“Where is the pumps?” cried Mrs. Jones,“Where is the pumps, I say?They can't be lost; and, by the bones!I'll have them found to-day.“There is but three beneath the roof,That's master, you, and I;—How they has walked I'll have good proof,Or know the reason why.“Your master wore them this day week;You knows he did, you jade!That you're a thief, albeit so meek,In truth I'm half afraid.“Don't answer me, you saucy minx!You're lazy as you're long;At thousands of your faults I winks,Although I knows 'tis wrong.“You looks the baker in the face,When he comes with the bread;You trims your cap with shilling lace,And flirts with Butcher Ned.“You acts as though you thought yourselfThe fairest of the fair;And seems to think that master's pelfYou're qualified to share.“Now don't deny it—hussy, don't!For I has watched you long;But I can tell you, Miss, you won'tWin master with a song.“In vain at him you sets your cap;He's not the sort of man;With all your ogles bait your trap,And catch him if you can!“Beneath his roof, for fifteen years,Housekeeper I have been;I cares not if my speech he hears—No wrong in me he's seen.“I slaves like any Trojan Turk;I makes his bed and mine;While you, you hussy! does no work,And yet you dares repine!“Why don't you take a pattern byYour master, slut, and me?We never thinks a thought awry,—There is but few like we!“The pumps was worn but this day week;You knows they were, you jade!That you're a thief, albeit so meek,In truth I'm half afraid.“You stands accused of stealing them—A very naughty sin;And if you're hoity-toity, Me'em,I'll call the neighbours in!”And hoity-toity Kitty was,She didn't care a pin!Says Mistress Jones, “I vow, that's poz!I'll have the neighbours in!”And in she call'd them one by one,By two, and three, and four;Such lots came in to see the fan,The house could hold no more.“Oh! what's the matter?” quoth they all,“And what is here amiss?”Says Mrs. Jones, “Pray don't you bawl;My friends, the case is this:—“I keeps my master's house; and he,Good soul! is half afraid,That spite of all precaution, weIs robb'd by Kate, our maid.“Of all the lazy, idle dronesThat ever yet I knew,Not one could match,” says Mrs. Jones,“The girl you have in view.“In all the house three beds we makes,For master, she, and me;Both master's and my own I takes,She does but one of three.“And though she grumbles,—yes, indeed,—That she is worked too much;Yet she can oft her novels read,Ay, and the likes of such.“She won't by me a pattern take,Although full well she knows,In books 'tis said, 'the wayward rakeContemns the gather'd rose.'“I've lost a pair of stockings, andAbout a week ago,I'd master's pumps in this here hand,A-looking at'em so.“I hung'em up upon the pegs,I recollects it well;How they has walked without their legs,Miss Kate, perhaps, can tell.”“False Mrs. Jones!” young Kate replies,As forward now she jumps;“She would not ask, were she but wise,If I had stol'n the pumps.“There is but three beds in the house,And Mrs. Jones makes two;We haven't room to stow a mouse;—So far her story 's true.“She brags about her virtue, butShe's got a silly head;A week ago, the pumpsI putIn Mrs, Jones's bed!”
428s
Ah! now, Michael, be quiet,—why can't you?—It brakes the heart o' me, cousin,—so it does thin, and I'll own it,—to see you laugh that way, and the pair of us ruined, as we are!”
“Is it ruined, Thady?—and yourself there with a bull and a hog in your pocket?”
“What's half-a-crown and a shilling? A bull and a hog is but three-and-sixpence.—I'll be starved intirely whin that's gone; for there's no work for us, far or near. I tell you we're ruined.”
“Then let's go partners; and who knows but we'll make a fine fortune? What's invention but the daughter of necessity?—So now's the time to shew our abilities, if we have any.”
“Divil of any abilities have I, Michael; and you know it.”
“Ah! Thady, Thady—”
“I'll give you my oath I hav'n't!—so don't be suspecting me. If I'd abilities, do you think I'd be such a blackguard as to consale them? Not I, thin!”
“Well but, Thady, boy, hav'n't you three-and-sixpence?—hav'n't you now?”
“I have,—I won't deny it.”
