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Title: Cherry & Violet - A Tale of the Great Plague
Author: Manning, Anne
Language: English
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CHERRY & VIOLET
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[Illustration]
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CHERRY & VIOLET:
A Tale of the Great Plague
Illvstrations by
John Jellicoe
&
Herbert Railton
Introdvction by The Rev^{d.} W·H·Hutton
LONDON
John C. NIMMO
·MDCCCXCVII·
------------------------------------------------------------------------
As I sat by myself, I talked to myself,
And thus to myself said I.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
Cherry and Violet
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHERRY & VIOLET
A TALE OF
THE GREAT PLAGUE
BY
THE AUTHOR OF “MARY POWELL” AND “THE
HOUSEHOLD OF SIR THOS. MORE”
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
THE REV. W. H. HUTTON, B.D.
FELLOW OF S. JOHN’S COLLEGE, OXFORD
AND TWENTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIONS BY
JOHN JELLICOE AND HERBERT RAILTON
LONDON
JOHN C. NIMMO
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
MDCCCXCVII
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
At the Ballantyne Press
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. —The Reminiscences of Mistress 1
Cherry.—The Fire, & Double
Tide.—Mal-conversation
II. —Cherry endeavours to remember if she 17
were pretty.—A Water-party
III. —Result of the Water-party 36
IV. —Chelsea Buns 56
V. —A Shadow on the House 77
VI. —Metanoia 95
VII. —Signs in the Air 114
VIII. —The Plague 136
IX. —Foreshadows 149
X. —A Friend in Need 169
XI. —Distinction between would & should 199
XII. —Camping out in Epping Forest 207
XIII. —Ghosts 226
XIV. —Riding a Pillion 243
XV. —The Squire’s Garden 259
XVI. —The Burning City 284
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
From Drawings by JOHN JELLICOE and HERBERT RAILTON.
FRONTISPIECE. Frontispiece
Drawn by HERBERT RAILTON
PAGE
TITLE-PAGE. iii
Designed by HERBERT RAILTON
MOTTO. iv
Designed by HERBERT RAILTON
OLD LONDON BRIDGE. 1
Drawn by HERBERT RAILTON
“MY FATHER’S SHOP WAS ON THE EAST SIDE” 6
Drawn by JOHN JELLICOE and HERBERT
RAILTON
“ONE AND THE SAME CRADLE.” 10
Drawn by JOHN JELLICOE
“IN THE ARBOUR AT THE TOP OF OUR HOUSE.” 20
Drawn by JOHN JELLICOE
“THE BACK-ROOM IN WHICH HE SLEPT WAS A 22
LEAN-TO STUCK AGAINST THE MAIN WALL.”
Drawn by HERBERT RAILTON
“THIS COMICALITY DREW CROWDS OF PEOPLE.” 31
Drawn by JOHN JELLICOE
“GOSSIPING WITH HUGH BRAIDFOOT.” 42
Drawn by JOHN JELLICOE
“THE GAY PARTY SET OUT.” 63
Drawn by JOHN JELLICOE
“LOOKED OUT ON THE BRIDGE.” 66
Drawn by HERBERT RAILTON
“I FOUND HER ON HER KNEES.” 82
Drawn by JOHN JELLICOE
“AND SO THE GOOD MAN WENT.” 105
Drawn by JOHN JELLICOE
“WE LET OUR WINDOWS.” 116
Drawn by JOHN JELLICOE
“AND NOW A SHOCKING SIGHT WAS TO BE SEEN 122
AT THE BRIDGE GATE.”
Drawn by HERBERT RAILTON
“HOUSES WERE SHUT UP.” 136
Drawn by JOHN JELLICOE and HERBERT
RAILTON
“KEEPING THE GATES WITH MUCH JEALOUSY.” 140
Drawn by JOHN JELLICOE
“I MADE FOR CHEAPSIDE.” 158
Drawn by JOHN JELLICOE and HERBERT
RAILTON
“A PARTY OF DISORDERLY YOUNG MEN.” 166
Drawn by JOHN JELLICOE
“THERE HE LAY.” 179
Drawn by JOHN JELLICOE
“WE HAD WORDS ABOUT IT.” 212
Drawn by JOHN JELLICOE
“I SAW SOME WOMEN PASSING THROUGH THE 222
TREES.”
Drawn by JOHN JELLICOE
“THE OLD GARDEN WITH THE IRON GATE.” 231
Drawn by HERBERT RAILTON
“AN OLD RED-BRICK HOUSE.” 248
Drawn by JOHN JELLICOE and HERBERT
RAILTON
“A BOWLING-GREEN OF WONDERFUL FINE 260
TURF.”
Drawn by HERBERT RAILTON
IN THE SQUIRE’S GARDEN. 264
Drawn by JOHN JELLICOE and HERBERT
RAILTON
CHERRY’S WEDDING LEAVING THE CHURCH. 279
Drawn by JOHN JELLICOE
“ST. PAUL’S WAS NOW IN A BLAZE.” 294
Drawn by HERBERT RAILTON
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction
SO reticent was Miss Manning in her lifetime, and so loyally have her
wishes been obeyed by her kindred since her death, that when Mr. Nimmo
last year re-published her beautiful memorial portrait, “The Household
of Sir Thomas More,” it was clear that whatever of her personal history
had ever been known had been already forgotten. She had indeed been
confused, in a Biographical Dictionary, with another writer: it even
needed the assurance of her surviving niece to convince inquirers that
she lived and died unmarried. Thus to live and die, “the world
forgetting, by the world forgot,” was what the gentle spirit chose. To
be known through her books, and loved, there can be little question, was
her ambition, and it was a wish which I cannot doubt is fulfilled. The
“author of ‘Mary Powell,’” as she styled herself on her title-pages, has
left several exquisite little studies, highly appreciated when they
first saw the light, and still worthy, as it seems to me, of that kind
of immortality of regard which is won by those writers whom none of us
would place in the first rank of Literature, but whom all who know them
remember with something of a personal affection. When I say that Miss
Manning reminds me of Miss Rossetti, I do not mean that the earlier
writer has the genius of the most perfect poet that ever, in the English
tongue, linked the highest aspirations of Religion with the most
exquisite expressions of Poetry; but rather that their minds were both
beautiful, their experiences pathetic, their hearts true. They would
walk together in Paradise, and understand each other: when our Lady of
Sorrows sings “Magnificat,” they would stand by, and their souls would
echo to her song. The matter of the work of each is very different, yet
in the manner there is something indescribably akin. Christina Rossetti
is one of the greatest writers of the century; but, unique though she
is, and unapproachable in her sphere, in the land below her the author
of “Mary Powell” has thought some of the same thoughts, and thought them
in the same way.
“O my soul, she beats her wings,
And pants to fly away
Up to immortal things
In the heavenly day:
Yet she flags and almost faints;
Can such be meant for me?—
Come and see, say the Saints.
Saith Jesus: Come and see.
Say the saints: His pleasures please us
Before God and the Lamb.
Come and taste My sweets, saith Jesus:
Be with Me where I am.”
The voice is that of Christina Rossetti, but it is the thought too of
her who wrote “Cherry and Violet.”
Miss Manning, as we read her life in her books, walks through the world
with an unbounded charity and a hope ever refreshed. “Preach peace to
all,” said S. Francis of Assisi, “for often those whom you think to be
the children of the devil are those whom you will know some day to be
the sons of God.” Miss Manning loved to think of, and to look upon,
whatsoever things are lovely and of good report, and so thinking and
looking she found flowers everywhere to spring up beneath her feet.
“Tread softly! all the earth is holy ground.
It may be, could we look with seeing eyes,
This spot we stand on is a Paradise
Where dead have come to life and lost been found,
Where faith has triumphed, martyrdom been crowned,
Where fools have foiled the wisdom of the wise;
From this same spot the dust of saints may rise,
And the King’s prisoners come to light unbound.”
So when she turns to the sixteenth century, with its sordid materialism
and its coarse handling of things most sacred, not merely does she
recognise, as an Englishwoman, the grandeur of its struggles, but she
sees its best embodiment in the tragedy of an almost perfect life. As
she seeks refuge in that time of stress with the Household of Sir Thomas
More, so in the next century she turns aside from the pettiness of Pepys
or the realism of Defoe to the life of a simple girl born and nurtured
on the great bridge that spans the Thames.
“Quali colombe dal disio chiamante
Con l’ali aperte e ferme al dolce nido
Volan per l’aer dal voler portate.”
With “The Household of Sir Thomas More” we walked in the dangerous days
when the Lion found his strength. With “Cherry and Violet” we are in the
still more alarming atmosphere of the Commonwealth and the Restoration.
Year by year, as old houses open their chests, and scholars hunt among
their yellow papers, we learn more of the reign of terror which marked
the closing years of the Protectorate. We see one Verney living a “lude
life” with “my lord Claypoll” and other “my lords” the kindred of the
Protector; while another, the honest Sir Ralph, stoutest of
Parliamentarians, is clapped in prison, no man knows why; and at the
same time John Howe, pious Puritan preacher (whom Mistress Cherry
herself knew of), is confessing how impossible it is to win the family
which reigns at Whitehall to think of the welfare of their souls. Yet
all the while there hangs over the land the outer gloom of an enforced
conformity, which Miss Manning so happily describes. When we find
ourselves in the heyday of the Restoration, or when we watch the
splendours and the scandals of the Court of Charles II., we learn from
the scandalous Pepys—now so much more than ever since Mr. H. B. Wheatley
has given us all that it was possible to print of the wonderful Diary as
Pepys really wrote it—how utterly rotten was the social life of the age,
even among those, too often, who might seem to sit sedately above its
more flagrant iniquities.
And then there comes in Defoe with his marvellous photographic realism
of fiction, and tells us of the horrors of the Plague with a fidelity
which those who had lived among them could, we fancy, hardly have
approached.
From sources such as these—from Pepys and Defoe, as well as from the
more sober pages of the stately Evelyn, it is that Miss Manning takes
much of the _mise-en-scène_ of her “Tale of the Great Plague”; and we
find, as historic evidence accumulates around us, how true her imaginary
picture is.
It was a happy thought which made the story begin on old London
Bridge—happier still, readers will now think when they see Mr. Herbert
Railton’s beautiful drawings. Something we learn of the stress of the
time as we recall, with Mistress Cherry, the strange pageants which the
bridge-dwellers watched from their windows. They saw the double tide,
portent of unknown woes. They saw how the mighty Strafford went serenely
to his death, and the old Archbishop passed up and down under guard on
the long days of his weary trial. They saw the King come to his own
again—and some of them may have looked out of windows that wet Sunday
night in 1662 when Mr. Pepys had left his singing of “some holy things”
and went back by water, shooting the rapids under “the bridge (which did
trouble me) home, and so to bed.” The life on the bridge must have been
something which an Englishman’s experience of to-day can hardly help to
picture. Something of it we may fancy as we enter an old shop on the
Ponte Vecchio at Florence, or look out upon it and the Arno from the
long corridor that connects the Uffizi with the Pitti. But on that
narrow space is no such crowded life as on old London Bridge—no such
dangers for foot-passengers, drivers, and horsemen. To picture this in
seventeenth-century England we must cross near mid-day from Stamboul
towards Pera by the far-famed Galata Bridge. Scarce anywhere but in
Florence and in Constantinople can we now recall what sights old London
Bridge must have witnessed. Mr. Railton sees them, though, very clearly,
and we are more than content to see with his eyes. Something idealised
they are, perhaps. Old London Bridge was hardly so beautiful, surely, as
he pictures it; and his drawings, perhaps, are more like what the houses
ought to have been than ever they were. “More Nurembergy than
Nuremberg,” says Mr. Ruskin of some of Prout’s famous work. We may say
it of Mr. Railton’s old London; and high praise it is. And as Mr.
Railton brings back to us the scenes, so Mr. Jellicoe gives us the
persons of old time in their habits as they lived.
Among such surroundings we picture Cherry doing her simple duties,
tending her mother, thinking somewhat primly of her vivacious neighbour
Violet, fancying she has lost her heart for ever to poor Mark, and then
waking to a heroine’s work in the horrors of the Plague, and finding
through that her own bright reward.
“The Plague growing on us,” says Pepys, and of remedies “some saying one
thing, and some another.” So it begins in May, and by the first week of
June, “much against my will, I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses
marked with a red cross upon the doors, and ‘Lord have mercy upon us’
writ there; which was a sad sight to me, being the first of the kind
that to my remembrance I ever saw.” Ten days later, and as he goes in a
hackney coach from the Lord Treasurer’s, his coachman is struck of a
sudden “very sick and almost blind”—and journey by coach becomes “a very
dangerous passage nowadays.” So it comes till there are seven hundred
dying in a week, and “it was a sad noise to hear our bell to toll and
ring so often either for death or burials.”
And soon, “But, Lord! how sad a sight it is to see the streets empty of
people and very few upon the ’Change. Jealous of every door that one
sees shut up, lest it should be the Plague; and about us two shops in
three, if not more, generally shut up.”
Reports are terrible of the thousands who every week are carried to
their graves in the long pits; and with an even closer terror speaks the
record of the veracious diarist. “I went forth and walked towards
Moorfields (August 30th) to see (God forgive me my presumption!) whether
I could see any dead corpse going to the grave; but, as God would have
it, did not. But, Lord! how everybody looks, and discourse on the
streets is of death, and nothing else, and few people going up and down,
that the town is like a place distressed and forsaken.” “What a sad time
it is,” he writes on 20th September, “to see no boats upon the river;
and grass grows up and down White Hall Court, and nobody but poor
wretches in the streets.”
To these records the genius of Defoe adds an immortal picture. “As this
puts me upon mentioning my walking the Streets and Fields”—he has been
speaking of the numbers that fled to the outskirts of the town, “into
the Fields and Woods, and into secret uncouth Places, almost anywhere to
creep into a Bush, or Hedge, and die,” and how it “was a general Method
to walk away” if any one was seen coming—“I cannot omit taking notice
what a desolate place the City was at that time. The great street I
lived in, which is known to be one of the broadest of all the streets of
London, I mean of the Suburbs as well as the Liberties; all the side
where the Butchers lived, especially without the Bars, was more like a
green Field than a paved Street, and the People generally went in the
middle with the Horses and Carts. It is true that the farthest End,
towards White-Chappel Church, was not all pav’d, but even the part that
was pav’d was full of Grass also; but this need not seem strange, since
the great Streets within the City, such as Leaden-Hall Street,
Bishopgate-Street, Cornhill, and even the Exchange itself, had Grass
growing in them, in several Places; neither Cart nor Coach were seen in
the Streets from Morning to Evening, except some Country Carts to bring
Roots and Beans, or Pease, Hay and Straw, to the Market, and those but
very few, compared to what was usual: as for Coaches, they were scarce
used, but to carry sick People to the Pest-House, and to other
Hospitals; and some few to carry Physicians to such Places as they
thought fit to venture to visit; for really coaches were dangerous
things, and People did not Care to venture into them because they did
not know who might have been carried in them last; and sick infected
People were, as I have said, ordinarily carried in them to the
Pest-Houses, and some times People expired in them as they went along.
