95“Here is your lot,” Carry said, when she had finished; “twelve ‘Times,’ two ‘Posts,’ and three ‘’Tisers.’ Now mind, Tom Holl, no stopping about or playing at marbles.”
“As if it were likely, Miss, that one would stop to play at marbles such a morning as this—oh yes! very.”
“There, take the papers and run off then.”
The boy put them under his arm, and went off at a brisk trot.
“What are you doing, father?”
“I am trying to put the books into proper order, Carry. Dear, dear, what terrible confusion they are in! Here is 55 next to 4, and the next to that is 87.”
“Oh please, father, do leave them alone. I shall never be able to find anything. I know now exactly where they all are, and could put my hand upon any book that is asked for in the dark; but if you once meddle with them I shall never find them again; the numbers don’t go for anything.”
“Just as you like, Carry. When do you suppose breakfast will be ready?”
“I am sure I don’t know, father; I must attend 96to the shop at present, and I do think the very best thing you could do would be to go in and see about it. Now that would be really very useful; besides, you are such a figure that I don’t like you to be seen here. That great cut and swelling upon your cheek make you look as if you had been fighting on Saturday night. Why, those two gentlemen who came in just now, and asked what you had been doing, when you said you had slipped down, looked at each other and winked and laughed. I could see they did not believe you a bit—and no one else will.”
“Do you really think so, Carry? Dear me, dear me! that is very wrong of them, and will get me quite a bad name. Be sure to tell them when they call to-morrow how it happened. But perhaps you are right, my dear, and I had better keep as much as I can out of the shop of a morning till my face has got quite right again. I will see about breakfast: but, be sure, if you really want me, to call, and I will come in at once, whatever they may say about me.”
In truth, Carry was by no means sorry for an excuse which would keep her father out of the shop of a morning, at any rate for a week or so, 97a result which sometimes took her some little scheming to attain. For at that time a good many clerks were in the habit of coming in to buy tobacco, before they took ‘bus for the city; not perhaps that Stephen Walker’s tobacco was unusually good, but then certainly his daughter was uncommonly pretty. Those who did not smoke bought the “Times” for the use of their office there, which gave them the double advantage of having it to read on their way up, and of having a chat with Carry Walker before starting. So there were quite a number of men came in of a morning from half-past eight to half-past nine; and Carry who, as has been said, was in no ways loath to be admired, had a bright smile, and a laughing remark ready for each. So Stephen Walker’s shop was quite a well-known rendezvous, and the young men would stand there chatting with Carry till the ‘bus came along past the end of the street, where the coachman would regularly stop for them. Carry very much enjoyed all this. Her head was somewhat turned perhaps; but, in spite of her little vanities, she was a shrewd, sensible girl, and took all the nonsense talked to her at pretty nearly what it was worth. She had 98always an answer for every remark, and in the little wordy passages generally managed to hold her own; and yet, although full of fun and life, she never for an instant forgot herself, or allowed her fun to carry her away. Her numerous admirers felt and respected this, and consequently the little war of words never exceeded anything that the father might not have listened to. At the same time there were unquestionably more fun and talk on those mornings when he did not appear in the shop. Some of these admirers of Carry were really in earnest, and would gladly have shared their homes and salaries with the tobacconist’s pretty daughter; but she gave no encouragement to one more than another, and to the two or three who, in spite of this, had endeavoured to persuade her to unite her lot with theirs, she had very decidedly intimated that she had at present no idea whatever of changing her condition.
By half past nine her work was nearly over. The last batch of her visitors was off to town; the last “Times” was sold out, and in those days there were no penny papers.
When the shop was empty Carry went into the 99little parlour, and found that her father had got the breakfast ready, and was sitting by the side of the fire waiting patiently till she should come in. Stephen Walker was no more sorry than his daughter was that he should have some excuse for leaving her alone in the shop during the busy time. He was perfectly aware that a large proportion of his customers came more for the purpose of seeing and talking with her than to buy tobacco or papers. And as he felt perfectly assured of Carry’s discretion and self-respect, he was not at all afraid of leaving her to take care of herself. At first it had not been so, and he had been very loath to leave her in the shop alone, and had, when he went into the parlour, been in the habit of leaving the door ajar, so that he could hear what went on. When he found, however, that the conversation never surpassed the limits of fair badinage, and that Carry turned aside all the compliments paid to her, with a merry laugh, he grew confident, and was quite content to leave her to herself, especially as he could not but feel that his presence was a restraint both to them and her. He was quite sensible of the fact that in the two years which had elapsed since she first took her 100place in the shop, that the business had trebled, and that his and her comforts were proportionately increased.