“And hav'n't I abilities?”
“I won't deny that either, unless you've lost them since we last saw one another,—that's two years ago, I think:—I won't deny but you've abilities, Michael; if I did I'd be giving you the lie; for it's often you tould me you had grand ones, if you'd only a field large enough to display them. But where'll we get a field, big or little, for a bull? I would'nt risk more than that of my money upon your abilities,—though it's much I respect them.”
“Thady, you're a fool, with your big field and your bull!—Besides, I've a reaping hook, and a long rope.”
“I see you have: but tell me, Michael, as we're spaking of reap-hooks and abilities, how did you lose your last place? Wasn't your master a good one?”
“Say 'employer,' Thady, the next time you mintion him. Well, thin, he wasn't so bad, but for two things:—being an Englishman, he hadn't exactly got into our mode of transacting things, don't you see, Thady?—he stuck to the letter o' the law too closely for me.”
“You didn't rob him Michael,—did you?”
“Of a little time only, Thady: he'd too many eyes to be robbed of anything else,—if I was dishonest,—but I'm not, you know.”
“So I say, Michael, toeveryone who spakes of you.”
“Thank you, Thady, for that:—and, faith! the time I took wasn't worth noticing. He put me into a little patch of peas, and bid me reap them as fast as I could. So I began to work as though I'd the strength of ten; and he stood by me and tould me I was a fine fellow. I got on well enough till he wint, and a while after even,—so I did. But I'd over-rated my own powers, and was soon obliged to lay down, just by the way of recruiting myself a little, under the hedge. By-and-by, who should be passing that way again but my employer; and, says he, putting his toe in my ribs, 'What did you lie there for,' says he, 'you blackguard?' 'To repose a little, sir,' says L 'Bad luck to you!' says he, 'didn't I hire you to reappeas?' 'Well, sir,' says I, mimicking his way of spaking, 'and isn't sleep a weary man's harvest? and,' says I, quite pleasant, 'if it isn't in sleep I'd reapease, how else would I?' 'Don't be quibbling that way,' says he; I'll be obeyed to the very letter.' 'Well, sir,' says I, 'O's and P's ar'n't far apart; they're next door to one another in the alphabet.' But it wouldn't do for him; he'd have the letter itself; and if he paid me to reap peas, he wouldn't have me repose: so we parted. But don't let's be losing time: there's a rope and a reaping-hook, and they're mine, ar'n't they?”
“I'd be wrong if I denied that, whin I see them in your hand, and possession is nine points of the law. But what of your rope and your reap-hook, Michael?”
“Why, thin, let them be our stock, and your three-and-six-pence our capital, and us partners and sole and only proprietors. What say you to that? You'll own it looks like business, I hope.”
“Yes, Michael; but where'll the customers come from?”
“Don't bother about them; they'll come fast enough when we want them, as you'll see. It's no use to be reckoning our chickens before they're hatched, is it?”
“Not a bit:—what you say can't very soon find one that'll contradict it. It is no use to be reckoning our chickens before they're hatched.”
“So far, thin, we go on by mutual consint. Now, Thady, would you like to make a great stroke or a little one?”
“The sooner we make money the better, I think.”
“But little fishes are sweet, you fool!”
“So they are, Michael: I'm vexed that I didn't think of that; and it's but little we'll risk by way o' bait to catch them.”
“But what's the use, Thady,—answer me now, you who set yourself up for a sinsible man—”
“Not I, thin! I'd fall out with you if you said so.”
“Well, thin, where's the use, I'll ask you—fool as you are,—of our catching sprats and wullawaughs, when there's sea-cows and whales in the ocean?—A sprat isn't a sea-cow, is it?”
“No, faith!”
“Nor a wullawaugh a whale?”
“How should it?”
“Then why not try for a sea-cow?”
“Bekase I wouldn't like to risk my silver bull, Michael.”
“Why, thin, you're a lunatic,—so you are. Suppose you lost your bull—tell me now, where'd your hog be?”
“Gone to try to bring back my bull, may be. I don't think we'll try for a sea-cow, or a whale, Michael.”
“Thin you'll be contint with catching wullawaughs and shrimps, is it?”