“It is true, when the Infection came to such a Height as I have now
mentioned, there were very few Physicians which car’d to stir abroad to
sick Houses, and very many of the most eminent of the Faculty were dead
as well as the Surgeons also; for now it was indeed a dismal time, and
for about a month together, not taking any Notice of the Bills of
Mortality, I believe there did not die less than 1500 or 1700 a-Day, one
Day with another.
“One of the worst Days we had in the whole Time, as I thought, was in
the Beginning of September, when indeed good People began to think that
God was resolved to make a full End of the People in this miserable
City. This was at that Time when the Plague was fully come into the
Eastern Parishes: the Parish of Algate, if I may give my Opinion, buried
above a thousand a Week for two Weeks, though the Bills did not say so
many; but it surrounded me at so dismal a rate, that there was not a
House in twenty uninfected; in the Minories, in Houndsditch, and in
those Parts of Algate about the Butcher-Row, and the Alleys over against
me, I say in those places Death reigned in every Corner. White-Chappel
Parish was in the same Condition, and tho’ much less than the Parish I
liv’d in; yet buried near 600 a Week by the Bills; and in my Opinion
near twice as many; whole Families, and indeed whole Streets of Families
were swept away together; insomuch that it was frequent for Neighbours
to call to the Bellman, to go to such and such Houses, and fetch out the
People, for that they were all dead.”
There is little, if anything, in the description which is exaggerated.
How much in tone as well as detail Miss Manning learnt from this great
master of fiction is clear. But it was altogether foreign to her nature
to paint long in such gloomy colours, and she turned, with a true art,
from the horrors of the Plague to the peace of country life “in good
King Charles’s golden days.”
So she brings her heroine down into Berkshire. A very short journey we
take it to have been, or the old horse must have been more swift of foot
than we should gather from Mistress Cherry’s description, for Buckland
in Berks lies not far from Faringdon, and over seventy miles from London
town. One of those quiet little villages it is that nestle among the low
hills that overlook the peaceful valley of the upper Thames. A fine old
church may have had Master Blower for its vicar. It has four bells and a
register that date from his day. There are memorials of two families,
the Yates and the Southbys, who have passed away with the good old
times. The house is not such as Mistress Cherry stayed in, but speaks
all of the eighteenth century, of George the Second and Mr. Wood of
Bath.
It is tempting to wonder whether this part of the country was one Miss
Manning ever saw—whether she watched the deer speeding by her—whether
she felt the fascination of
“This little stream whose hamlets scarce have names,
This far-off, lonely mother of the Thames.”
One may like to fancy her rejoicing in it, as Dante Gabriel Rossetti
rejoiced, who lived in a quaint old house such as she had pictured
Master Blower welcoming Cherry into, only a few miles away from
Buckland, at Kelmscott. But the place refuses to be identified, and we
must be content to conclude that Mistress Cherry’s geography was at
fault.
Having chosen a striking setting for her characters, Miss Manning knew
well how to give them life. She had a quiet humour, and a kindly
knowledge of human nature, which made her draw true portraits. Different
readers will have their favourites, but I think few will fail to be
drawn to honest Nathaniel Blower, priest and scholar, who, after days of
poverty such as we may read many a true history of in Walker’s
“Sufferings of the Clergy,” and a sore struggle with the Plague, lived
to be Rector of Whitechapel, and better still, after the crowning
misfortune of the Fire, to end his days quietly among the country folk
at Bucklands with his good wife by his side. Master Blower is indeed
drawn with Miss Manning’s happiest touches: we do not readily forget the
figure he presents in bed, or how he “in his Deliration went through the
whole Book of Job in his head.”
Whether most lads would not fall in love with Violet we cannot tell, but
certainly quiet Cherry is a good woman, worthy of the hand of Mary
Wilkins. We may sometimes feel that she is a damsel of the nineteenth
century at masquerade in the dress of two centuries before; but we like
her none the less if we fancy she is good Miss Manning in disguise.
And so we leave her and Master Blower happy in their home at Bucklands.
Good man, we doubt not he tilled his garden and tended his parish well,
like the Berkshire priest and poet of to-day, and, it may be, with the
same thought.
“In all my borders I my true love seek
By flowery signs to set:
Praising the rose-carnation for her cheek,
Her hair the violet;
Flowers that with sweet returns each season bloom,
As each its impulse wakes,
Making air fragrant with a purple gloom,
Or whorl of crimson flakes.
And ye who blanch your glow, violets more rare,
Carnation, foam of light;
Be pledges of a beauty still more fair
When hair and cheek are white.”
All’s well that ends well. After prim Puritanism and roystering
Restoration revels, after Plague and Fire, comes the quiet ending in the
country’s peace.
W. H. HUTTON.
THE GREAT HOUSE, BURFORD,
_June 26, 1896_.
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CHERRY AND VIOLET
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[Illustration]
CHERRY AND VIOLET
CHAPTER I
_The Reminiscences of Mistress Cherry.—The Fire, & Double
Tide.—Mal-conversation._
I WONDER whether many People, on reviewing their past Lives, feel as I do on
looking back on mine; that, had they had the ordering the outward
Circumstances connected with them beforehand, such as Time, Place,
Health, Sickness, Friends, Acquaintances, and such-like Conditions, they
could not have arranged them half so well as they have been disposed for
them. When I fall into a Muse on the Past, the Moments fly so swiftly
that I am lost in Amazement when I find how the Time has slipped by
while thus pleasantly employed. And yet many of the Arrangements which
were made for me by a greater Wisdom than mine, were such as at the Time
were far from agreeable to me; nay, were sometimes so repugnant to Flesh
and Blood as to nourish rebellious Thoughts, and call forth Showers of
Tears. And still the Process went on; as I now see, all for my Good.
My Father married my Mother in the Spring of the Year 1632: being then
in the Prime of Life, a personable, charming-looking Man, though small
of Stature, and with a Nose somewhat awry. In his Conditions he was ever
most lovely; of a sweet Temper, shrewd Observance, stout Heart, and
lively Wit. Many, no Doubt, had read more, by reason of their
Opportunities; but what few Books he knew, he turned to Profit, and
perhaps no Man concocted his Reading into Judgment better than he; by
which he became so judicious and oracular, as that though he could not
indeed prophesy, he could presage; and some of his Presages came true
and others not, but might have done so, had Events taken but in a very
slight Degree a different Course. He knew how to sound his Customers,
and suck the Marrow of their Knowledge, while keeping his own Counsel:
but this was his Prudence, not Pusillanimity, for I have heard it
remarked by one who knew him well, that the _Trojan_ Horse was not more
full of Valour than he, for so small a Man. Being a Hair-dresser, this
was not so evident in him as if he had been a Soldier; but yet every
Man’s Life affords Occasions, as my Father’s certainly did, of showing
what is in him and what is not.
In Dress, his Taste was excessive neat, and yet gaudy; so that on
_Sundays_, when he appeared in what he called his Marigold-and-Poppy,
with his Hair, which Men then wore very long, combed down in large
smooth Curls, his laced Collar nicely ironed, his Beaver well brushed,
and his Shoes shining like Coals ... it would have been difficult to
find a Grain of Fault with him, save that, as my Cousin _Mark_ was wont
to say, the Colours of his Suit did too much swear at one another. For
my own Part, I always had an Impression that he was an excessive
well-looking Man, not out of any Prejudice, but downright Prepossession;
and yet my dear Mother, who I am sure loved him truly, always said to me
when I alluded to the Subject, “My Dear, the Qualities of his Person
were always far exceeded by those of his Mind.”
Of my Cousin _Mark_, who was my Father’s Apprentice, there could not be
two Opinions. He was winsome, lightsome, debonair; of most comely Person
and Aspect: we were all very proud of him, and he of himself. If he had
a Fault, it was thinking too much of himself and too little of others;
but this is so common that I do not know I am justified in
particularizing it. Also he was somewhat of a Coward, not in respect of
personal, animal Courage, of which I suppose he had as much as the
aforesaid _Trojan_ Horse, whatever that might be; but morally cowardly,
as to what would be thought of him by others, and dreading the Evil of
the present Moment, and so forth; which Men don’t think so bad a kind of
Cowardice as the other, but I do.
But his Temper was most sweet: his Manners most engaging. Oh! how much
he came to be thought of, at length, all along the Bridge! I have no
other Fault to find in him besides those already reckoned; unless it
were a general Want of Principle, which was less apparent than it would
have been, had it not been covered rather than supplied by good Feeling.
But ’tis ill reckoning the Faults of one’s Friends.
Of my Mother, how shall I say enough? She was tall, slender, and comely
to look upon, with sweet and quick grey Eyes. She was naturally of a
high Spirit, which had been brought under a Curb by Divine Grace. She
was kind and obliging to all, stirring and thrifty, yet not niggardly;
soft-hearted to the Poor, of wonderful Propriety without the least
Priggishness, loved by her Friends, and especially in her own Family.
Now I have counted up the whole House except our Lodger, Master
_Blower_, and _Dolly_, the Cook.
[Illustration:
My Father’s shop was on the east side of London Bridge
]
My Father’s Shop was on the east Side of _London Bridge_. Over his Door
hung his Sign of “_The Lock of Hair_;” and over the Shop-front was
painted in yellow Letters the following Inscription,—
“PETER CURLING _sells all Sorts of Hair, Curled or Uncurled,
Roses, Braids, Cauls, Ribbons, Weaving, Sewing-silk, Cards, and
Blocks. Together with Combs, Crisping-pins, Perfumery, and all
other Goods made use of by Tonsors and Hairdressers, at the
Lowest Prices_.”
On the opposite Side of the Way, was a Vintner’s, by the Name of _Abel_,
who had humorously set up _a Bell_ for his Sign, and painted beneath it,
“Quoth the Wag, I am _Abel_.”
Next Door to us on one Side, lived a Bookseller and Stationer named
_Benskin_, whose Sign was the Bible and Star; and next Door to us on the
other Side was a Glover named _Hugh Braidfoot_, a jolly, good-tempered
Bachelor, black-haired, fresh-coloured, and six Feet high, whose Sign
was the Roebuck.
A few Weeks after my Birth, which was in _February, 1633_, in the Midst
of a notable hard Frost, there broke out a most dreadful Fire at the
north End of the Bridge, which consumed all the Houses on both Sides,
from _St. Magnus’_ Church to the first open Space on the Bridge. There
was, I have heard tell, much bodily Hurt as well as Destruction of
Property; many Persons in precipitating themselves from upper Stories,
getting their Limbs broken. “Water! Water!” was the Cry, and all in
vain, for though the _Thames_ lay right under the Houses, ’twas one
great Cake of Ice, and the only Resource was to break the Conduit Pipes
that ran through the Streets leading to the Bridge, and sweep the Water
down with Brooms, to supply the three Engines that every one had thought
would be such Helps in Time of Need, but which proved very sorry Helps
indeed. In the Midst of the Tumult and Danger, some Neighbours of ours
that were burned out of House and Home, took Refuge with us; to wit, the
Wife and infant Daughter of Master _Samuel Armytage_, Haberdasher of
small Wares; the Infant being, like myself, a Nursling of only a few
Weeks old. These homeless Strangers did my Mother hospitably and
Christianly entertain, bestirring herself more in her Care for them than
in her tender Case it was fit she should have done, and putting us two
Infants into one and the same Cradle. With our little Arms locked about
one another, in an Atmosphere of Christian Love, ’twas no Wonder that
little _Violet_ and I conceived a Tenderness for each other, e’en while
Sucklings, that grew with our Growth, and strengthened with our
Strength. As for the elder Parties, Hospitality on the one Side and
Thankfulness on the other caused a more than common Friendliness to
spring up between them from that Time forth. And when the Fugitives were
re-established in their re-built Houses, they long had an impressive and
solemnifying Remembrance of their narrow Escape from an awful and
terrible Death.
[Illustration]
Now, though I cannot, of course, remember Anything of the Fire, I have a
perfect Recollection of the next notable Occurrence among us, of _the
Double Tide_, which happened in my eighth Year; and how the River, after
lying as still as a Stone for more than an Hour, suddenly came foaming
up from _Greenwich_, roaring, boiling, and splashing to that Degree that
it was Horror to look upon. And my Father, after contemplating the
Prodigy along with all the rest, exclaimed, “Well, Friends! you may say
what you will; but I, though not a superstitious Man, think Something
will come of it.” And did not Something come of it ... or, at any Rate,
after it? and were not we, that had previously been sleeping on the
still Waters of a settled Government, horribly overwhelmed with a Tide
of Rebellion, Anarchy, and Republicanism?
The Year before the Double Tide, there had been much Talk in my Father’s
Shop, about the Earl of _Strafford_ being given over to the Black Rod,
which I, being of such tender Years, could not well make out, but it
seemed to carry an ill Sound with it. After that, he was taken to his
Trial; and passed from his Prison in the _Tower_ to _Westminster_, under
our Bridge. We looked forth of our Windows, and discerned him plainly in
one of the Barges, guarded by Soldiers with Partizans; and there was
much Yelling and Hooting as he went through the Arch, which I for my
Part was sorry for, he was so handsome and personable a Gentleman. The
People, however, were much incensed against him; and, about three Months
after the Double Tide, there was what I may call a Double Tide of
’Prentices and tumultuous Citizens, to the Number of about six Thousand,
(my Cousin, _Mark Blenkinsop_, being among them,) who assembled
themselves in an intimidating Manner at _Westminster_, many of them
armed with Swords and Staves, and demanded Lord _Strafford’s_ Death of
the Peers as they went to the House.
I remember my Father, for as small a Man as he was, collaring _Mark_
when he came back, and dealing him one or two Blows, which made me begin
to cry, and run in between them. And _Mark_, though a great, tall Lad of
his Years, began to whimper too, which reminds me again of the _Trojan_
Horse, and the Valour that may dwell in a little Body, and the
Pusillanimity that may be in a large one. And, “sure, Uncle,” says
_Mark_, “the Earl deserves to die, for his” ... Mal-conversation, or
Malministration, I forget which. And my Father replied, “Never trouble
your Head with that. Leave the Powers that be to settle their own
Affairs. Fine Times, indeed, when Barbers’ ’Prentices must be meddling
in State-politics! To his own Master, the _Earl_ standeth or falleth.”