They had scarcely sat down to breakfast before they heard some one come into the shop. Carry got up with a little exclamation of impatience, opened the door, and looked out.
“Good morning, Evan, what is it?”
“Good morning, miss. Could I speak to Mr. Walker?”
“Come in Evan, we are at breakfast; that is right; now shut the door.”
“What do you want, Evan?” Stephen Walker asked.
“If you please, sir, I wanted to ask you, if when you go up to town, you would get me some books for James to read.”
“What sort of books, Evan?”
“Not story books sir, but clever books about mechanics, and that sort of thing; not easy ones, sir, he is a wonderful chap at ‘rithmetic, James is, and can do any of the sums in the one we have got at home; but I have heard him say he should like to learn mathematics. I would go myself sir, and not trouble you, but Lor, I should not 101know which was which. I don’t want new ones, but books from the old stalls; I have heard tell, they are very cheap there. Here is ten shillings, sir; would you kindly choose as many as you can get for it, and please keep them here for me, ‘cause I want to surprise him with them?”
“But gracious, child!” Carry said, “where on earth did you get ten shillings to spend on old books?”
“If you please, miss, it were given to me, and more too, for picking a little dog out of the Serpentine, and I thought that I couldn’t do better with it than get some books for James. He is mighty clever, and he has nothing to amuse him, poor fellow, except his flowers, so he will have plenty of time to think over all these hard things.”
“You are a good boy, Evan,” Stephen Walker said, “and I will do my best, and ten shillings will go a good way. That sort of book is always to be picked up very cheap. I can get an algebra, Euclid, and trigonometry, anyhow, and perhaps a book on conic sections, and it will take your brother some time to master them. But, Evan, 102does your father know what you are spending your money upon?”
“Oh yes, he knows,” the boy said; “besides, he told me that the money was mine, and I could spend it upon what I liked. And please, Mr. Walker, father told me to give his respects, and would you go in and smoke a pipe with him this evening?”
“Will you tell your father from me,” Stephen Walker said, “that he may rely upon my coming. And where are you going now, Evan?”
“I am going down to the Serpentine; I hear they are skating there this morning, and I have got a new tray, and such a lot of bull’s eyes and peppermints, rather. Will you have some, miss,” and the boy took out a handful and put them down by Carry’s plate.
“Thank you, Evan, I will take two or three, not more; I could not eat them—that will do, thank you; I hope you will do a good day’s work.”
“No fear of that, miss; I just shall do this week if the frost goes on. Good bye, miss. Good bye, sir, and thank you; please don’t forget the books,” and Evan Holl was gone.
103“Do you know, father, I think it’s lowering yourself going into John Holl’s, he is a very good sort of a man, but he is only a dustman. I think you ought to look higher than that, if only for my sake.”
“John Holl is a very decent man, my dear,” her father said mildly, “and he always treats me with proper respect. There are not many places I do go to; but I esteem John Holl to be a very respectable man in his sphere of life, and I do not think it can do me any harm.”
Carry pouted a little, but made no further remark. She had very little knowledge of her father’s past life. She could remember vaguely that as a child she had lived in a much better house, but that was all. Stephen Walker had never spoken of earlier times, beyond telling her that he had formerly kept a much larger shop, which had been his father’s before him; but that he had been unfortunate, and had therefore settled down into a place more suited to his means. More than this he had never told her, for he thought it better for the girl’s happiness that she should remain in ignorance of what the past had been. He thought that if she had known 104in what a different station she might have moved, it might tend to make her discontented with her state. For himself, he accepted his lot cheerfully, and was on the whole far happier than he had ever been before, and he judged her by himself.