“Not exactly: I'd like to try for a whale, but not so as to risk what money I have.”
“Well, I'll tell you what we'll do:—let us set up a show.”
“That plazes me. But what'll we shew, Michael? Is it your reap-hook, that's worn out doing divil a ha'p'orth but going to the grinstone?—or your rope, bekase you found it?”
“No, Thady; that wouldn't do: but I think if you'd tar and feather yourself, I might make something of you, by swearing you were a monster,—a big bird I caught on a furze-bush with bird-lime.”
“I'll not consint to that; for if you'd be showman, you'd take all the money.”
“And what thin?”
“Suppose you took yourself off one day?”
“And what thin?”
“Suppose you took the money with you, thin what'd I do? Sore, you know, I couldn't run after you in my tar and feathers; for, if I did, wouldn't the people see me without paying?”
“That would be a loss, I'll admit, if it happened: but I'd have you to know, Thady—”
“Now don't look big, for I'll apologize: but I may spake my mind, I hope.”
“You certainly may.”
“Well, thin, I won't tar and feather myself; bekase, how'd we get tar and feathers to do it, without risking my bull, or my hog at the least?”
“Oh! thin, if you've doubts in your mind, I'll abandon the project: but I'll insist upon it that you don't take advantage of my idea, and tar and feather yourself for your own benefit.”
“I give you my word, I won't:—but listen, Michael, and I'll tell you what we'll do, and there's no risk in it.”
“I'd like to hear:—though I expect you'll be proposing to shoot the stars with a big bow and arrow, and sell them for diamonds.”
“That wouldn't be bad, if we'd a bow and arrow that could do it; but I'm afraid we'd find it hard to get one. That's not my plan, Michael; but this is it:—there's a big hole, a stone's-throw from this; dark and deep it is, for I've looked down it; and far below, at the very bottom, runs a stream, that goes under the waters, and under the land, away off to the Red Sea: and it's often a big ould crocodile comes to it, for a day or so, in the summer, by the way of getting a change of air and retirement.”
“Well, Thady, and suppose he does?”
“Why, thin, this is my plan:—let us fish for the crocodile, and make a show of him if we catch him.”
“Arrah! Thady! I didn't think it was in you. But what'll we do for a hook and line?”
“Haven't you your reap-hook and rope?”
“That's true, Thady, so I have; but by way of a bait—you know crocodiles ates man's flesh, Thady.”
“I know it: and it's the beauty o' my plan, that we've bait, hook, and line,—all the materials, without a penny expense.”
“Oh! I see:—faith I you're a genius, Thady:—you'd have me bait the hook with yourself.”
“Not a bit of it, Michael; I couldn't separate you from your hook;—I wouldn't like to part with my money, and why should I ask you to part with your hook?”
“But don't you see, Thady, I run all the risk?—may be I'll lose my property;—the crocodile may carry it off. If we're to be partners, you must risk a little as well as me. I'll be my hook and my rope, with all the pleasure in life, if you'll be yourself—if you'll let me tie you to them by the way of a bait.”
“Nonsinse, Michael! what good would I be? Sure he feeds upon blacks—the crocodile does; and, fair as I am, he wouldn't know I was good to ate. Now, as you've a fine dark complexion—”
“No, I havn't.”
“Faith! you have;—and it's what you're admired for, by me among many: I'd like to have it myself. Why, thin, as you're within a few shades of the raal thing, may be, in the dark, he'd take you for the raal thing.”
“Oh! thin, crocodiles ar'n't bamboozled so aisily; we'd better make sure,—and I'll tell how we'll do it:—I'll get some soot, and black you from head to foot.”
“I'd be afraid, Michael.”
“What harm could happen you, man? When he made his bite, wouldn't my reap-hook stick in his jaws and stop him from shutting them, until I'd pull him up?”
“Suppose he'd nibble and not bite?—suppose, too, he'd untie the cord and make a meal of me, and then pick his teeth with your reap-hook?”
“I'll tie the knot so that he can't: or, I'll tell you what we'll do;—we'll toss up which of us shall be bait.”
“With all my heart:—but what'll we toss with?”