Had all Men been of my Father’s equable and temperate Mind, we should
not have fallen into the Disorders we presently did; wherein, no Doubt,
there was much Wrong on both Sides. One Night we were roused from Sleep
by Cries in the Street that “the _King_ and his Papists were coming to
fire the City and cut our Throats in our Beds;” but my Father, after
putting his Head forth to learn the Nature of the Tumult, drew it in
again and closed the Window, allaying our somewhat ungoverned Fears with
that Composure which it behoves every Master of a Family to assume when
he can, in Seasons of Danger or the Apprehension of it.
Soon there was open War between _King_ and _Parliament_, which went on
increasing till the whole Country was filled with Bloodshed and
Confusion, and only ended in a total Change of Government. We were now
in a State of Fortification; for the _Lords_ and _Commons_ had directed
that the whole City should be put in a State of Defence, and that the
_Lord Mayor_ and Citizens should trench, stop, and fortify all Highways
leading thereunto. Wherefore, all Entrances into _London_ except five,
were stoned and bricked up altogether; and those five were made as
strong as could be, with Breast-works and Turn-pikes, Musket-proof. And
all Sheds and Out-buildings outside _London Wall_, that were near enough
to be advantageous to an Enemy, were taken down; and this gave a great
deal of Work to do that behoved to be done quickly; wherefore even Women
and Children helped the Men in carrying Earth, Stones, &c., for, by this
Time, there was in the City a pretty general Disaffection towards the
_King_; and those that wished him well and could not get to him, found
it best to hold their Peace.
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II
_Cherry endeavours to remember if she were pretty.—A Water-party._
AND now my Memory flies on to the Time when, I suppose, I was as happy a
Girl as any on the _Bridge_. I know not whether I were pretty or not,—I
rather suppose I was, but my Father praised me too much, and my dear
Mother never praised me at all, so that I have no Clue to what was
really thought of me. There’s an old Saying, “Even a little Beetle is a
Beauty in the Eyes of its Mother,”—I am bold to think that if I had been
a little Black-beetle, I should still have been a Beauty in the Eyes of
my Father. My Mother used to tell him “all his Geese were Swans,” which
was as much as to say that hers were not: be that as it may, if she
praised me less, I always felt she loved me as much as he did; and I
loved her to the full as much as I loved him.
I remember coming down Stairs one _Sunday_ Morning, dressed for
Church,—(we had no Liturgy, nor Church of _England_ Clergymen then, such
was the Will of _Parliament_,)—dressed in a primrose Petticoat and
grass-green Mantua neatly bundled up behind; black Mits without a Crease
in them for Tightness, white Pinners starched and crimped, and a small
steeple-crowned Hat,—when _Mark_, meeting me at the Stair-foot, stepped
out of my Way with a sliding Bow, said, “Bless me, how pretty we are!”
and looked attentively after me. I felt ashamed and yet elated; and
thought somewhat more of myself and of him after that; yet I am not
quite sure, now, that his Speech was not ironical, after all.
Of my Friend and Schoolfellow, _Violet Armytage_, there could not be two
Opinions. She was excessively pretty, and knew it too well: which was
partly the Fault of her Father, who was always calling her his “sweet
_Wi-let_;” and yet, even if he had not, I think she would have found it
out, for all that. _My_ Father called me his rosy _Cherry_, but I knew
it for his Manner of Speaking. But _Violet_ always believed Everything
that was said in her Praise. She was fond of me by Fits and Starts; and
when the affectionate Fit was on, she would bring her Work and sit with
me in the Arbour at the Top of our House, by the Hour together.
Sometimes my Father and Mother would join us there in the long Summer
Evenings, and we would sup in the open Air; no one objecting to it but
_Dolly_, who had to carry the Things up so many Pair of Stairs.
At other Times, when my Father and Mother were otherwise engaged, _Mark_
would come up to us; and sit upon the Roller or Watering-pot, and say
ever so many funny Things to us both; which we thought very pleasant.
Sometimes _Violet_ would let her Ball of Thread roll through the Rails
and drop down into the Street, and send him to fetch it; and when he had
brought it she would do the same Thing again; which he said was too bad,
but I don’t think he minded it. I never played him such Tricks myself;
for, what was singular, though we lived in the same House together, I
was shyer of him than she was.
[Illustration]
Our first Floor was let to a very learned and excellent Man, though a
very singular one, the Reverend _Nathanael Blower_, who had been Curate
of _St. Magnus_ till the Form of Religion changed. Then he was hard put
to it, where to lay his Head without fleeing the Country or getting into
Trouble; for the Independents were mighty intolerant; and he whom we
used to think it a great Honour to get a passing Word and a Smile from,
was now thankful to take up his Rest among us. Holy Writ tells us that
some have entertained Angels unawares: if we entertained an Angel, it
was not unawares, though he was a very eccentric and untidy one. He said
he would have called my Mother the good _Shunammite_ if it had not been
a Shame to provoke Comparison between himself and the Prophet _Elijah_.
Indeed his was somewhat like the “Chamber on the Wall,” for the
Back-room in which he slept was a Lean-to that stuck against the main
Wall like a Swallow’s Nest, and hung perilously over the foaming River,
trembling at every half-ebb Tide; but Use inures us to Everything, and
he said he slept as well in his Nest as a Sailor in his Hammock. As to
his Sitting-chamber, it was soon a perfect Pig-sty (if Pigs ever had
Books) of Papers, Parchments, Books, Pamphlets, old Shoes, Hats and
Coats, Medicines, Cordials, Snuff-boxes, Pipes, Walking-sticks, and
Everything that is untidy. After a Time he began to think whether he
might not, by a conscientious Conformity, be a Working-bee rather than a
Drone in the Hive; and, having some Acquaintance with Master _John
Howe_, the _Whitehall_ Preacher, who was known to be forward in
assisting the Royalists and Episcopalians in Distress, if they were but
Men of Merit, he went and took his Advice on the Subject before he
presented himself before the Triers, that is to say, those who tried the
ejected Ministers whether they might be allowed to officiate again in
Public or not. Along with him went Doctor _Fuller_, so well known by his
wise and witty Books; who was generally upon the merry Pin, for as pious
a Man as he was. He, presenting himself before Master _Howe_, said,
[Illustration:
The Back-room in which he slept was a Lean-to that stuck against the
Main Wall
]
“Sir, you may observe I am a pretty corpulent Man, and I am to go
through a Passage that is very strait. I beg you would be so kind as to
give me a Shove, and help me through!”
Master _Howe_ smiled, and frankly debated the Subject with him and
Master _Blower_; and the End of it was, that when the Triers put it to
Master _Fuller_ whether he had ever had any Experience of a Work of
Grace upon his Heart, he made Answer, that he could appeal to the
Searcher of Hearts, that he made Conscience of his very Thoughts; and
Master _Blower_ said in other Words what amounted to the same Thing;
howbeit, like _Pharaoh’s_ Butler and Baker, one was accepted—the other
not.
And the Reason was, that they got upon the Question of particular Faith,
which was very prevalent in _Oliver Cromwell’s_ Court, and put it to him
whether he did not believe that all who asked for Anything in Faith
would have it granted them, as well as have an Assurance on the Spot
that it would be so. Which he said, in that large, unqualified Sense, he
did not, for that he believed many timid Believers had the Faith of
Adherence who had not the Faith of Assurance; and that if Prayer were
made for some unreasonable Thing, however fervently, he did not think it
would be granted. That would not stand Master _Blower_; so he had to
come back to his Swallow’s Nest.
“But is it not an extraordinary Thing, now,” saith he to my Mother,
“that they should, except for the Sake of catching a Man in his Talk, so
hardly insist on the literal Acceptance of a Dogma which they themselves
must know they overstrain? For would one of them dare to pray that his
Father or Mother might come to Life again in this present World, however
much he might long to see them in the Body? Or that all Jews, Infidels,
and Heretics, might be converted this very Moment, however desirable a
Thing it might be? We do the Word of God Dishonour and make it of none
Effect when we interpret by the Letter instead of the Spirit.”
In this Fashion would the excellent Master _Blower_ vouchsafe to
converse with my Mother in my Hearing, much to her Edification and mine.
Meantime _Violet Armytage_ was much more given to Flirting than
Preaching; and had more Admirers than any Girl on the _Bridge_; but the
Man whom she and her Mother were chiefly desirous she should captivate
was no Admirer of hers at all. This was _Hugh Braidfoot_, the Glover,
who lived next Door to us; and who talked the Matter over with my Father
very freely when they had the Shop to themselves; I sewing in the
Parlour behind.
“I can see quite plainly through the old Lady,” quoth he, as he sate on
his favourite Seat, the Counter, with his Feet easily reaching the
Floor, “I can see what she’s driving at, and don’t respect her for it a
bit. Why should she always be buying Gloves three or four Sizes too
small for her broad red Hand, and then be sending _Violet_ over to
change them again and again till they fit? I’ve a dozen Pair wasted that
she has stretched. And where is the other Daughter, and why is she
always in the Background?”
“_Kitty_ is sickly and a little lame,” says my Father, “and has her
Health better in the Country.”
“I don’t believe she’s either sickly or lame,” says _Hugh Braidfoot_,
“only the Mother wants to get this Daughter off first—and stands in her
own Light by her Manœuvres, I can tell her. Defend me from a managing
Mother!”
About this Time, my Father’s Trade had a short but surprising Impetus,
which, as he said to my Mother, “was but the Flaring up of a Candle in
the Socket, just before it goes out.” Cropped Heads and long Curls being
now the Signs of different Parties, and the Round-heads having the
uppermost, numerous Persons that had hitherto been vain enough of their
long and graceful Tresses, which brought no small Gain to the
Hairdressers, were now anxious to be shorn as close as _French_ Poodles,
for Fear of getting into Scrapes with the reigning Power. And as, like
the Sheep after Shearing, they left their Fleeces behind them, which
were in many Cases exceeding valuable, my Father and _Mark_ were busied
from Morning to Night, in washing, baking, and weaving beautiful Sets of
Hair, which were carefully reserved for future Occasion.
“For you will see,” quoth my Father, “there will sooner or later be a
Reaction; _I_ may not live to see it, but you Youngsters will; People
will be tired of Puritanism and Rebellion some of these Days, and then
the old State of Things will come back; and the Croppies will be as
ashamed of their Stubble Heads as the Cavaliers are of their Love-locks
now; and, as Hair won’t grow as fast as green Peas, they will then be
constrained to wear Wigs, and then will come a rare Time for the
Barbers!” Every Word of which, like so many other of his Prophesyings
and Presages, in due Season proved strictly true!
Meantime, though this Fury for cropping filled the Till as long as there
was any long Hair to cut off, yet, this being presently done, a great
Stagnation of Business ensued; for, whereas the curled Locks had
required constant curling, brushing, and trimming, the round Heads were
easily kept short, and brought only Pence where the others had brought
Shillings. My Father kept his Hair long to the last; and, to express his
Opinion of the Times so as e’en they who ran might read, he set up two
waxen Effigies in his Window, not merely Heads, but half Lengths; the
one representing an exceeding comely and handsome young Man, (very much
like my Cousin _Mark_,) with long, fair Tresses most beautifully
crimped, falling over his _Vandyke_ Collar and black Velvet Coat: the
other, with as red a Nose as old _Noll_, close cropped, so as to show
his large Ears sticking out on each Side. And to make the Satire more
pungent, the Round-head made as though pointing to the Cavalier, with a
small Label superscribed, “See what I was!”—and the Cavalier, with a
Look of silent Disgust, was signing at the Round-head and saying, “See
what I shall be!”
[Illustration]
This Comicality, which had cost my Father and _Mark_ sundry Hours of
evening Labour,—(I had made the Dresses,) drew Crowds of People to the
Window, so as even to obstruct the Passage along the Bridge; and excited
Peals of ironical Laughter; till, at length, Mirth proceeding to
Mischief, Blows began to ensue among those who favoured opposite Sides.
Then the Bridgewardens came with Constables and Weapons to quell the
Disturbance, and an idle Fellow was set in the Cage, and another, with
long Hair, put in the Stocks; and one or two of our Panes of Glass were
broken; so that what began in Sport ended much too seriously; and my
Father, finding he must yield to the Times, changed the Cavalier’s
Placard into “See what you had better be,” and finally removed it
altogether, saying he was nauseated with time-serving. But he persisted
in wearing his own long Hair, come what would; which drew from the
Reverend Master _Blower_ that Similitude about the _Trojan_ Horse, who,
I suppose, persisted in wearing his Mane and long Tail after they had
become Types of a Party. And when my Father was called in question for
it by one of the Bridgewardens, and asked why he persevered in troubling
_Israel_, he with his usual Spirit retorted upon him with, “How can a
Tonsor be expected to hold with a Party that puts Pence into his Till
instead of Shillings?” Whereupon the Bridgewarden called him a
self-interested _Demas_, and said no more to him.
_Hugh Braidfoot_ upheld him through thick and thin, laughing all the
while; though he kept his own bushy Head as short as a Blacking-brush.
Indeed, this Man, though the Essence of Mirth and Good-humour, strongly
built, and six Foot high, had not a Quarter of my Father’s Valour.
As for Master _Blower_, he made a wry Face on it, saying that Magnasheh
Miksheh (which I afterwards heard was Hebrew for well-set Hair) was now
of no Account.
—One Evening,—I have good Reason to remember it,—the Days being sultry
and at their longest,—we made a Pleasure-party to _Greenwich_, and took
Water below the Bridge. Coming back just as the Moon was rising, a
Boat-full of uproarious and half-intoxicated young Men fell foul of us
and upset us. I shall never forget my Sensations as I went into the
Water!—The next Minute, I was half out of it again, and found _Mark’s_
Arm close round me, while with the other he struck out, and presently
brought me ashore. My dear Father also rescued my Mother; and _Hugh
Braidfoot’s_ long Legs helped him more in wading out like a Heron, I
think, than his Arms in swimming, for he, too, presently came aland,
covered with Mud. My Mother and I cried, and felt very grateful to
_Mark_, who stood panting and colouring, and looking very much pleased
with himself; and presently we were all in another Boat on our Way to
the Bridge Stairs, drenched, quiet, and thankful for our providential
Escape.... I, especially, feeling, oh! how happy!—Yet, in after Days,
there was a Time when I was ready to wish _Mark_ had left me in the
River—.
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER III
_Result of the Water-Party._
THE only Person in the Boat, who was left for the Boatman to save, was
Mistress _Glossop_, the Widow of a _Cheapside_ Hairdresser in a much
larger Way of Business than my Father, with whom we were on very
intimate Terms. She was a Woman of about forty-five, tall, bulky, and
with a very heated Face, which was the Result of Intemperance, not in
drinking, but eating, as I have often heard her acknowledge. She was
fond of Everything nice, and had a Habit of saying, “Oh, I can’t resist
this!” “I never can resist that!” which used to disgust me with her; and
make me ready to say, “More Shame for you if you cannot.” She and her
Husband had always been well to do; and now she was Mistress of a large
Business, with Court-patronage, such as it was, and a Foreman and three
’Prentices under her; besides keeping a professed Cook, Housemaid, and
Scullion. And whereas she and Master _Glossop_ had always been
Companions and Gossips of my Father and Mother, whose Ages were suitable
to them, yet, now she had cast off her Weeds, she went mighty fine; and
_Mark_, who thought her sufficiently unagreeable, though he often went
on Errands to her, said he was sure she was casting about for a second.