Stephen Walker really liked these little evenings with his humble friends. When he went in there to smoke a pipe he was always treated with a certain deference which gratified any lingering feelings of personal pride he might have, and made him flatter himself with the idea that in so doing he was really conferring a favour instead of accepting one.
Anyone entering John Holl’s at seven o’clock that evening would have seen at once that something very important was about to take place. The floor had been evidently recently scrubbed, and in those parts not covered by the square patch of drugget in the middle of the room, was so clean and white that it almost seemed a pity to tread upon it. The chairs and table absolutely shone with the amount of rubbing and polishing which had been bestowed upon them, and the ornaments on the chest of drawers had been 105arranged upon a spotless white cloth to the best possible advantage.
Mother had just come down from upstairs, where she had been engaged in tidying herself, and looked red and hot from the hard work and excitement.
John Holl himself was sitting in his usual place by the side of the fire, smoking his long pipe with his accustomed air of thoughtful gravity. James was in his box on wheels opposite to him, but not immediately so, the chair next to the fire being, as the place of honour, reserved for Stephen Walker.
The younger children are seated upon the stairs as being quite out of the way, and are from that post of vantage viewing all the preparations with an air of extreme interest, passing away the time the while, by munching apples and cakes which have fallen to them as their share of the feast.
Presently Evan returns, and the cause of his absence is at once apparent, for he is followed by a potboy from a neighbouring public-house, carrying in one hand a large can of beer and in the other three empty pewter pots, which he 106places upon the table in company with several long clay pipes which are lying upon it ready for use. He then takes from the pockets of his jacket two black bottles which he places beside them, and with a brief “good-night” takes his leave. And now when Mrs. Holl has placed some tumblers upon the table, the preparations for the feast are complete.
For even the Holls have their feasts—not often and not great ones. In no single respect resembling those banquets which a city alderman pictures to himself at the word feast, where turtle soup with its lumps of green fat mingles if not harmonises with venison and truffles, the whole crowned with that wonderful institution—the loving cup.
But the Holls have none of these things, nor perhaps would be able thoroughly to appreciate them if they had. The contents of the black bottles and battered pewter pots form the great staple of the entertainment. Strange stories, could they speak, might these pewters relate of those who have drunk from them, and curious would be the history of each of their numerous dints and bruises. That one was crushed only 107last Saturday night by being thrown by a drunken husband at his wife; the symmetry of the next was spoilt against a navvy’s skull in an English and Irish row; for stealing the third, Daniel Crinky, alias the Ferret, was sent on a long sea voyage; and many another tale of drunkenness and crime.
This is one of the pewter’s innocent uses, and they seem to have been specially cleaned and brightened up in honour of the occasion. It is the twentieth anniversary of John and Sarah Holl’s wedding-day. The guests soon begin to arrive; there are not many of them—half-a-dozen or so. In the first case, as he is a public character should be mentioned A 56. For he is a public character, and his place can by no means be termed a sinecure. Far from it, for A 56 has plenty of hard work and not over much pay in return. He must make up his mind for hard knocks, and occasionally in the discharge of his duty to be nearly killed, perhaps in the open day, with dozens of bystanders looking on, too cowardly or too indifferent to lift a finger in his defence. He will have some unpleasant duties, too, such as keeping the line all day in the rain 108at Chiswick Fête, and is expected to be within a few yards of every irascible gentleman who is overcharged by a cabman, or who imagines himself to be in any way aggrieved. He must make up his mind to being a pretty general object of dislike among the lower orders, and to be taunted and chaffed and groaned at on all public occasions, he being at those times considered a fair subject for sport. All this and much more must he bear with perfect equanimity and good temper, for if he should ever get a little crusty, and hit rather harder then the occasion appears to warrant, he knows that “Mentor,” and “Censor,” and “Civis,” and many others will be down upon him at once in the columns of the daily papers. But to their credit be it spoken, it is very seldom that A 56 and his brethren from A 1 to the end of the alphabet ever give an opportunity for a charge against them.