“Isn't it with your money? You'll lend me your bull.”
“No, I won't lend you my bull, Michael.”
“Well! toss your bull yourself, and let me have your hog.”
“I won't do that, either; for I couldn't risk my money.”
“What! do you suspect me?”
“Far from it; but, as there's grass here, we might lose it, you know.”
“But I'll be responsible; and you can't doubt my honour.”
“Not a bit; but—what's as bad,—I doubt your means. If I lost my bull, and you couldn't give me another if you would, that's the same thing to me as if you wouldn't give me another if you could,—don't you see?”
“Well, I've another plan: and I think it must plaze you:—did you ever throw a summerset?”
“I tried once, but didn't succeed.”
“That's just my own case; so we're even, and it don't matter which does it. Now hark to this, Thady; you'll throw your summerset as well as you can, and while you're throwing it. I'll cry 'head' or 'tail,' just which I like: if I say 'tail,' and you I'll on your head, it's you that wins.”
“No, Michael; you must toss yourself; for I've no tail to my coat, and you have.”
“Arrah, man! won't I lend you mine? Sure, we'll exchange.”
“Well, but suppose I lost?”
“Thin you'd strip yourself, and I'd black you.”
“But why strip myself, Michael?”
“Don't the crocodiles always catch people that's swimming? And suppose they didn't, don't the blacks go naked? They do, Thady: so that if you were in your clothes, the crature couldn't know you were a man, and we wouldn't catch him. If there was a fish that ate apples, you wouldn't bait your hook with a dumpling, would you?”
“I wouldn't: still, I couldn't leave my clothes.”
“Why not, thin, eh?”
“Bekase there's my bull and my hog in the pocket; and I'd not like to risk them, with nobody on the bank, but yourself, to take care o' them.”
“I don't know how it is, Thady, but nothing plazes you;—you're too particular by half.”
“I'm fool enough to be too fond of my money, I'm afraid.”
“I'm afraid you are:—but will I tell you what you'll do with it,—once for all now?”
“What, Michael?”
“Why, thin, you'll just lend me two-and-sixpence, and I'll go and do something in the way of speculation with it; so that, whin we meet again, I'll be able to give you back your bull, with something handsome to the tail of it.”
“That's not bad, Michael: but I'd be afraid we wouldn't have the luck of meeting whin we'd wish. Who knows but one of us might be looking for the other, all over the wide world, like a needle in a bundle of hay?”
“Thady, is it trash your trying to talk? People meets where hills and mountains don't, you know.”
“That's true: but I've found out that though one meets with them one don't want to see nine times a week, one goes a whole year, and more, without getting a sight o' them one wishes to come across. Who knows but, if I lent you my bull, the sight o' you would be good for sore eyes?—For that rason, I'll not lay you under the obligation, I think, Michael.”
“Oh! bad luck to you, and every bit of you! Get out o' that, for I don't like you;—giving people trouble, by making believe you're a fool, whin all the while you ar'n't!”
“I'm beginning to think you'd bad intuitions, Michael.”
“Do you think I'd chate my cousin?”
“You would thin,—I'll say that for your abilities,—if you could get anything by it. Ar'n't you trying to bully me out o' my bull?”
“Get out o' that, I tell you!—go away intirely:—I dissolve the partnership. Go at once, for I'm in a passion.”
“Who cares for you, Michael? Go away yourself. I'll engage you'll find many's the one who wants a partner that's active, and won't mind about capital; but I don't think he'll be a man of property. Why should you crow over me, I'd like to know?—is it bekase you've a cock in your eye?”