To a Woman of her Habit, the Ducking she got was unlikely to be of much
Good; and as for her flame-coloured Mantua, and pea-green Mantle, they
were ruined outright: however, she was very merry about it, and as we
were all engaged to sup with her, would hear of no excuse. Howbeit, my
Mother was too wet for doing Anything but going Home and to Bed: my
Father would not leave her; _Hugh Braidfoot_ said he would join us, but
did not; and the End was, that _Mark_ and I, when we had dressed
ourselves afresh and kept our Engagement, found Nobody to meet us but
some _Cheapside_ Shop-keepers who had not been on the Water. And though
they made very merry, and though there were Lobsters, and Pound-cake,
and Ducks, and green Peas, and fried Plum-pudding, and Gooseberry Pie,
and other Delicacies too numerous to mention, I had no Mind to eat, but
sat shivering, and scorching, and thinking of the Water closing over me;
and at length, before any one else was ready to leave, begged Mistress
_Glossop_ to let me wish her Good-night.
_Mark_, though he was in high Spirits, came away with me, and very
kindly said he feared I was the worse for the Accident. And though he
had been very talkative at the Supper-table, yet as soon as we got into
the open Air we became as quiet as two Judges, and walked Home scarcely
speaking a Word, till we came to that last one, “Good-night.”
I had taken Cold, which, with a good deal of Fever attending it, made me
very poorly for some Days; and my dear Mother, who did not show it so
much at first, had in fact taken her Death-chill, though we knew it not
till long afterwards. Meantime, she kept about; I seeming at first the
worst of the two, and sitting by the Fire in a Cloke, very chilly,
though ’twas close upon the Dog-days. _Violet Armytage_ came over the
Way to see me; and saith she, “Dear _Cherry_, how well _Mark_ behaved! I
shall think the better of him for it as long as I live!”
I felt I should do so too, but had no Mind to speak much about it; and,
my Cold being heavy, and making me indisposed to talk, she soon went
away. Almost daily, however, she came across; and, when she did not,
_Mark_ went at her Desire to tell her how I was.
And so I got well; and just as I was fit for going out again, my dear
Mother’s Illness became so apparent that I kept wholly to the House. At
first we thought it troublesome rather than dangerous, and were not
frightened; and, though I sat by her Bed almost all Day long, she would
sometimes send me down to work below and keep an Eye to the House. Her
Illness subdued me a good deal; and _Mark_ was become unwontedly gentle
and silent; so that, though we scarce saw each other save at Meals, we
said little; and yet I never felt him to be better Company.
_Violet_ sent me Word that unusual Press of Business in the Shop kept
her from coming over, but begged I would never let a Day pass without
sending her Word how my Mother was; which I did, though thinking, now
and then, she might have just run over, if but for a Minute.
One sultry Evening, my Mother being ready to compose herself to Sleep,
bade me sit below till she rang for me, as she was sure the Room must be
warm and close. It was so, in fact, and I was feeling a little faint,
therefore was glad to sit at the open Casement of our Parlour behind the
Shop. The Business of the Day was done; my Father was gossiping with
_Hugh Braidfoot_ next Door; there was a pleasing Confusion of distant
Sounds from the City and along the Water; Boatmen calling “Yo, heave
ho,” and singing Snatches of Boat-songs; the Water trembling and
murmuring among the Arches, and the Evening Air feeling soft and
reviving.
[Illustration]
While I was thus sitting, all alone save for _Dolly_ in the Kitchen, and
Master _Blower_ on the first Story, _Mark_ comes in and gives me a Posy,
saying, “_Violet_ sends you these Flowers:” and then remained, with his
Hand resting on the Back of my Chair.
I know not how long we thus remained, quite silent, and I conscious of
great Pleasure in his Presence; till at last, for want of Anything more
important to say, I observed, “How pleasant the Evening Air is coming
over the Water!”
“Very,” said he, without seeming to be thinking much about it: and again
we were both quiet.
“Cousin,” said he at length, in a very gentle Voice,—which was not his
usual Way of addressing me, for in common he called me _Cherry_,—
—“Dear Cousin, I have something to say to you”—and stopped.
“What is it, _Mark_?” said I, softly.
“We have lived long together,” began he again, faintly laughing, “and I
never felt afraid of speaking to you, before—How odd it is that I should
feel so, now!”
“What have you to be afraid about?” said I, looking up at him: on which
he coloured and looked away; and I did the same, without knowing why.
“You have always been my Friend,” resumed he, taking Courage; “you will
not be angry with me?”
“Why should I?” said I. “Is there Anything to be angry about?”
“Perhaps you may think so,” said he, “when you come to know all. Dear
_Cherry_, I’m in Love!” And laughed, and then was silent.
I never felt so perplexed what to say next. “I don’t see that is any
Matter of mine,” said I at length.
“Don’t you, though? But that depends upon whom I’m in Love with!” said
he, smiling. “If it were with Anybody a hundred Miles off, that you had
never seen or heard of, you might say it was no Matter of yours; but,
_Cherry_, she’s not one Mile off! She’s the prettiest Girl on the
Bridge!”
“Then,” said I, turning scarlet as I spoke, “it must certainly be
_Violet Armytage_!”
“It is!” cried he rapturously. “What a Guesser you are!—Dear _Cherry_!”
Oh! what a Bound my Heart gave; and then seemed to stop! For,—I’m only
speaking to myself; to myself I may own the Truth—I had not thought he
meant _Violet_!
“Ah,” said he, after a long Silence, which I was as unable as he was
disinclined to break, “I dare say you’ve seen it all along—I may have
told you no News—you are such a good Secret-keeper, _Cherry_!”
I could not yet say a Word—He had taken my Hand and wrung it; and I
gently pressed his in Sign of Sympathy; it was all I could do, but it
was quite enough.
“How kind you are!” said he. “What do you think my Uncle will say?”
“What do you think her Father will say?” said I faintly.
“We are not going to tell him just yet,” returned he, “nor yet her
Mother.”
“That sounds bad, _Mark_——”
“Nay, _Cherry_, you know how crazy the old Lady is to have _Braidfoot_
for her Son-in-law; she’ll find in Time he won’t come forward, and
_Violet_ will take care he shall not, for she will give him no
Encouragement; but, till her Mother finds it won’t do, there’s no Use in
my speaking, for you know I have nothing to marry upon, yet.”
“When shall you have?” said I.
“_When?_” repeated he, looking a little annoyed. “Why, _some of these
Days_, as the Saying is. You know I am thorough Master of my Business
now, have served my time, receive good Wages, and am very useful to your
Father. Who knows but that, as Time goes on, he’ll take me for a
Partner, and finally retire from Business?”
“Ah, _Mark_, so little comes in now, that he will have nothing to retire
upon. We can but just go on as we do.”
“Well,” said he, laughing, with a little Embarrassment, “perhaps
Mistress _Glossop_ will take me into Partnership. I’m a Favourite in
that Quarter.”
“Mistress _Glossop_! Oh, _Mark_!”
“Nay, _Cherry_, don’t you see, if old Master _Armytage_ takes a Fancy to
me, he may make it worth her while to do so, for the Sake of his ‘sweet
_Wi-let_’?”
“Ah, _Mark_, Master _Armytage_ is himself in a very small Way of
Business—nothing at all to compare with Mistress _Glossop’s_. _We_ love
and esteem them for old Acquaintance sake, but she looks quite down upon
them. There are so many small Haberdashers on the Bridge!”
“Well, the smaller he is, the less Reason he will have to look down upon
me. I suppose you don’t mean to say, _Cherry_, that no young Man thinks
of Marriage unless he is better off than I am?”
“So far from it, _Mark_, that I cannot see what Right the _Armytages_
have to expect a better Match for their Daughter; and therefore I think
it a Pity there should be any Concealment.”
“Marry come up!” cries he, “I would rather draw a Double-tooth for a
fiery Dragon than tell Master _Armytage_ I was Suitor for his sweet
_Wi-let_!”
“Why, you will have to tell him sooner or later,” said I.
“Not ... not if we wait till he dies,” said _Mark_.
“_Dies!_ oh, _Mark_!”——
“It’s ill, reckoning on dead Men’s Shoes, I own,” said he, looking
rather ashamed.
“It’s unfeeling and indelicate in the highest Degree,” said I. “Why
should not _Violet_ tell her Father?”
“Ah, _Cherry_, she will not; and what’s more, she has made me solemnly
promise that _I_ will not, at present; so you see there’s no more to be
said. We must just go on, hoping and waiting, as many young Couples have
done before us; knowing that we love one another—and is not that, for a
While at least, enough?”
I faintly said, “Yes.”
“You don’t speak so heartily, though, as I thought you would,” said he.
“Don’t you sympathize with us, _Cherry_?”
I looked up at him with a Smile, though my Lip quivered, and said
fervently, “Oh, yes!”
“That’s right!” said he gladly. “Now I shall feel that, whether Things
go rough or smooth with me, you take cordial Part in them. GOD bless
you, _Cherry_! And if ever I’m in any little Difficulty with _Violet_, I
shall come to you for Advice and Help, rely upon it!—Hark, there is your
Mother’s Bell.”
I ran off, glad to leave him; and found my Mother coughing, and in want
of some Water. When she had recovered herself, and composed herself
again to Sleep, I sat by her Casement, looking out on the same Scene I
had been gazing on an Hour before; but oh! with what different Feelings!
The Trouble of my Soul taught me how much I had cared for him, what
Expectations I had nourished of him, what Disappointment I felt in him.
All was changed, all was shivered: never to be built up again! And yet
no one knew what Hopes were wrecked within me.—The World was going on
just the same!
I thought how kind my Father and Mother had been to him, and how likely
it was they had hoped he would marry me, and how certainly, in that
case, my Father would have shared his Business with him.
I thought how dull and forlorn a Place the World would now seem to me,
but resolved they should never know it. I would go on, in all Respects,
just the same.
Large Tears were flowing unrestrained down my Cheeks, when Master
_Blower’s_ Bell, having been once rung already, was now pulled again
with some Impatience; and as _Dolly_ had stepped out, I answered it
myself, and found he wanted his Supper, which he took at no particular
Time, but just whenever he was inclined to lay aside his Reading or
Writing. I might have spread the Table for him nineteen Times out of
twenty, without his ever looking at me; however, on this Occasion he
happened to have nothing better to do, and observed I was in trouble.
“Child,” said he, “is thy Mother worse?”
“No, Sir, I humbly thank you.”
“Then,” says he, “Something else has happened to grieve thee, for thine
Eyes are red with weeping. What is it?”
But I could not tell him.
“Well,” said he, after a Pause, “young Girls may have their Griefs that
they don’t care to tell about.—Man is born to Trouble, as the Sparks fly
upward. And sometimes those Griefs we show least, we feel most. But
remember, my good Girl, (for a good Girl, _Cherry_, thou art!) that
there is One to whom we may always carry our Burthens; One who can ease
them, too, either by giving us Strength to bear them, or by removing
them altogether.—Go pray, my Child, go pray!”
And I did as he bade me, and found Balm for a bleeding Heart. He was a
good and wise Man, was Master _Blower_.
When my Mother awoke, she said, “_Cherry_, I don’t know what has come
over me, but I feel a Peace and a Quiet past expressing ... I should not
wonder if you have been praying for me, my Child.”
I pressed her Hand and said, “Yes, Mother, I have ... and for myself
too.”
“This Illness of mine may be a Blessing in Disguise to us both,” said
she after a Pause—“it has taught me your Value, _Cherry_.”
“What a funny Story,” resumed she presently, quietly smiling, “might be
written by a clever Hand about a Person who always fancied herself
undervalued! ‘_The Undervalued Woman!_’—There are a good many such in
the World, I fancy; poor Things, it seems no Joke to _them_. People who
have that Impression of themselves generally take such silly Methods to
prevent their being overlooked! They had better make themselves of real
Importance, by being useful and thoughtful for others. They had better
take Pattern by _you_, _Cherry_!”
How dear, a Mother’s Praise! Especially when so seldom bestowed!
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IV
_Chelsea Buns_
VIOLET seemed afraid (and yet why should she be?) to come near me, after
_Mark’s_ Communication; and, as my dear Mother could ill spare me, I
kept close House. We now felt the Blessing of having a discreet and
godly Minister for our Inmate; for Master _Blower_ read and prayed much
with my Mother, and comforted her greatly by his Discoursings. I
likewise derived Benefit from the good Seed he scattered, which fell, as
it were, into Ground much softened by heavy Rain.
When I was able and inclined to step across to _Violet_, I found only
Master _Armytage_ in the Shop; who said to me with some Shortness, “You
will find my Daughters within,—I wish your Father would find Something
more profitable for your Cousin to do, than to be always in our Parlour,
a-hindering of Business.”
I knew _Mark_ was not there just then, at any Rate, having left him at
Home; and, stepping into Master _Armytage’s_ Back-room, I only found
there a pale, gentle-looking Girl, with large, brown Eyes, diligently
putting Shop-marks to a Box of new Ribbons. I knew her for _Kitty_,
though her return Home was News to me; and, having not much to say to a
Stranger, I asked her how she liked the _Bridge_. She said, “Not at all;
I have been used to look upon Trees and Fields, and miss the Green; the
Noises make my Head ache, and my Mother keeps me so close to my Work,
that I pine for fresh Air.” I said, “Sure there is enough of it blowing
through that open Window from the River!”
“Do you call it fresh?” said she, rather contemptuously. “I do not, I
can tell you! Instead of being scented with Cows’ Breath and new-mown
Hay, it comes from Tan-yards and Butchers’ Shops.”
When _Violet_ came in, she blushed very red, but we only spoke of
indifferent Subjects: and, strange as it was of two such close
Intimates, we never, from that Time forward, had any closer
Communication. Perhaps it was her Fault, perhaps it was mine: or
perhaps, no Fault of either, but a just and becoming Sense of what was
best for two modest Girls in our new Relation. For, though it needed not
to be supposed that she knew Anything of what was passing in my Mind, I
am persuaded that she did.