Next to A 56 must be mentioned Perkins. Perkins is not a handsome man, in fact the reverse. He is rather tall and strongly built, with high cheek bones, small sunken eyes, and a broken nose. He wears a groom’s waistcoat 109with a heavy steel watchguard, and a gaudy scarf round his neck with a showy mosaic gold pin. From these tokens it may be at once seen that Perkins is or has been a prize-fighter. A nasty customer was Perkins in his time, and many a victory has he won, from his first appearance as Harry Parson’s novice, to the time when backing himself to fight Unknown for 200l. a side, he was nearly killed. It was in that celebrated conflict that his nose was broken; and he then retired from the ring, and was established by his admirers in the snug Public, known as “The Lively Stunners,” where every Wednesday evening a select harmonic meeting is held, at which good humour and fisticuffs prevail, as see “Bell’s Life.”
Between Perkins and A 56 a species of feud exists, for Perkins cannot disguise that he objects to A 56. Not on personal grounds, far from it; but as being one of the body who are constantly on the watch to interrupt and put an end to the noble art of which he, Perkins, is a professor; and he attributes to A 56 and his fellows the disrepute into which that noble science has fallen. Of the others present, as they will not 110appear again in the pages of this history, no description need be given.
After the first guest had arrived the rest soon came in, entering generally with a rather awkward air, as if impressed somewhat with the gravity and importance of the occasion, but thawing rapidly when they had once seated themselves and had each got one of the long pipes into full operation.
Presently Stephen Walker arrives, and is inducted in the post of honour. His being thus late was caused by his desire to see the shop closed, and Carry comfortably seated at the fire with a novel, before coming out.
As was but natural the weather was the first object of discussion, but this did not last long, it being unanimously agreed that the frost was likely to last any time. After that, various other topics are introduced and discussed gravely, and generally with a fair knowledge of the subject. At last, as all conversation among working men at that period was sure to do, their talk turned upon the Chartist movement which was agitating the lower classes of the metropolis.
“I wish the Charter had never been heard of,” 111John Holl said, “I’m sick of it. Look at my brother Bill. A better workman never stepped in shoes, always at work, always on the best wages, and look at him now, never doing a stroke, but wasting his time going about talking. It’s been a weary time for Bessy since he took up with it. But, Lor bless you, to hear him talk you would think that we were all black niggers. It sounds all very fine, and though I know I aint a black nigger, I can’t say anything against it. But, Lor bless you! you should hear James, he ats him, and he gives him word for word, and line for line, and Bill gets hit pretty hard, I can tell you; you do slap it into him, James, don’t you?”
The lad, who had been very quiet, only putting in a remark occasionally, laughed merrily.
“I like arguing with Uncle Bill, he is so accustomed to have it all his own way, and he does not half like it sometimes when I come down upon him. I am very sorry for him though, and I do wish I could convince him. He is so honest, and he believes in what he says so much, that it is a pity to think that it will lead him into trouble.”
112“Why did he not come here to-night, John?” Stephen Walker asked.
“He has got what he calls a ‘committee’ on, and, bless you, he wouldn’t miss a committee, he wouldn’t, not if he knew he should find us all dead when he came out.”
Here Mrs. Holl, who had been upstairs putting the younger children to bed, came down again, and began to bustle about, and lay a cloth for supper. She then brought out a huge pie from the cupboard, and in a few minutes the whole party drew round the table and set to. When supper was over, Mrs. Holl cleared the table, put the black bottles and tumblers upon it, poured out a large jug of boiling water, and each mixed himself a glass.
There was then a little pause, and Stephen Walker, finding that the eyes of the company were directed generally towards him, said—
“Gentlemen, we are met here to night to celebrate a very happy occasion. Twenty years ago to-day, my friends, John and Sarah Holl were married. How happy they have been they best know, but from what I have seen of them, and I have known them for some years now, I should 113say that they are as happy a couple as any in the town, and I think you will agree with me when I say that they well deserve to be. John, I drink your health and your good wife’s, may you continue for another twenty years to be as happy as you have been up to this time.”
His speech was received with murmurs of applause, and with thumping of glasses from those seated near enough to the table to be enabled to indulge in that evidence of their approbation.
Then all nodded to John and Sarah over their glasses, and said, “Here’s to ye,” and there was a pause of silence for John Holl’s reply.