435s
An elderly bachelor of my acquaintance is one of the warmest admirers in the world of a beautiful female hand. “A fine hand,” he will say, “is a vastly fine thing, sir. As I always turned my attention very particularly to that part of the person, and have been king's page, and this, that, and t'other about a court, during many of my best years, the very finest of hands have fallen under my notice. Believe me, I am not at all captious, but merely critical, or in a trifling degree historical, when I say, that your fine hands of the present day, are very different from the fine hands of the old school. My father was convinced that bands had degenerated since Charles the Second's time; but he could not help confessing that, in my time,—I mean, when he was seventy, and I was thirty—hands were still handsome. And, mark me, he spoke of hands generally:—but, adad!now, if you meet with a fine hand once in a year or so, you're in luck, and ought to sacrifice a kid to Fortune. The fact is, that fine hands are very much talked about, but they are not properly cultivated; true beauty of form is no longer understood or appreciated; and the classical style of hand is, I fear, almost out of fashion. I am acquainted with two or three exquisite pair in town, and one,—its fellow, unfortunately, is deformed—one matchless hand at Putney. But nobody else admires them; I have them all to myself; and what is most provoking, these treasures,—these living and lovely reliques of a former age of grace and beauty,—these symbols of glorious pedigree,—these aristocratic heir-looms, are thrown away upon persons, who, if it were not for a spice of self-love, and that they're their own, would deem them but middling specimens. They positively try to coax them out of a beautiful into a barbarous style, so as to make them look like those of their neighbours, which the senseless young fellows of the modern school have the bad taste to admire. There never, perhaps, was a woman with such delightful hands as the charming Aurelia Pettigrew, afterwards Mrs. Watts, of Grange Hill, subsequently Mrs. Jervis, of Eton; whom I attempted at once to console and immortalize, by a copy of verses, written on the occasion of her having met with an accident, from an awkward waiting-woman's scissors, which produced a slight, but, in the opinion of many, a pleasing and piquant obliquity of the visual organ. These are the stanzas:—
“'When Chloe wandered o'er the mead,To pluck the grateful flower;Strephon and every shepherd swain,Confess'd her beauty's power.Enamour'd Colin, gazing knelt,And soon resign'd his breath;While each fond youth ambitious sighed,To die so sweet a death.Two suns the earth could ne'er endure,Nor manherdouble glance;So nature bade the right blaze on,And turn'd the left askance.'
“I did not sing the charms of her hands, for they were above all praise:—small, plump, and graceful, with tapering fingers, and dimples where the knuckles lay, which, to the eye of fancy, seemed to smile like those in Love's own cheek. Miss Pettigrew was not of a very excellent figure; nor had she, with the exception of her eyes, particularly beautiful features; but her hands were matchless! They won her one husband, and many hearts,—my own among them,—at nineteen; and another husband with more than one suitor,—I was among'em, again—when she was a widow, at forty. There are some Goths and Vandals, who would have their nails half as long as the fingers:—filbert-nails, I think is the term for such pretended beauties; which, in my opinion, bear a striking resemblance to the convex side of the bowl of a horn spoon. But, though I consider a deep margin to a nail vulgar in the extreme, and would never, on any account, suffer its disk to peep over the Aurora-tinted horizon of the finger's summit, yet, understand me, I am no advocate for cutting them down to the quick. Of the two extremes,—a woman who pares her nails to the skin's edge, and a Chinese lady, who suffers hers to shoot forth into talons, I know not which is the more provoking. The Chinese female has at least the custom of the country in her favour; her, therefore, I have no right to blame, because it occurs that I am not a Chinese: but if I meet with one of my countrywomen, with claws at the ends of her fingers, I always long to call in a gardener or a sheep-shearer, with the necessary implement to prune or clip them down to a state of decorum. I do not possess sufficient talent to invent an appropriate and adequate punishment for a lady who is so enamoured with ugliness as to bite her nails. For her friends' sake, she ought to cannibalize in private, and conceal the revolting relics of her feast by wearing gloves, even in the presence of her most intimate friends. Those little machines which look like old gloves cropped to the knuckles, are gross outrages upon taste: they are called, I believe, mittens; and many excellent young ladies wear them, particularly in the country, during cold weather. The sight of a hand in one of these things invariably produces an emotion of pity in my bosom for the four long, cold, naked fingers, which protrude from the sockets of the stalls. In the matter of gloves, women are frequently so rash and inconsiderate, as 'to make the judicious grieve.' I have told every lady, with whom I have the honour to be intimate, and who has happened to have large, ignoble hands, that she ought not to wear tight gloves; I