And thus the Families fell apart; and _Mark_ never renewed his
Confidences to me after that first Evening; and, if he had Moments of
keen Pleasure now and then, I am persuaded he had Hours of Pain he had
never known before. For _Violet_ was capricious and coquettish, and
sometimes would vex him by being unreasonable and hard to please: at
other Times, by laying herself out to please others, as Master
_Braidfoot_, and their Lodger Master _Clarke_. And though she gave out
to _Mark_ that this was only for a Feint, to draw off the Attention of
her Father and Mother from himself, yet sometimes it was certainly with
no other Purpose than to plague him, and at other Times, I fear, with no
better Purpose than to please herself; and I know it cost him many a
Tear.
Poor _Mark_! how my Heart ached for him, and swelled against her, when I
found him one Evening with his Arms on the Table, and his Head on his
Arms, and saw, when he looked up, that he had been crying. He rose, and
looked out of Window, and said, “Has it done raining yet? I think I have
been asleep!” But I knew he had not.
All his Money now went in fine Clothes for himself, and Presents for
her; so that if he needed a little Purse against his Marriage Day, he
was not going the Way to fill it.
There was great Talk among the young People, about this Time, of an
Excursion up the River, to eat Buns and drink Whey at _Chelsea_. I was
invited to join them, but declined, on account of my Mother: but _Mark_
was to go, and could think of Nothing else. I washed and starched his
Collar and Bands myself, and sewed a new Lace on his Hat. He wore a
plain silver-grey Cloth Suit, which was sober, but very becoming, for he
never affected strong Contrasts, like my Father. Knowing he was fond of
a Flower in his Button-hole, but was pressed for Time to get one, I gave
a little Girl a Penny to run down to the Market for the best Moss-rose
she could buy, and gave it him myself. He thanked me most pleasantly for
it, and looked so comely and cheerful, that when he went forth, I could
not help standing just behind the Window-blind, to look after him, and
to see the gay Party set out from Master _Armytage’s_. First, a Boy was
sent forward, with a great Basket full of Veal-pies and other Dainties;
then came out Master _Armytage_, with Mistress _Glossop_, who had
condescended to join the Party, and wore a peach-blossom Silk, with
pea-green Ribbons. Then Mistress _Armytage_, with a little Basket
covered up, no Doubt containing Something very precious; and _Hugh
Braidfoot_ by himself, with his Hands in his Pockets, as if he expected
to be asked to carry it, and did not mean to offer, walking a little in
Advance of her; then _Violet_, looking sweet! between _Mark_ and Master
_Clarke_—(I know she liked having two better than one, whatever might be
her Value for either;) and then _Kitty_, who by Rights should have had
one or other of them, slowly following with Master and Mistress
_Benskin_. I observed her to be a very little lame, but Nothing to speak
of.
[Illustration]
Well! the Day was fine, the Water looked lovely, there was Nothing to
prevent their having a most charming Party of Pleasure, unless it were
their own Fault. I thought of them many Times, as I sat quietly weaving
Hair at my Mother’s Bedside; and fancied them floating on the River,
landing under tall Trees, rambling among Meadows, sitting on the Grass,
eating and drinking in the Shade, and scattering in small Parties. I
fancied what I should do and feel if I were _Violet_, and how _Mark_
would comport himself, and what he would say: but, when I looked on my
Mother’s pain-worn Face, I did not wish to change Places.
They did not come Home till very late; much too late. I had persuaded my
Father to go to Bed, and let me sit up for _Mark_, for Fear of
disturbing my Mother. He said _Dolly_ might as well sit up too; however,
she proved heavy to sleep, so I sent her to Bed.
[Illustration:
And looked on the Bridge
]
Then I sat at my Window, which was over Master _Blower’s_ Sitting-room,
and looked out on the _Bridge_. The Harvest-moon, brightly shining, made
our Side of the Way as light as Day, but Master _Armytage’s_ Side was in
deep Shade. I heard _St. Magnus’s_ Clock, and _St. Paul’s_, and _St.
Mary Overy’s_, strike Eleven. Then I saw some dark Figures coming along
in the Shade, and stop at Master _Armytage’s_ Door, and knock up the
Maid, who, after long Delay, came sleepily to the Door with a Candle.
Then the others, who had been talking, but not much, like People who
were very tired after too long a Day’s Pleasure, said “Good-night;” and
I saw _Hugh Braidfoot_ shake Hands with the Girl on his Arm, and step
across to his own Door in the broad Moonshine. Master and Mistress
_Benskin_ had gone Home before, and let themselves in with the
House-key. I counted those that entered Master _Armytage’s_, and only
made out his own Family. _Mark_ had doubtless seen Mistress _Glossop_ to
her own Door, as was right and fitting. For him, then, I must expect to
wait a good While longer: and I _did_ wait a good While; till all the
Clocks struck Twelve. Just as they had done striking, I heard and knew
his Step, and opened the Door without his knocking.
“Have you had a pleasant Day?” said I.
I looked at him as I spoke, and shall never forget his Face!
—“Good-night,” said he shortly; “we’ll talk it over to-morrow,”—
And impatiently took from my Hands his Candle, which I was trying to
light for him at mine. But it had been snuffed too short, and would not
light as readily as he wished; which made him curse it in a low, deep
Voice. I had never heard him swear before.
“_Mark_,” said I, looking anxiously at him, “you are ill.”
“No, I’m not,” said he abruptly; “Good-night. Thank you for sitting up
for me.”
“I’m not at all tired,” said I, “and there’s some Supper for you in the
Kitchen. Let us go there, and have a little Chat over the Pleasures of
the Day—you don’t look sleepy.”
From white he turned to deep red.
“The Day has not been so pleasant as you suppose,” said he huskily; “you
have been better and happier at your Mother’s Bedside. I wish there were
more such as you in the World. Good-night, dear, good _Cherry_!”
—And sprang up Stairs without another Word, taking two Steps at a Time.
I went to Bed, but not to sleep; I could not get his strange Look and
Manner out of my Head.
The next Morning, at Breakfast-time, _Mark_ did not appear. _Dolly_ said
he had gone out early. My Father was angry, and sent across the Way for
him, knowing he was but too often at Master _Armytage’s_. But _Dolly_
brought back Word they had seen Nothing of him. Then we concluded he had
gone for an early Walk, as was often his Custom, and had outstayed his
Time. However, we breakfasted without him at length, and still he did
not come back.
“Confound that Boy,” said my patient Father at last—(thus, the Fault of
one Party provoked the Sin of another,)—“it’s plaguy tiresome of him to
be playing Truant this Morning, of all Days in the Year, for I have
pressing Business in _Eastcheap_.”
“Leave me in Charge of the Shop, _Father_,” said I,—“my Mother’s Cough
is quiet, now she is dozing; and I shall hear her Bell.”
“Well, I suppose I must,” said he very reluctantly; “but I shall trounce
Master _Mark_ well for his Conduct when I see him next, he may rely upon
it!”
So he left me in Charge; and my loved Mother being in a Kind of
lethargic Slumber, which often lasted many Hours, I left the Doors open
between us, and sat in the Shop. As Fate would have it, not a single
Customer looked in the whole Time my Father was away; which was lucky,
though we did not feel very thankful, in usual, for this Falling-off in
Business. Before he returned, _Mark_ came in, and beckoned me into the
Parlour.
“What is the Matter?” said I, with a violently beating Heart.
“I’ve done it!” said he breathlessly.
“Done what?” said I.
“Married!” said he: and hid his Face in his Hands.
“Dear _Mark_, how imprudent!” I exclaimed affectionately; “what _will_
the _Armytages_ say?”
“What will they, _indeed_!” repeated he, “_Violet_ especially! She drove
me to it!”
“_Violet?_ _Drove_ you to marry her?” I cried.—It sounded so strange!
“Oh, _Cherry_! what _will_ you say? It makes me shudder to tell you!” he
rapidly said; “Nothing but that Girl’s incorrigible Coquetry could have
made me break with her as I did; and then Reproaches led to Taunts, and
Taunts to Threatenings, till bad led to worse, and she twitted me with
my Poverty, and I told her I could be a richer Man in twenty-four Hours
than her Father, and look down upon them all, and she dared me to it,
and said a better Man than me was waiting for her, and so—Temptation to
be revenged on her came in my Way, and—I’ve married Mistress _Glossop_!”
“Oh, _Mark_!”
—“Nay, _Cherry_, don’t give way so,” said he, beginning to shed Tears
himself when he saw me weeping bitterly,—“Love is not a Man’s whole
Life, and what I’ve tasted of it hasn’t made me very happy. I’ve stepped
into a famous Business, and I shall have a quiet Fireside, and a capital
Table, and kind Looks if not pretty ones, and—a done Thing can’t be
undone: so there’s an End on’t!”
Then, fancying he heard my Father’s Step, though ’twas only Master
_Blower’s_, he hastily exclaimed, “You must tell my Uncle—Good-bye,
_Cherry_!” and hurried out of the House.
When he was gone, I sat in a Kind of Stupor.... _Married?_ and to such a
Wife!—How _could_ he?—how could _she_? ... and this increased my
Amazement, for he had been beside himself with Anger and Jealousy, and
hardly knew what he was doing,—but that she, cool, collected, and at her
Time of Life, could have closed with his Proposals without the Delay of
a single Day!—how disgusting!—Ah, she was afraid of losing him!
—Immersed in these sad Thoughts, with my Hands clasped on my Lap, I was
unaware of my Father’s Return till he stood before me. I started.
“Has _Mark_ returned?” cried he.
“He came back, and is again gone,” said I.
“The young Rascal!” exclaimed my Father very passionately; “what does he
mean by this outrageous Conduct? I’ve a great Mind to lock the Door
against him when he comes back!”
“_Father_, he will never come back!—He is married! ... married to
Mistress _Glossop_.”
And, trying to speak composedly, all would not do; the Tears rained from
my Eyes.
My Father remained perfectly mute. I could understand his Amazement, his
Vexation, by my own; accompanied, as I knew it must be in his Case, by
great Anger. I expected every Moment to hear some violent Expression of
Indignation: he had been so unusually displeased with him already for
what was comparatively a Trifle.
All at once, I found myself folded in his Arms. He did not say a Word;
but the longer he held me, the more and more I felt that his Hopes for
me had been ruined as well as mine, that his Schemes and Visions of the
Future were all dispersed and overclouded, that he knew Something of
what was passing within me, and felt Sympathy without having the Power
of expressing it.
“Well,—” said he, releasing me at last,—and I saw that his Eyes were
wet,—“Man proposes, but GOD disposes. We’ve had an Escape from this
young Man. Ungrateful young Fellow! And blind to his own Interest, too,
for I could have done better for him, _Cherry_, than he knows of. But—he
deserves his Fate. A miserable one it will be! He’ll never prosper!”
“Oh, _Father!_ don’t prophesy against him! We need not wish him ill.”
“I don’t wish him ill,” returned he, “but he’ll come to no Good. He has
done for himself in this Marriage. And so, _Cherry_, you’ll see!”
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER V
_A Shadow on the House_
OH! how dreary now seemed the House! Its Light and its Life were gone. The
unseen Presence of Love no longer gladdened it, and the Shadow of Death
was slowly creeping on.
_Violet_ came to pour out her Wretchedness and her Self-reproaches to me
as soon as she heard what had happened. She declared she could never be
happy again—she could never cease thinking of him. I told her it would
be very wicked of her now, to think of him in the Way she meant, any
more. For saying which, I suppose she was offended at me; for she did
not come near me again for a good While.
I don’t suppose Tears are often shed over thick Slices of Bride-cake,
with Sugar and Almonds an Inch deep, such as _Violet_ and I received
(tied up with such vulgar white Satin Knots!) from Mistress _Glossop_,
now, alas! Mistress _Blenkinsop_. When I took it up to my Mother, she
turned away her Head, and said with her gentle Smile, “You may give my
Share to _Dolly_,—perhaps she will like it to dream upon.”
I said, “I don’t believe _Dolly_ will touch it;” however, there I was
mistaken. She said, “Law, Mistress _Cherry_, I’m sure Mistress is very
good.... I grudge the eating of it, too; for ’tis an unseemly Match, I
calls it; but, there,—one don’t get such Cake as this every Day!”
When I repeated this Saying to my Mother, she said, “She belongs to the
_Glossop_ School, _Cherry_, that _never can forbear_.”
Mistress _Blenkinsop_ would have been glad, I fancy, to show off her
young Husband on the _Bridge_; but she received no Encouragement; and as
for _Mark_, who had certainly intended to pique _Violet_, he was now as
wretched as herself, to judge from his Looks, as reported to us by one
or two who had seen Something of what was going on. Happy or unhappy, he
never came near us, on Business or Pleasure; and as my Father dropped
the Connexion, which was more to his Loss than Mistress _Blenkinsop’s_,
we now saw Nothing of one another. For I scarce went out at all; but now
and then Mistress _Benskin_ would let fall how she had met the
_Blenkinsops_ going to such and such a Place of Public Resort; he
looking ashamed and tired of his Companion; and she as fine as the
Rainbow. For she would not only see _Funamble Turk_, and pay her
Shilling to ride round _Hyde Park_, but intrude herself among the
Quality in _Mulberry Garden_, I warrant her!
About this Time Master _Armytage_ died. Thereby his Family sustained
great Loss, not only of a kind Husband and Father, but of worldly Goods;
for the Widow only got a Third of the Worth of the Business, and the
Son, who was married and not very friendly with her, choosing to live on
the Premises and carry on the Concern, she and her Daughters presently
went into an exceeding small House in the _Borough_, where they opened a
little Shop that did not answer very well. After a While, _Violet_,
unused to such scant Living, was glad to come back as Shopwoman to her
Brother, whose Wife had no Turn for Business; but it went sore against
her to be Second in the House where she had hitherto been always treated
like First; and also it was a Grievance to her to live among a Family of
young Children. These Trials fretted her till they impaired her Beauty,
making her grow peevish and thin.
Meantime, her younger Sister took Plain-work when she could get it; and
the _Benskins_ and _Hugh Braidfoot_ supplied her with what they could,
which she accepted gratefully; though, in her Father’s Life-time, it
would have quite affronted Mistress _Armytage_ that her Girls should set
a Stitch for either of them. But Times were altered now; she was unable
even to keep a Servant; and, one Day, when I looked in upon her, I
noticed so many little Symptoms of Poverty, that, on repeating them to
my Mother, she made me put up a Variety of little Presents for her, and
take them to her with her old Neighbour’s Love.
[Illustration]
When I reached her House, I found her on her Knees, scouring the
Door-step with such Zeal and Noise, that I could not at first make her
hear my Voice, or become sensible of my Presence. When she did, she did
not appear particularly glad to see me, but pulled her Pail out of my
Way, and said, “Oh!—You’ll find _Kitty_ within—_Kitty! Kitty!_”
And just within the Door, sure enough, was _Kitty_ standing with her
Back to me, before Master _Braidfoot_, who was seated, with a fringed
Glove in his Hand, and holding forth to her very earnestly. He had sent
her a Box of Gloves to fringe, and I suppose she had not trimmed them to
his Mind, for she was hanging her Head, and looking very uncomfortable.
