Thumbs, with brown paper faces—I know it’s a little weak, still I’m not ashamed of it for all that—I could ha’ burst into crying. As I’m a Christian sinner, and alover o’ the Constitution, there wasn’t one on ’em decent for the flames.
Tickle.Well, now, if you had a bit o’ proper constitutional respect in you, you should ha’ just put on your Sunday best, and gone to the flames for ’em.
Nightflit.(With paper.) A dreadful affair this in St Pancras’ parish! A poor, dear, innocent servant-girl shamefully treated by a vestryman.
Mrs Nutts.Just like ’em; go on. Shamefully treated! Oh, I wish they’d just let me take half an hour to myself to make a few laws for the men! I mean, that is, for ourselves. Laws never will be what they ought to be till women help to make ’em.
Nutts.Nonsense! keep to pie-crusts. A pretty light hand you’d have for a statute. What did the vestryman do to the gal?
Nightflit.Why, one vestryman, Mr Douglas, charges another vestryman, Mr Pike, with taking a servant-maid and chucking her——
Mrs Nutts.Into the canal, of course. Just like the men.
Nightflit.Not into the canal, ma’am; certainly not. He chucked her under the chin!
Nutts.There, Mrs Nutts! Ain’t you sorry you spoke? Chucked her under the chin! What do you say now?
Mrs Nutts.Say? Why, what I said afore—that it’s just like the men. But read all about it. And I’ve no doubt a married man, too!
Nightflit.It all came out at a meeting o’ Pancras’ vestry. Mr Douglas says that Mr Pike, being upon canvas and asking for a vote, “chucked” the gal under the chin—as I s’pose for her master’s interest.
Nutts.Well, where’s the great harm o’ that?
Mrs Nutts.Mr Nutts! if you go on with such sentiments, I tell you this, I’ll go up-stairs! I won’t stop and listen to you.
Nightflit.Well, Mr Pike, the culprit as was thought, was called in——
Nosebag.To slow music, o’ course?
Nightflit.Called into the vestry, and put upon his defence. Poor gentleman! When he said—here it is in the paper (reads): “It is untrue, upon my honour: in the presence of my God, it is untrue. I know myself better than to be guilty ofso humiliating an act. I have more respect for myself than to chuckany servant-girlunder the chin,and least of allthe servant of a vestryman of St Pancras’.” This declaration seemed to satisfy the chairman and his fellow-vestrymen. Very awful business, isn’t it, Mrs Nutts? Poor Mr Pike, innocent as a lamb!
Mrs Nutts.Oh yes; to be sure; of course; neverknow’d a man who wasn’t innocent! Don’t see, though, why a servant-gal should be looked down upon in that way: been in service myself.Anyservant-gal, indeed!
Tickle.Wouldn’t chuck nothin’, maybe, under a lady’s-maid.
Nutts.Very partic’lar tender parish St Pancras’; tender as a maid’s face, to be sure: and certainly it does become the same parish to kick up such a hubbub about chucking a girl’s chin, when they don’t mind chucking a poor pauper wench into the “shed,” as they call it; and so—when she gets out—driving her to chuck herself into the canal, to be dragged out for a coroner’s jury to sit upon. It isn’t much, when they crowd gals and old women into the “shed,” and the “feather-room,” and places that fond o’ pork wouldn’t keep pigs in; that’s not much—oh no! Poor Mary Ann Jones may chuck herself into the canal and be drowned—she’s only a pauper, as the song says, “as nobody owns;” but to chuck a gal’s chin—ha! that’s something dreadful—and the vestry, as I’ve read somewhere, “feels it’s man’s first duty to fly to her succour.”
Tickle.I hope Mr Pike will get over the shock; though Ihaveheard he’s so taken it to heart, the very thought o’ chucking the chin of a servant-gal—though where will you see prettier chins for ared ribbin sometimes?—that he’s gone ill, had his knocker tied up, and straw laid down afore the door.
Peabody.And yet, I believe, it’s quite regular—a courtesy only expected upon a canvas. Why, there’s hardly a member of the House of Commons that doesn’t feel it his bounden duty to give a kiss for every vote.
Mrs Nutts.And, as I say, many of ’em married men, no doubt? It really makes one shudder!
Peabody.Now, I take it, the little attention is in a very fair proportion. If a candidate for the House of Commons kisses, surely a vestryman may “chuck.”
Mrs Nutts.There, Mr Peabody; you’ve been a schoolmaster, I know, and it’s like you scholars; feelings are nothing in your hands. You take ’em and twist ’em and turn ’em into as many ways and shapes as the man that goes about with a sheet o’ writing-paper, and folds it into everything, from a coal-scuttle to a chest o’ drawers. Just like scholars, as they’re called: and how Idopity their wives!
Slowgoe.(With paper.) Here’s another man writes that he can make gunpowder out of sawdust, another out of paper, another out of anything.
Mrs Nutts.I read that about the sawdust myself, and for that reason I never again grate anutmeg with my own hands; for the world’s taken such a turn, who now can say what will happen? As I said to Mrs Biggleswade over the way, it’s my opinion, since they can find gunpowder in a cotton gown, and, in fact, gunpowder in everything, why, we mightn’t know one minute from the t’other when the whole world will be blown up!
Tickle.And that’s your opinion, Mrs Nutts.
Mrs Nutts.It just is; and I was thinkin’ of it only yesterday, just as the tax-gatherer called for the rates. And so—although I’d the money ready in a cup in the cupboard—so being in the dumps, not knowing how long the world would last, I just thought it safest to tell the man to call again.
Nutts.When you die, my love, what a deal of prudence you’ll take out of the world with you!
Mrs Nutts.More than enough, Mr Nutts, to keep twenty men comfortable in it.