have declared, on the honour of a gentleman, that they increase rather than dimmish the apparent size of the hand: but my preaching has never proved of much effect. A lady with an excellent, or even a good hand, should never have a wrinkle in her glove; but it is an absurd notion of many, that mere tightness is perfection: on the contrary, a glove that is well adapted to the hand never appears tight, but fits smooth and unwrinkled as the fair skin which it conceals. The kid should lie close against the palm of the hand; the fingers should have no awkward bags at their extremities, and no bridges between their bases; indeed, the glove should fit as though it were an admirable mould, endowed with such elasticity as to assume every variety of form into which graceful action can possibly throw the hand. It, doubtless, has been to many persons, as well as to myself, a matter of astonishment, that the thousand and one elegant and delicate pieces of workmanship, in various materials, which seem to be fashioned by the exquisite fingers of a Belinda, are found, on inquiry, to be the productions of huge awkward paws, apparently fit only to wield flails and pull about blocks of granite. A celebrated frizeur, whose name I won't mention, has a very laudable antipathy to what he terms 'hugeous hands—he is a little lax in his language, but a very good frizeur for all that. Some years ago, he wanted a few assistants in his hair-cutting rooms; and inserted an advertisement in the paper to that effect. Among other applicants there was a good-looking youth, whose appearance, and answers to the preliminary questions put on such occasions, were highly satisfactory. 'Will your last master give you a character for civility?' inquired the hair-dresser. The boy answered in the affirmative. 'Well, and where are your gloves, young gentleman?' 'I don't wear any, sir!' 'Not wear gloves! I protest, I never heard of such a thing in all my born days. Take your hands out of your breeches pockets then, boy, and let me inspect them.' The boy, with some difficulty, produced a pair of rather large and very high-coloured hands, and artlessly exhibited them to the frizeur. 'Oh! go away, boy—go away,' exclaimed the latter, recoiling three paces from the spectacle; 'you won't suit me at all: the advertisement particularly said, Wanted a fewgood hands, you know. It's not possible for me to take a young man into my establishment, with great, large, red bits of beef, hanging out at the ends of his coat sleeves.—Go along!'”
439s
It was my fortune to pass a portion of my youth at a celebrated watering-place, to which it was the fashion, at that time, with the faculty, in all parts of the kingdom, to consign their patients, usually in compliance with the desires of the latter, when medicine could be of no more avail; and there was such a constant influx of pale people of fortune, who were buried within so brief a period after the announcement of their arrival, that I sincerely pitied persons of opulence, because they seemed to be Death's favourite prey. Burials occurred so frequently, that at least a tithe of the inhabitants were undertakers.
It was really laughable to witness the intrigue that took place in the event of a death. The funeral was generally bespoke, even before the patient had been given over by the resident physicians: the sick gentleman's grocer, his tailor, his shoemaker, the master of the inn where he had put up on his arrival, the person in whose house he was expiring, the barber who shaved him when he was no longer able to shave himself, his butler, who had become tainted with the mania of the place, and the man over the way, whose wife was a laundress, were all undertakers in disguise, and sighing for his dissolution. This is a true sketch of the state of things some years ago, at ——, and, doubtless, at many other equally celebrated resorts of the afflicted. The various candidates for “a black job,”—that was the technical term,—frequently formed a coalition of interests. One of the party was nominated to bury the deceased, and divide the profits among all. Bribery to the domestics, in these cases, was carried on to a shocking extent; for the resident tradesmen of the place, rendered callous by custom, purchased the votes of every individual who was likely to have any voice in the election of an undertaker. Humorous mistakes frequently occurred in the ardour of the pursuit, and in the rivalry existing between the real gentlemen of the hearse, and those who were constantly on the alert to obtain a share of their profits. A case occurs to my recollection, which may, perhaps, be deemed not altogether devoid of interest.
An undertaker, who had received intelligence from one of the numerous jackals of the place, that the doctors had received their last fee from the friends of a patient, who lodged at Mr. B.'s house in a certain crescent, immediately repaired to the scene of action. He knocked at the door, but the footman (having received a bribe, and very particular instructions from a rival undertaker, who had purchased the same intelligence a few moments earlier from a the same identical jackal, and who was then in the pantry, trying to buy over the butler,) told him that he had mistaken the number; that his master was perfectly well; and that, in all probability, the gentleman who was dying, lived at Mr. B.'s other lodging-house, No. 7, in the same crescent.