As soon as he saw me, he brought his Discourse to a Finish by saying,
“Of which, more anon;” and nodding a Good-bye to me, stepped over
Mistress _Armytage’s_ Pail, and walked off. Mistress _Armytage_ now came
in, taking off her Apron in a great Bustle; and seemingly much more glad
to see me than she had been just before. And she received my Mother’s
Presents in mighty good Part, especially the Brandy-cherries, which had
been put in quite as an After-thought, saying they would make a pretty
little Dish for Supper. I thought she and _Kitty_ had been more in the
Way of Bread-and-Cheese Suppers now, but made no Comment. Some People
would as soon die as not try to be thought genteel.
When I had nearly reached Home, I saw _Mark_ coming along the Bridge, in
a hesitating, reluctant Sort of Way. When he saw me, he stepped out more
briskly, and came up, holding out his Hand.
“_Cherry_,” said he, lowering his Voice, “my old Lady and I had almost a
Tiff this Morning, because she wanted you and my Uncle to come and eat
some of the first green Peas of the Season with us, and I told her I did
not think you would. But, will you?”
“Thank you kindly,” said I, “but my Mother is so ill, we have no Heart
to go anywhere now.”
“I knew it was so,” said he, looking relieved; “but you will not think
me unfeeling, I hope, for putting the Question?”
“Oh no, I think it very kind of you,” said I; “I take it as I know it
was meant. Won’t you come in? We have seen nothing of you for a long
Time.”
“Thank you, not just now,” said he; “good-bye.” And walked off as if he
were in a great Hurry.
When I returned to my dear Mother, she said, “_Cherry_, I’m sure you
will be amused when I tell you what I have been dreaming about,—I
dreamed you were married!”
I said, “Dear Mother, if you take to dreaming, and my Father to
presaging, there’ll be Nothing left to be surprised about!”
“Ah, well,” said she, gently smiling, “but this was a very pretty,
pleasant Dream—You were married to a Person a good Deal older than
yourself, but very much to your own Mind, notwithstanding, and were
living like a Lady, with Everything genteel and comfortable about you.”
I smiled to cover a Sigh; and kissing her thin Hand, said, “May you
live, dear Mother, to see it.”
“No,” said she, “I know I shall not do that—my Time is growing very
short now; but yet I shall leave you in Peace, _Cherry_,—I am so certain
of your doing well. I don’t mean because of this foolish Dream.”
“As for doing well,” said I, “GOD’S Blessing generally rests on the
Child of many Prayers, ... but if by doing well, you mean marrying well,
do you think that is the only Way I can be happy?”
“No,” said she, after a Pause, “I do not. I think there is no other
Happiness equal to it, where the Parties are well assorted, and are good
to the Core; but much depends upon each other, and much upon themselves;
so much, that it had often been better for them they had never met.”
“And as so few _are_ good to the Core,” said I, “perhaps the Balance of
Happiness may not lie on the Side you think.”
“Perhaps not,” said she, “but every one hopes to be the
Exception.—However,” she added, after another Pause, “these Things are
not of our ordering; and whatever be the happier Lot, it is certain we
cannot secure it unless it be appointed us, whether for ourselves or for
those we dearly love. It may be GOD’S Will that you shall be _Cherry
Curling_ all your Days, in Spite of my Dream, and in Spite of your being
fitted for Happiness in another State; but that it is His Purpose to
make you happy _in yourself_, whatever you are, I feel as sure of as
that I see you now.”
When I told her what Satisfaction the Brandy-cherries had given, she
smiled quietly, and said, “The same Woman, still!—You shall take her
some potted Salmon to-morrow.”
I did so; but did not, this Time, find the Widow cleaning her Door-step.
She had gone to Market; the Shop was empty, and I walked through it into
the little Parlour beyond. Here I again came upon _Kitty_ and _Hugh
Braidfoot_: she was sitting this Time, and he standing, and, the Moment
she saw me, she snatched away her Hand from him, which he was holding,
and ran up Stairs. I felt very awkward, and was retreating without a
Word; but he, turning about upon me with a Sort of homely, manly
Dignity, a Mixture of Placid and Resolute in his Manner that I never saw
before, and which became him very well, held out his Hand to me, and
said, “You see, _Cherry_, how it is to be. There’ll soon be a Wedding in
this House. The old Lady has meant there should be, all along; but what
though? Shall a Man that knows his own Mind be stayed from it for Fear
of playing into a managing Woman’s Hands? Had the Widow been less eager,
the Thing might have been sooner brought about; however, you and I have
known her longer than Yesterday—she’s _Kitty’s_ Mother; and enough’s
said!”
I wished him Joy, and said I thought he and _Kitty_ would be very happy
together. Then, setting down my Mother’s little Gift on the Table, I
turned to go away. “What’s that?” said he. “Only a little potted Salmon
for Mistress _Armytage_,” said I. “I’ll call _Kitty_ down,” said he; and
going to the Stair-foot, he called “_Kitty! Kitty!_” but she did not
answer; and giving me a knowing Smile, he said, “I don’t think she’ll
come down while we are both here.”—“I’m going,” said I; “but here comes
Mistress _Armytage_ from Market.” “Oh, then, I’m going too!” cried he,
laughing and catching up his Hat. “I’ve no Mind to break the News to the
Widow, so come your Ways, _Cherry_, we’ll walk to the _Bridge_ together;
don’t look behind you.”... “’Tis Pity o’ my Life,” continued he,
smiling, when we had walked a little Way together, “that respect her I
cannot; for you see, _Cherry_, a Man can never respect a Woman whom he
sees trying to draw him in! He may walk into her Trap with his Eyes
open, and let her save him some Trouble, but respect her or trust her,
is out of his Power. First, she wanted to have me for _Violet_: that
would not do—then, _Kitty_ was kept out of Sight till she found I would
not have the other; but as soon as she found I liked the youngest Sister
best, poor _Violet_ was put in the Shade, and _Kitty’s_ Turn came. ’Tis
ill to speak this Way of one’s Mother-in-Law elect; I hope she’ll breed
no Trouble between us when she’s Mother-in-Law in earnest; I should like
to pension the old Gentlewoman off, but that can’t well be; so we must
let her have the Run of the House, and try to make her comfortable as
long as she lets us be so.”
Then, turning to a more agreeable Subject, he sang _Kitty’s_ Praises;
and, reaching his own Door, hoped she and I should be good Neighbours.
“Your Father and you must come to the Wedding-dinner,” said he; “we may
not have as many good Things as the _Blenkinsops_ had, but I fancy
’twill be a cheerfuller Dinner.”
When I told my Mother the News, she took it very composedly, but I
observed her Eyelids give one little, involuntary Movement, that
betrayed more Surprise than she was willing to show. “Ah, my dear
Mother,” thought I, “another of your little Castles in the Air for me
has been thrown down, I fear. This was, no Doubt, the Hero of the Dream,
who was to make me so comfortable! What a lucky Thing that I care not a
Rush for him!” However, we never said a Word to one another on the
Subject.
So the Wedding took place, and my Father and I were at the Dinner, which
consisted of every Nicety that Money could procure; for Mistress
_Armytage_ said that _Hugh Braidfoot_ should have all his favourite
Dishes, and she took Care to have her own, whether they corresponded or
not. So there was roast Pig and pickled Salmon, Calf’s Head and green
Goose, Lobster Salad and Marrow-bones, and more Sweets than I ever saw
out of a Pastry-cook’s Shop. As some Things were in Season and others
were not, the latter, though sweet in the Mouth, were bitter in
Digestion; I mean, to Master _Braidfoot_ when he came to pay the Bills.
And then Mistress _Armytage_, ashamed of having exceeded becoming
Limits, went about to several of the Tradesmen, who were _Hugh
Braidfoot’s_ personal Friends, and who already were displeased enough at
not having been invited to the Feast; and she incensed them the more by
trying to get them to lower their Bills, which they thought and called
excessive mean. Thereby, Mistress _Armytage_ got into bad Odour, and
_Kitty_ came in for her Share, and shed her first Tears after Marriage
upon it, which I wish had been her last. However, Master _Braidfoot_
laughed the Matter off, in a jovial, careless Sort of a Way; and went
round himself and paid every one in full, and made Friends with them
with a few merry Sayings; so Peace was restored, that Time.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VI
_Metanoia_
WHEN I see what a little Way the Solemnisation of Matrimony in the Common
Prayer Book lies from the Burial-service for the Dead, (only separated
by the Order for the Visitation of the Sick,) it makes me think how
sometimes in actual Life Marriages and Funerals seem to tread upon the
Heels of one another. Scarce were the Bills for Master _Braidfoot’s_
Wedding-dinner paid, when my dear Mother, who had been fast but gently
sinking, departed this Life without a Sigh. I had left her much as usual
the Night before; but in the Morning was aware of a grey Shadow over her
Face, unlike Anything I had yet seen, and impossible to describe, that
made me sensible of the Presence of Death. My Father supported her in
his Arms, Master _Blower_ prayed aloud beside her, I bathed her Face
with Vinegar, and _Dolly_ ran for the Doctor; but just as he crossed our
Threshold, she gently breathed her last.
How empty the House seemed! For, though a Person may take no active Part
in its Business, yet a Sense of their _Nearness_ is accompanied by a
constant Feeling of Companionship, such as I think we might feel with
regard to our HEAVENLY FATHER if we would look into the Fact of His
being constantly about us a little more narrowly. Excellent Master
_Blower_ was a Tower of Strength to us under this Bereavement; knowing
how to comfort a Man better than I could, and possessed of more Calmness
and Composedness than I could be expected to have, though he said his
Heart bled for us all the while. But he set before us the Blessedness of
my Mother in her glorified State so strongly, that it was impossible not
to feel that our Loss was her Gain.
While the House was yet darkened, I heard a hushed Voice that had become
strange to my Ears of late, saying to my Father in the next Room, “I am
sure, Uncle, if you would look upon it as a Mark of Respect.” ... And my
Father, in Tears, made Answer to him, “I should, _Mark_, I should! I
shall be glad for you to accompany us to the Grave; for, indeed, my Boy,
she was very kindly affectioned towards you.”
And then cried again; and, I think, _Mark_ cried too. It was Balm to my
Heart to think he was going to the Funeral. An ill-advised Deed had in
the first Instance banished him from us, and, in Time, he had not only
become reconciled to his Banishment, but, from what I made out of the
Report of others, had learnt to rejoice in it. The first Signal of a
better Frame was his _returning_ to us, which cost him an Effort, and
then _repaid itself_. Master _Blower_ called it _Metanoia_, whatever
that meant.
_Violet_ was very kind to me. All her old Affection for me now returned;
and she would bring her Work and sit with me for Hours. Also the
_Benskins_ and _Braidfoots_ were kind in their Way, though after a
homely Fashion. But one that better understood comforting was nearer at
Hand. One Evening, I heard Master _Blower_, as he met my Father on the
Stairs, say, “Why, old Friend, we have lived many a Year under the same
Roof, and have never broken Bread together yet! Bring _Cherry_ with you,
and sup with me to-night!”
My disconsolate Father, being taken by Surprise, had no Power to refuse
the Honour; _Dolly_ was sent for a Crab, and we spent a very peaceful
and pleasant Evening together, not ended without Prayer. As we left, the
kind Man said, “Well, Friend, since you won’t ask me, I’ll ask myself to
sup to-morrow Night with _you_.” And so he did; and many a rich and
learned Man might have envied us the discreet and pleasant Guest that
honoured our poor Table. From that Time, we thus spent two Evenings
together every Week.
By this Time my Friend _Kitty_ had taken upon her all the Importance of
a well-to-do Tradesman’s Wife, which fitted her as well as one of her
Husband’s best Pair of Gloves. Instead of Stuff and Dimity, flowered
Chintz and even Silk was now the Wear! looped well up, too, to shew the
grass-green quilted Petticoat and clocked Stockings. Nothing, Master
_Braidfoot_ thought, was too good for her. And instead of its being
“good Husband,” “honoured Master _Braidfoot_,” so bashfully spoken, as
at first, now it was “dear _Hugh_,” “sweet _Hugh_,” or “_Hugh_” by
itself alone. And happy, without a Cloud, would the Lives of this worthy
Couple have been but for the Hinderances of Mistress _Armytage_. Now it
was her Parsimony in Something her Son-in-Law could well afford and
desired to have; now her Expensiveness in Something for which she dared
not give him the Bill; and then he would find it out, and rate her, half
in Sport, and then she would take Offence in right Earnest. Then _Kitty_
would cry, and then her Mother would say she knew she was only in the
Way, and would go off for a While to her old Quarters. When she got
there, her Tongue lay not still, like a good House-dog in its Kennel,
but must needs yap, yap, like a little Terrier, that flies at every
Comer; and, to every Neighbour along the _Borough_ it was, “Oh, you know
not what a _Turk_...!”—“My poor, poor Daughter!”—“Temper of an
Angel!”—“Will wear her out at last!”—“Never know a Man before he’s
married!”—“Peace and Poverty for my Money” ... and such-like.
Meanwhile, _Hugh_ and _Kitty_ were as merry as Crickets in their own
Chimney-corner, little guessing or caring what an ill Report of their
Fireside was spreading all along _Southwark_: and if _Hugh_ met e’er a
Neighbour’s Wife that gave him a dark Look, as much as to say, “Ah! for
all your blythe Face, I know what I know!” all he did was to cry,
“Neighbour, how do you do?” in a jovial Voice that rang along the
Street. Thus the Husband and Wife would go on, mighty comfortable by
themselves, till some favourite Dish, perhaps, of Mistress _Armytage’s_
would be set on Table, and _Kitty_, with a Tear in her Eye, would say,
“Poor, dear Mother is so fond of a roast Pig.” “Set it down before the
Fire again, then,” says _Hugh_, “while I run and fetch the old
Gentlewoman.... I’ll be back in five Minutes.”—And, in about a Quarter
of an Hour, sure enough, he would return with the Widow on his Arm, and
there would be a little kissing and crying, and then all would sit down
in high Good-humour with one another, and Things would go on quietly
till _Hugh_ and his Mother-in-Law quarrelled again.