And then John, wiping his mouth with the back of his broad, brown hand, and clearing his throat, said—
“Mr. Walker and friends all, speaking ain’t in my way much, but for Sairey and self, I must tell you how much I feel obligated for all your kind wishes. Mr. Walker, and friends all, I thank yer kindly. Sairey here and I have been married twenty long years now, and we ha’ been very happy together. It don’t seem twenty year, but I know it is. Sairey, she were a tall, shapely lass, and I were an active, young chap 114then; as you may see, friends all, we ha’ changed rarely since then. But I don’t think we ha’ changed other way. I do believe, Sairey an’ me are just as fond o’ each other as we was this day twenty year back. Mr. Walker, and friends all, my wife Sairey has been a good wife to me. I can’t say rightly how good, but I feel it. I know well that I ain’t made Sairey as good a husband as I might ha’ done—hold your tongue, Sairey—but as you see, friends all, I don’t think she likes me any the less for it now. We aint lived just an idle life all these years, and we didn’t expect to when we got married. We have had our hardish times, too, but nothing not to say to grumble about. On the whole we have got on pretty fair, and ha’ laid up a few pound for a wet day. Mr. Walker, and friends all, thank ye kindly. Sairey, old girl, here’s to ye,” and John gave his wife a loud-sounding kiss, and Sarah, although she was a low person, and hardly knew what nerves meant, wiped away a tear unobserved amongst the thumping of glasses, and stamping of feet, which greeted the conclusion of John Holl’s speech. After that there was a greater appearance of general ease, and of a determination to enjoy 115themselves. Presently they began to sing. A 56 sang, principally comic songs, and sang them with so much spirit, that it was evident that under the rather stolid demeanor, and close cut regulation whisker, A 56 concealed a strong sense of humour. The crippled lad sang, and with considerable taste and feeling, and Perkins favoured the company with some of the songs of the “Lively Stunners” in his best style. And the others sang; but the most marked feature about their songs was the almost entire absence of any appreciable air, and that they all had a chorus apropos of nothing, of ri tiddy ti tiddy ad libitum. The singers too seemed continually striving to get up to some imaginary note, about two octaves above the normal compass of their voices, and as their eyes moved in accordance with their voices, at these times only the whites were visible; the entire effect to any one unaccustomed to it being extremely painful.
However, all seemed satisfied, and when the party broke up, which they did a little before twelve, as several of them had to be at their work early, they expressed themselves as greatly delighted with their evening. And so they went off, 116the others to bed, but policeman A 56, who had only got leave in honour of the occasion, went off to the station to report himself, and then to relieve the comrade who had taken his place on his beat. Tramp, tramp, with his slow, heavy, regular tread all night, up and down many a quiet street, where his heavy foot-fall seems to echo strangely; steadily on, with once or twice a pause, and a sound of voice in remonstrance and dispute, and then a little scuffle as some drunken man is either persuaded to go home or else taken off to the station. Down many an area does the bright eye of his lantern pry; now it dances along a wall, now ‘tis on the ground, now it flits into a window. Loudly the bells chime the hours in the still, starlight night—two—three—four—London is at its stillest, the last carriage from the latest party is back now, the last straggling foot passenger in bed. Five—six—and now there are some signs of life and movement again. The workmen are beginning to start to their distant places of work, stamping their feet, and swinging their arms, to warm themselves in the keen morning air. Had it been market-day, long ere this the light carts would have been rattling into 117Covent Garden, to purchase a supply of vegetables, and be back again before the earliest customers are awake. Now it approaches seven, and the grey morning light begins to break over London, and to dim the brightness of A 56’s lantern. The streets are busy with men hastening to their work. Seven—and it is comparatively quiet again. Half-past—and sleepy-looking housemaids begin to draw up blinds, and to open front doors, and sweep down the steps. And now the milk-carts drive up, and as the clock strikes eight, London seems to wake with a start. The ‘busses rattle off with their loads of men for the early offices, foot passengers muffled to the throats, cabs and carts; day has fairly begun. And now A 56 is relieved, and goes home and sleeps long and soundly.