“Do you know his name?” inquired the undertaker.
“The Reverend Mr. Morgan,” replied the footman.
“Do you know his servant?”
“Yes; he's a thick-set man, with a slight cast in his eye.”
“In or out of livery?”
“Out.”
“May I use your name?”
“With all my heart, on your tipping the usual.”
“There's a crown; it's all speculation,—neck or nothing; so I can't afford more. What's your name?”
“I am Sir Joseph Morgan's under-butler.”
“Thank you;—good day:—but stop, allow me to trouble you with a dozen of my cards; a judicious use of them may pay you: I come down handsomely, and you may make it worth your while, as well as mine, should anything occur in your family. Will you do what you can?”
“With pleasure.”
“Much obliged: and,—d'ye hear?—here's another: if you know of any house where the ravens roost,—you understand me—stick it in the frame of the house-keeper's looking-glass. Good morning!”
The Reverend Mr. Morgan, to whose lodgings the under-butler had referred the undertaker, was a middle-aged gentleman, lately married, and in daily expectation of having an heir to his name and the little freehold which his uncle had devised to him in the county of Brecon. He was just the sort of man that the under-butler had in his eye, when describing his servant. As the undertaker approached the door of No. 7, the reverend gentleman, in his usual neat, but homely dress, made his appearance. The undertaker, suspecting that he was the servant, accosted him the moment he had closed the door behind him, and the following dialogue ensued:—
“Your most obedient, sir.”
“Yours, sir;—I ask pardon, but as I am in a hurry—”
“One moment—”
“Really, sir, if you knew the situation of affairs—”
“I do, sir;—I do, indeed.”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“Well, it's rather odd. But I cannot stand here gossipping. Mrs. Morgan—”
“Ah! poor dear creature! but these things will happen, you know:—transitory life—sublunary world—rad mortality—vale of tears!—Going for the doctor?”
“No, not just yet; but—”
“Ah! still the event is pretty certain, I believe.”
“Why, yes; I flatter myself it is.”
“Good. Pardon me for being intrusive, my dear friend; but it lies in your power to do me a favour, I think: will you?”
“Oh! yes,—anything;—provided it costs me nothing.”
“Not a penny:—you'll be in pocket by it. But, before I explain, allow me to ask,—have you any interest with, or influence over Mrs. Morgan? Be candid.”
“Why, sir, I think I ought to have.”
“Oh! I see:—a managed matter;—a candidate for dead men's shoes, eh?—Ah! you sly dog!”
“Sly dog!”
“You'll soon be master, I guess.”
“I hope so; I have been long trying for it.”
“Ha, ha! I know it. Oh! I can see things. But now to business:—the fact is, I'm a professional man.”
“Oh! are you?”
“Yes,—you understand:—and as soon as any thing occurs, call me in; and I'll make matters agreeable to you.”
“But Mrs. Morgan,—she must be consulted: I'm just going to see a gentleman on this very business.”
“To be sure Mrs. M. must be consulted! Far be it from me to think of intruding myself without her permission. But you can use your influence. A word in your ear: I'm empowered to mention the name of Sir Joseph Morgan's under-butler. Manage it well, and I'll tip you a five pound note.”
“Sir Joseph Morgan's under-butler! Me? Tip me?”
“Oh, honour! honour among thieves, you know. Ha, ha! Harkye;—the moment he goes off—”
“Goes off! Who?”
“The parson.—I say, the moment he goes off—”
“Ah!”
“Smuggle me up to his wife.”
“To Mrs. M.? Smuggle you?”
“Oh! these things must be done with decorum, you know.”
“Well, but—”
“Leave me to manage the rest. I flatter myself that my talent and experience will ensure us the desired success. Act well your part, and depend upon it I shall be the happy man.”
“The happy man!”
“Ay; see him home, as we say.”
“See who home?”
“Why, M., to be sure.”
“Yes. Really, though, now I look at you, you don't seem to follow my ideas exactly.”