About this Time, dear, good Master _Blower_, who had hitherto led a
removed Life among us, hidden and yet known, ministering and being
ministered unto by many of his old Flock on the Sly, did by some
Indiscretion or Misadventure provoke the Notice of the Powers then
riding paramount, and, coming Home to us in great Perturbation one Day,
told us he must at once take Ship to _Holland_ in a Vessel going down
the River the next Morning. This was greatly to the Sorrow of my Father
and myself; and some Tears of mine fell on his little Packet of clean
Linen as I made it up for him; and I thought it no Wrong to slip into
the easy Slippers I knew he would not fail to take out at the Journey’s
End, a little Purse with seven Gold _Caroluses_ in it, that I had long
been hoarding for some good Use. The Wind was light, but yet fair: there
was a Remedy against Sea-sickness in my Father’s Shop-window that I had
not much Faith in, it had lain so long in the Sun, even supposing there
ever were any Virtue in it; however, I thought there could be no Harm in
just sewing it in the Lining of his Coat, according to the Directions
printed ... at least, so I thought at the Time, but afterwards I
observed I had made a Mistake, but it did no Harm, if no Good. And
Father gave him a Bottle of _Cognac_ Brandy, which really _had_ some
Virtue in it, so we did for him what we could, one Way or another. And
he packed up what few Papers he could carry, and burned others, and
locked up the rest, leaving them and his Books in my Charge, with his
Blessing. And so the good Man went.
[Illustration]
Often afterwards, when I was setting his Rooms in Order, and dusting his
Books, I would stand, with my Duster in my Hand, looking at the Table at
which he used to write, and the old Arm-chair in which he used to sit,
and fall into a Kind of Muse, till I almost seemed to see his large,
quiet, brown Eyes, that were set so far under the Shadow of his Brows,
and seemed lighted up, somehow, from within, looking up at me, and his
pleasant Face smiling at me, (he had a very sweet Smile, had Master
_Blower_,) and his pleasant Voice saying, “Well, _Cherry_, is it
Eating-time again, already?”
Now and then I would open one or other of his Books, and, if I chanced
upon Anything I understood and that interested me, would stand reading
on and on, till I was startled by hearing my Father call for me. At
length, he knew where to look for me; and took to laughing at me for
taking such a Turn for Study; but one Day he fell to reading one of
Master _Blower’s_ Books himself, and liked it so well, that, we being
but quiet Companions for one another, now there was so little to say, we
spent many an Hour, sitting over-against each other, each with our Book.
One Day, as I sat sewing in the Parlour, and my Father was cutting a
Man’s Hair, I heard his Customer say, “My _Lord Protector’s_ very ill,
and like to die.”
“Don’t believe it,” said my Father; “_he’ll_ never die in his Bed.”
Which, for once, was a Presage that did not come true.
“Well, he seems to think so too,” said the other; “at all Events he’s
having Thanks put up for his Recovery, while yet he’s as bad as can be;
which looks premature.”
“That’s the Faith of _Assurance_, I call it,” said my Father dryly.
“Well, now, what may be the Matter with his Grace?—a Pain in his Heart,
or his Head, or what?”
“A tertian Fever, they say,” returned his Companion; “you know his
favourite Daughter died scarce a Month back, and, in her last Moments,
she told him many a Thing that no one had had Courage to tell him
before, and expostulated with him on his Ways, and charged him with
slaying the LORD’S Anointed; which, ’tis thought, he took so much to
Heart as that his troubled Mind invited if it did not occasion this
Illness.”
“Well,” said my Father, “I’d rather be the dead King than the dying
Protector. What has become now of all his Trust in the LORD, and inward
Assurance? Does the Grandeur he has earned with so much Guilt, smooth
his sick Pillow? Is the death he so boldly confronted on the Battlefield
quite so easy to face, now he lies quiet and watchful all Night, with
his Silk Curtains drawn about him? Does he feel as secure of being one
of the Elect, unable to fall into final Reprobation, as when he was
fighting his Way up to a dead Man’s Chair? Ah, Sir, we may ask one
another these Questions, but our own Hearts must give their only
Answer.”
In Fact, _Oliver Cromwell_ presently breathed his last, amidst a Tempest
of Wind and Rain, that seemed a Type of his own tempestuous Character.
And in his Place was set up one that did not fill it: his quiet and
peaceable Son, _Richard_, who had gone on his Knees to his Father to
pray that the _King’s_ Head might not be cut off. He was gentle,
generous, and humane; but those were no Recommendations in the Eyes of
the Army or Parliament, so he was presently set aside. Whereon ensued
such Squabblings and Heart-burnings, I was glad I was not a Man.
One Day, _Mark_ came in, all flushed and eager, looking like his old
self; and “Uncle!” says he, “there’s a brave Time coming again for
Hairdressers! It’s my Fancy, Wigs will presently be in, (for Cavalier
Curls won’t grow in a Night!) and then you’ll have a Market for that Lot
of Hair that you and I put so carefully aside.”
“How so, _Mark_?” says my Father.
“Why,” says _Mark_, “_honest George Monk_, as the Soldiers call him, is
marching up to _London_, and you have always said he was a Royalist in
his Heart.”
“Heaven defend us from Siege and civil War,” says Father; “we’ve had too
much of them already. Better one Master than many, even such a Master as
old _Noll_; and if General _Monk_ is coming up to seat himself in his
Place, ’twill be better for us than these City Tumults, wherein a Parcel
of young ’Prentices that deserve a good Threshing, get together and
clamour for Things they know not, till grown Men are forced to put them
down with a strong Hand. _Where there’s Order, there’s Liberty_; and
Nowhere else.”
_Mark’s_ News proved true; the disaffected Regiments were sent out of
_London_, and General _Monk_ with his Army entered _Westminster_. He was
a right-judging as well as right-meaning Man, on the whole, to my Mind,
prudent and moderate, though he sided first with one Party, then with
the other, then back to the first again. One of the evil Consequences of
our evil Times was, so many conscientious Men were set down for
obstinate and pig-headed, or else Turn-coats. My Father, to represent
the Humour of the Time, had removed the obnoxious Cavalier and Puritan
from his Window, and set up in their stead a Head that united half of
both, which, revolving slowly when he pulled a String, shewed now one
Side, now the other, and, as he observed, never looked so bad as when
you saw a little of both. But as soon as _Monk_, throwing off his late
Shew of Moderation, marched into the City, removed the Posts and Chains
across the Streets, seized on obnoxious Persons, and broke down our
Gates and Portcullises, my Father became sure that a great Change was at
Hand, and the _King_ would enjoy his own again. Whereon, he commenced
beautifying and renewing the waxen Cavalier, which had got a little
fly-spitten, and privately smuggled into the House a most beautiful
female Counterpart for it, extremely like _Queen Henrietta Maria_, whom
I immediately set about dressing in the favourite Style of her Majesty,
that is to say, in a rich velvet Boddice, with a falling Collar of
Cutwork, Vandyked at the Edge, relieved by a blue Breast-knot. My Father
dressed her Hair in long, drooping, dark Curls, with a few pearl Pins;
and, abiding the right Time with Calmness and Confidence, shut up the
comely Pair in a dark Closet till the happy Moment for their bursting
upon the World should arrive.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VII
_Signs in the Air_
AND now the glorious Restoration at length arrived, and ’tis incredible what
a Spur it was to Trade, and how the Mercers and Drapers could hardly
supply their Customers fast enough with expensive Goods; and how the
Tailors and Sempstresses worked all Night, and Hairdressers sold their
Ellwigs, and Hatters their Hats, and Horse-dealers their Horses good and
bad. For every one was for pouring out of _London_, across our Bridge,
at least as far as _Blackheath_. Oh! what a busy, what a joyous Sight it
was! All the Streets from the _Bridge_ to _Whitehall_ were hung with
Tapestry, and the Windows filled with Ladies. The _Lord Mayor’s_ Cooks
set up a gay Tent in _St. George’s_ Fields, to prepare a Refection for
his Majesty. The Livery Companies in their various rich Dresses of
Crimson, Violet, Purple, and Scarlet, lined the Streets on one Side, and
the Trained Bands on the other: Bursts of gay Music were intermingled
with Cheers and Laughter; Everybody seemed in tip-top Spirits that the
_King_ was coming. We let our Windows for a good Premium to some of the
Grandees; but had a good View ourselves of what was going on, from the
Leads—now there would come along a Troop of two or three Hundred or
more, in Cloth of Silver Doublets; then four or five Times as many in
Velvet Coats, with Attendants in Purple; then another Party in Buff
Coats with Cloth of Silver Sleeves and green Scarfs, others in pale Blue
and Silver, others in Scarlet: by and by, six Hundred of the Livery on
Horseback, in black Velvet with Gold Chains, then the Trumpeters, Waits,
City Officers, Sheriffs, and _Lord Mayor_ ... in short, there was no End
to the Splendour and Glory of that Day; for we had hardly rested
ourselves after seeing them all go forth, when they began to come back,
with the _King_ in the midst. Oh! what Shouts! what Cheers! what Bursts
of Music! And he, bowing this Side and that, so smiling and gracious!
“It seemed,” he said, “as if it must have been his own Fault he came not
sooner back, Everyone appeared so glad to see him!”
[Illustration]
But the Ladies’ Dresses!—Oh, how grieved I was!—Sure, they were resolved
to make up for the Dulness and Decorum they had been restricted to
during the Protectorate; for, indeed, they seemed to think Decorum and
Dulness went together, and should now be thrown overboard in Company.
The _Henrietta Maria_ Dress I had so complacently made up for our Wax
Doll, was now twenty Years behind the Fashion! fit only to laugh at!—and
what had taken its Place, I thought fit only to blush at.
For a Moment, when the Party that had hired our first-floor Window had
thrown off their Clokes, I felt a dreadful Presentiment that their
Characters could not be over-good; or else, thought I, they never could
dress in such a Manner. Only, knowing who they were, I thought again,
_that_ can never be—dear Heart! what can they be thinking of? we shall
have Stones and Mud thrown up at the Window. “Sure, Madam,” said I to
the youngest and prettiest, “you will catch Cold at the open Window ...
the Wind blows in very fresh from the River—will you just have this
Scarf a little over your Shoulders?” “No, thank you,” says she, shaking
back quite a Bush of fair Hair, and looking up at me with her Eyes half
shut, as if she were sleepy already. “Forsooth,” thought I, “those Curls
are equal to a Fur Tippet”—And, looking across at our Neighbours’
Windows, I saw we need not fear pelting, for that all the other Ladies
were dressed just the same. Then thought I, Oh, this is the
_Restoration_, is it? If you, fair Ladies, provoke ill Thoughts of you,
you must not feel aggrieved if People think not of you very well.
I disliked this Symptom of the Restoration from the very first—not that
it had, naturally, any Connexion with it.—The _King_ had lived long
abroad, had become fond of foreign Fashions; but were the modest Ladies
of _England_, therefore, to give in to them? Then, what the upper
Classes affect, the lower Classes soon ape: I knew we should presently
have Mistress _Blenkinsop_ and _Violet_ trying which could wear the
longest Curls and shortest Petticoats, and look the most languishing.
The only Difference would be, that the one would become the Fashion, and
the other make it ridiculous. Perhaps, thought I, I am growing prudish
and old-maidish, I am Eight and Twenty; but so is _Violet_.
I have often thought, that if the Ladies of _England_ had at this Time
been what they ought, a good Deal of Folly and Sin that presently
stained this Reign would never have happened. What! could the merry
Glance and free Word of a light young Monarch break down Barriers that
were not tottering already? What had Mothers and Teachers been about?
Where were the Lady _Fanshawes_ and _Lucy Hutchinsons_? There must have
been Something wrong in the Bringing-up—I can never believe all these
fair young Ladies were so good one Day and so bad the next.
But the joyfullest Event, to ourselves, on that glorious Twenty-ninth of
_May_, was the Restoration to his Country and Home of our excellent
Friend and Lodger, Master _Blower_. He seemed to be rejuvenized by the
general Spirit of Hilariousness; for I protest it seemed as though ten
Years were taken off his Shoulders. And he talked of being soon replaced
in his Curacy; but, instead of that, his Friends presently got him a
Living in the City, which took him away from us, as there was a
Parsonage House. But we went to his Church on _Sundays_; and, as he was
not one of those who forget old Friends or humble ones, he would make my
Father and me sup with him about once a Quarter, and come to us of his
own Accord about as often, and talk over the Times, which in some
Respects, as far as Sabbath-keeping and general Morality went, we could
not say were bettered.
And now a shocking Sight was to be seen at the _Bridge_ Gate,—the Heads,
namely, of those Traitors who brought about the Death of the late King,
and who richly deserved their bad End. There they have remained for many
a Year, a Terror to all Evil-doers.
[Illustration:
And now a shocking sight was to be seen at the Bridge Gate
]
It was in the Spring following the Restoration, in the Month of _March_,
that we and the _Braidfoots_ were taking our Supper together on the
Leads, the Weather being very warm for the Season, when our Attention
was attracted by the uncommon Appearance of the Clouds, which, as will
often be the Case after much Rain, were exceeding gorgeous and
grotesque. Master _Braidfoot_ was the first of us who noticed them, and
cried, “See, see, Neighbours! Cannot you now credit how Lovers of the
Marvellous have oft-times set Tales afloat of Armies seen fighting in
the Air? Do not those two Battalions of Clouds, impelled by opposite
Currents, look like two great Armies with Spears and Banners, about to
encounter each other? Now they meet, now they fall together, now one
vanishes away! Now, they both are gone!”
“And see, dear _Hugh_,” cries _Kitty_, “there’s another that looks like
a Cathedral; and another like an exceeding big Mountain, with a Rent in
its Side; and out of the Rent comes Something that looks like a
Crocodile, with its Jaws wide open; no! now it is liker to a Bull, or
rather to a Lion.”
“Very like a Whale!” said a Man, as if to himself, on the Top of the
next House. It was Master _Benskin’s_ Lodger, who wrote for the
Booksellers.
_Kitty_ started, and lowered her Voice; for we were not on speaking
Terms with him; however, she squeezed my Arm and said softly, “It really
_is_ becoming Something like a Whale now, though!” On which, Master
_Braidfoot_ burst into one of his ringing Laughs, and cried, “Why,
_Kitty_, you give it as many Faces as the Moon! What will you fancy it
next?”
“I wonder what it means,” says she, very gravely.
“Means?” said her Husband, still laughing; “why, it means we shall have
some more wet Weather. So we’ll put off our Pleasure Party. See what a
red Flame the setting Sun casts all along the City!”
About a Week after this, our Neighbour, Master _Benskin_, gave my Father
a little Pamphlet of four Leaves, writ by his Lodger; the Title of which
was truly tremendous. It was this,—
“_Strange News from the West! being a true and perfect Account
of several Miraculous Sights seen in the Air westward, on
Thursday last, by divers Persons of Credit, standing on London
Bridge between Seven and Eight of the Clock. Two great Armies
marching forth of two Clouds, and encountering each other; but,
after a sharp Dispute, they suddenly vanished. Also, some
remarkable Sights that were seen to issue forth of a Cloud that
seemed like a Mountain, in the Shapes of a Bull, a Bear, a Lyon,
and an Elephant with a Castle on his Back; and the Manner how
they all vanished._”
“Well,” said my Father, turning the Leaf, “is it dedicated to Mistress
_Braidfoot_? Here seems to be much Ado about Nothing, I think.”