“Not with that precision which I could wish.”
“Psha! In plain English, then,—the parson being about to kick the bucket—”
“Kick the—”
“Ay,—hop the twig,—or pop off the hooks:—pick and choose, I've a variety.”
“And pray, sir, what may his kicking the bucket be to you?”
“Thirty pounds, at least, if his widow's a trump, and things turn out kindly.”
“I'm quite in a fog!—Pray, sir, who and what are you?”
“Didn't I say I was a professional man—an undertaker?”
“Oh! you're an undertaker, are you?”
“At your service.”
“Thank you. And so you think of seeing M. home, do you?”
“Yes; box him up, as we say;—Ha, ha!”
“And I'm to have five pounds—”
“Exclusive of the usual jollification on the occasion, with the mutes and mourners; and an additional guinea, if you think proper to officiate with a black stick and hat-band. Pull your hat over your eyes, hold a white pocket-handkerchief to your face, and nobody will know you:—that's the way to manage. Ha, ha!”
“Very good; very good, indeed. Ha, ha!”
“Ha, ha! But come—what say you to a cheerful glass on this melancholy occasion? Sorrow is dry, you know;—I'll be a bottle.”
“You're very good. And so you're an undertaker, after all, are you?”
“To be sure I am:—come along.”
“And I'm to smuggle you up to Mrs. M., eh?—Ha, ha!—I must say I admire your mode of doing business much.”
“Tact, my dear fellow,—tact and decorum; I display no other talents.”
“Your gay manner, too—”
“Yes; 'we're the lads for life and joy,' as the song says. I'm naturally cheerful; but when I feel pretty sure of my man—as I now do—oddsheart! I'm as merry as a grig. Take my arm.” The undertaker marched off in triumph with his supposed prey leaning on his arm, towards a neighbouring tavern; but whether the reverend gentleman blighted his hopes by an early explanation, or forgot Mrs. M. for a few moments longer, and partook of the proffered bottle, “the chronicler cannot state.”
444s
In my little parlour, where,Seated in an easy chair,At the dull decline of day,Oft I doze an hour away;—Yester-eve I had a dream,Of such seeming misery,That, at last, my own loud scream,Roused me to reality:And, though strange my say may seem,Sleep I'd rather never more,Than hear again what then I bore.Time, methought, was journeying fast:Years, like moments, fleetly passed;Still on they flowed,—behind,—before,Across what seemed a dismal sea,To break like billows on the shoreOf measureless Eternity.From all his leaden clogs releas'd,Anon, the speed of Time increas'd;Till even light could scarcely vie,With the speed of a passing century.The hills were grey,—the world was old;Its hour was come, its sands were told;The knell of a million years had rung;And I, alone, continued young,And, now, the work of woe began,Despair through every bosom ran;Death stalked abroad in open day,And, visibly, attack'd his prey:No more by slow disease he work'd,Or in the cup of nectar lurk'd;No host was now in battle slain,No man set up,—a butt for PainTo shoot her lingering arrows through;No more the earth devour'd a town;But Death walk'd openly in view,And, with his scythe, mow'd myriads down.I clos'd my eyes,—I saw no more,Until a voice close to my ear,—A voice I ne'er had heard before,So dismal that I quail'd with fear,And utter'd that wild horrid scream,Which rous'd me from my wretched dream!Bade me awake, methought, and seeHim, whose doom it was to be,The last of human kind!An awful form before me stood,Whose aspect boded aught but good:His looks were grim, his locks were grey;He seem'd like one near life's last goal;And thrice, methought, I heard him say,That he came to cast my soul!My sight grew dim, I gasped for breath;—(For who can brave a sudden death?)—A moment's fearful pause ensued,Then he,—the object of my dread,—Address'd me thus in accents rude;I listened, less alive than dead.“I've said it once, I've said it twice,I've raised my voice, and said it thrice:My time is short,—I've much to do;—I've lately lost my brother;—I cannot wait all night on you,For I must cast another.To make your boot fit well, a treeYou've ordered, as I'm told;And, once again, I say, in me,Thelast-man you behold.”
447s