“Nothing or Something,” said Master _Benskin_, laughing, and jingling
his Pockets, “it has enabled my Lodger to pay up seven Weeks’ Arrears;
so it’s an ill Wind that blows Nobody any Good. The Trifle has had a
Run, Sir!”
“So this is the Way Books are made, and Stories are vamped up,” said my
Father. “Truly, it makes one serious.”
But, a little Time after, a Rumour was repeated in the Shop that did
indeed make one serious, to wit, that the Plague was in _Holland_, and
would very likely come across to us. However, though the following Year
it did indeed rage very badly in _Amsterdam_ and _Rotterdam_, yet it
crossed not the Water for another twelve Months or more; and as we had
no such Things as printed Newspapers in those Days, such as I have lived
to see since, Reports did not instantly spread over the whole Nation as
they do now.
Howbeit, at the latter End of _November_, 1664, there really were two
Cases of Plague in _Long Acre_, which frightened People a good deal. A
third Man afterwards died of the same Distemper in the same House, which
kept alive our Uneasiness; but after that, nothing was heard of it for
six Weeks or more, when it broke out beyond Concealment.
At this Time, Master _Benskin’s_ Shop-window was full of small Books
with awakening Titles, such as “_Britain’s_ Remembrancer,”—“Come out of
her, my People,”—“Give Ear, ye careless Daughters,” and such-like, many
of them emanating from the Pen of his Lodger in the Attick; and with
these and _Lilly’s_ Almanacks, he drove a thriving Trade.
_Violet_ was sitting with me one Morning, when _Mark_ suddenly entered,
and seeing her with me, lost his Presence of Mind directly, and forgot
what he had to say. She on her Part, being just then in Mourning for one
of her Brother’s Children, for whom I am bold to say she had scarce shed
a Tear, (he being a humoursome Child, particularly disagreeable to her,)
fetches a deep Sigh, and with a pretty, pensive Air takes up her Work,
rises, mutely curtsies to him, and retires. On which he, after a
Minute’s Silence, says sadly, “_Violet_ is as beautiful, I see, as
ever,”—and I was grieved to find he still thought so much about her.
Just then, my Father enters; and _Mark_, of a sudden recollecting his
Business, exclaimed, “Oh, Uncle, here is a capital Opening for you. ’Tis
an ill Wind, sure enough, that blows nobody any Good,—I don’t know why
you should not do a good Turn of Business as well as ourselves by being
Agent for the Sale of these patent Nostrums” ... and thereon pulled out
a Parcel of Bills, headed “Infallible Preventive-pills against the
Plague.” ... “Never-failing Preservatives against Infection.” ...
“Sovereign Cordials against the Corruption of the Air.” ... “The Royal
Antidote—” and so forth.
—“No, Boy, no,” said my Father, putting them by, one after another, as
he looked over them, “Time was when I should have thought it as innocent
to laugh in my Sleeve at other People’s Credulity and turn a Penny by
their Delusions as yourself, and many others that are counted honest
Men; but I’m older and sadder now. To the best of my Belief, every and
all of these Remedies are Counterfeits, that will not only rob People of
their Money, but peradventure of their Lives, by inducing them to trust
in what they have bought instead of going to the Expense of proper
Medicines. A solemn Time is coming; my own Time may be short; and
whether I be taken or whether I be left, GOD forbid I should carry a Lie
in my right Hand, or set it in my Shop-window.”
A Customer here summoned him away; and _Mark_, instead of departing, sat
down beside me and said, “What think you, _Cherry_, of this approaching
Visitation? Are you very much affrighted?”
“Awe-stricken, rather,” I made Answer; “I only fear for myself along
with the rest, and I fear most for my Father, who will be more exposed
to it than I shall; but I feel I can leave the Matter in GOD’S Hand.”
“I wish I could,” said poor _Mark_, sighing. “I own to you, _Cherry_, I
am horribly dismayed. I have a Presentiment that I shall not escape. My
_Wife_,” continued he, with great Bitterness in his Tone ... he commonly
spoke of her with assumed Recklessness as “his old Lady” ... “my Wife
has no Sense of the Danger—mocks at it, defies it; refuses to leave her
House and her Business, come what may, and tells me with a Scoff I shall
frighten myself to Death, and that _Ralph Denzel_ shall be her
Third.—Don’t you hate, _Cherry_, to hear Husbands and Wives, even in
Sport, making light of each other’s Deaths?”
Her Grossness was offensive to me, and I said in a low Voice, “I do.”
“And if I die, as die I very likely shall,” pursued he hurriedly, “you
may do me a Kindness, _Cherry_, by telling _Violet_ that I never——”
This was insupportable to me. “Dear _Mark_,” I cried, “why yield to this
Notion of Evil which may be its own Fulfilment? GOD watches over all.
With proper Precaution, and with his Blessing, we may escape. No one
knows his Hour: the brittle Cup oft lasts the longest.—Many a Casualty
may cut us off before the Day of general Visitation.”
“Aye,” he replied, with a sickened Look, “but I had a Dream last Night
... and, just now, as I came through _Bishopgate_ Churchyard, a Crowd of
People were watching a Ghost among the Tombs, that was signing to Houses
that should be stricken, and to yet undug Graves.”
“_Watching_ it?” said I. “Did you see it?”
“Well, I rather think I did,” said _Mark_, “but am not quite assured—the
Press was very great. At any rate, I saw those who evidently _did_ see
it. My Wife has had her Fortune told, and the Fortune-teller avouched to
her she should escape; so there’s the Ground of _her_ Comfort. To make
doubly sure, she wears a Charm. For me, I am neither for Charm nor
Fortune-telling,—if I die, I die, and what then! I’ve often felt Life
scarce worth keeping; only one don’t know what comes after!”
And, with a faint Laugh, he rose to go away. I said, “_Mark! Mark!_”
“What is it?” he said, and stopped. I said, “Don’t go away with that
light Saying in your Mouth——”
He said, “Oh!” and smiling, opened the Door. I said, looking full at
him, “Faith in GOD is the best Amulet.”
“It is,” he said more gravely; and went out.
Presently my Father came in to Supper; and sat down, while it was making
ready, near the Window, looking out on the River quite calmly. Our large
white Cat sat purring beside him. Stroking her kindly, he said, “Pussy,
you must keep close, or your Days will be few ... they’ve given Orders,
now, to kill all the Dogs and Cats. I believe, _Cherry_, we are as safe
here as we should be in the privatest Retreat in the Kingdom, for
Infection never harbours on the _Bridge_, the Current of Air always
blows it away, one Way or the other. But, my dear, we may be called away
at any Hour, and I never Sleep worse of a Night for bearing in Mind I
may not see another Morning. But I rest all the peacefuller, _Cherry_,
for knowing you will never be in want, though this poor Business should
dwindle away to nothing. Master _Benskin_ and _Hugh Braidfoot_ know all
about my little Hoard, and will manage it well for you, my Daughter. And
now, let’s see what is under this bright little Cover. Pettitoes, as
sure as _London Bridge_ is built on Wool-packs!”
And he ate his frugal Meal cheerfully, I thinking in my Mind, as I had
so often done before, that the firmest Heart is oft found in the
littlest Body.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VIII
_The Plague_
AS Spring advanced, the Plague came on amain. Houses were shut up, some
empty, some with infected People in them under Guard, ne’er to be let
out, save in perfect Health or to be cast into the Dead-cart. Swarms of
People hurried out of Town, some in Health, some already infected: never
was such a Blockade of Carts, Coaches, and Horsemen on the _Bridge_; and
I was told, on the northern and western Roads ’twas still worse. Every
Horse, good and bad, was in request, at enormous Hire: as soon as they
had done Duty for one Party, they came back for another, so that the
poor Things had an ill Time o’t. The Court set the Example of running
away; the Nobility and Gentry followed it; the Soldiers were all sent to
Country Quarters, the _Tower_ was left under the Guard of a few
Beef-eaters, all the Courts of Law were closed, and even the middle and
lower Ranks that could not well afford to leave their Shops and Houses,
thought it a good Matter to escape for bare Life, and live about the
Country in removed Places, camping in the Fields, and under Hedges.
[Illustration:
Houses were shut up, some empty, some
with infected people in them
]
Thus the City, which had previously been so over-filled as to provoke
the comparing of it with _Jerusalem_ before the last Passover, was in a
Manner so depopulated, that though vast Numbers remained in its
By-streets and Lanes, whole Rows of Houses stood empty. Those that
walked abroad kept the Middle of the Streets for Fear of Infection;
Grass began to grow between the Paving-stones; the Sound of Wheels was
scarce heard, for People were afraid of using the Hackney-coaches;
Beggars, and Street-singers, and Hawkers, had altogether disappeared; so
that there was nothing to break the awful Stillness save the Shrieks of
dying Persons in lone Houses, or the Rumbling of the Dead-cart.
Meanwhile, though the Distemper was raging on both Sides of us and all
about us, it came not on the Bridge. Crowded Assemblages of Buyers and
Sellers at Markets, &c., being much to be avoided, we laid in as much
Stock as our small Premises would hold and our small Family require, of
Soap, Candles, Groceries, Cheese, Bacon, salt Butter, and such-like. And
whereas the Plague raged worse than Anywhere among the Butchers’ Stalls
and low Fishmongers, we made a Merit of Necessity, and fasted from both
Fish and fresh Meat, as well for our Health as our Sins, which, if
sundry others had done in a proper Frame and Temper, ’tis likely they
might have been spared.
Thus we kept close and went Abroad little, except to Public Prayers;
reading and meditating much at Home, and considering, as _Noah_ and his
Family probably did in the Ark, that if our Confinement were irksome,
’twas a cheap Price to pay for Safety. Of the _Blenkinsops_ we saw
nothing after the regular Outburst of the Calamity; but we knew that
Mistress _Blenkinsop_ was not only resolved not to stir, but that she
would not so much as lay in Stores for daily Consumption; perversely and
cruelly persisting in sending her Servants into the Danger, she feared
not for herself to purchase Pennyworths of Things she might have bought
wholesale.
[Illustration:
Keeping the Gates.
]
Meantime, though our _Bridge_, by reason of its being one of the great
Thoroughfares of _London_, could not well be shut up, yet the
Bridgewardens took all the Care of us they could, keeping the Gates with
much Jealousy, and burning large Fires of resinous and strong-smelling
Substances. Early in the Season, there was one Person who took a mighty
Panic at her own Danger, which was Mistress _Armytage_. She had left her
Lodgings, ostensibly to be with _Kitty_ during her Confinement, but in
Reality, as the Event proved, to be out of the Reach of Infection.
However, the News of each Day, which she greedily gathered, becoming
dismaller, and the Crowds of People pouring out of Town exciting her
Desire to be among them, she wearied _Hugh Braidfoot_ with Entreaties
that he would promise to go into the Country as soon as _Kitty_ got
about again; and, one Night, a Coffin leaping into her Lap out of the
Fire, her Fears for herself could no longer be allayed, but she declared
she must go the next Morning, come what would. I heard much sobbing and
loud talking through the Wall overnight; and the next Morning at
Day-break, saw the Widow departing with a small Bundle in her Hand, and
a young Lad carrying her heavy Box. However, the End, which was
impressive, was this. She over-heated herself in her selfish Flight,
slept in a damp Bed the next Night, and took a Hurt which ended her Life
before the Year was out, though not by the Plague.
Soon after, _Kitty_ gave Birth to twin Daughters, the sweetest little
Dears that ever were seen, whom she very prettily insisted on naming
_Violet_ and _Cherry_. But now, the Plague being more and more talked
of, and she being unable to nurse both, it became a momentous Question
with her whether to bring one up by Hand or send it to a Foster-nurse in
the Country. At length, the latter was decided upon; and little _Violet_
was put out to nurse at _Lewisham_.
And now the Judgment of GOD fell very heavy on us; insomuch that amid
the general Visitation and Bereavement, it would have been strange
indeed if even the unafflicted could have been so unfeeling as to hold
back from the general Mourning. The Cry from every Pulpit and every
Altar was, “Spare, O LORD, spare thy People, whom thou hast redeemed
with thy precious Blood;” and the Churches were open all Day long and
crowded with Penitents, till it was found that Contagion was thereby
augmented; whereon all but the bold fell to exchanging public for
private Devotion.
About this Time, poor _Kitty Braidfoot_ fell into much Danger. She was
nursing her little _Cherry_ one Morning, and saying to me how her Heart
yearned for a Sight of its Twin-sister, when, as if in Answer to her
Wish, in comes the Foster-nurse, looking defiant and heated, with the
Infant in her Arms, whom without more Ado she sets upon the Table, and
then retreats to the Door.
“There’s your Babby, Mistress,” says she bluntly, “and you owes me one
and twenty Shillings for the last six Weeks’ nursing, at Three and
Sixpence a Week ... it’s taken the Plague, and I can’t have my own Babby
infected, so I declines the farther Charge of it—’tis a puny little
Thing, and I doesn’t think would anyhow ha’ lived long.”
“Puny!” cries _Kitty_, with Eyes darting Fire; “why, you’ve starved it
for the Sake of your own Baby! ’Twas as fine a Child as this, and now a
downright Skeleton!”
The Woman had an Answer on her Lips, but Something in _Kitty’s_ Eye and
in her own Heart suddenly abashed her; and with a “Marry come up!” she
hastily turned about and quitted the House, without so much as asking
again for her one and twenty Shillings. Poor _Kitty_ exclaimed, “Oh, you
little Starveling!” and bursting into Tears, put _Cherry_ into my Arms,
and began to unfasten her own Dress. I said, “Remember, you cannot nurse
both——” She said, “I must commit the other to you to bring up by Hand
and keep out of the Infection—I cannot let this little Thing perish,”
and showered on it Kisses and Tears, quite thoughtless of her own
Safety.
Just then, _Hugh_ came in, and stood amazed when he saw _Kitty_ fondling
the famished little Infant. She, thoughtful of him also before herself,
cried, “Don’t come near me, _Hugh_! Baby has the Plague. I’m thankful
the Woman brought it Home; GOD forbid a Child of mine should endanger a
Child of hers!” And pressed her little one yet closer to her, and kissed
its little, meagre Hands. Poor _Hugh_ stood aghast at the News,
regarding her from where he first stood with a Mixture of Wonder,
Admiration, and Fear; at length exclaiming, “GOD be your Blessing,
_Kitty_!”—he brushed off a Tear and turned away. Again saw I that the
strongest Heart is not always in the biggest Body. As for _Kitty_, I
thought she had never looked so beautiful as at that Moment. She was now
eagerly seeking for some Token of the Disease about her Child, but could
find none. “What and if ’twere a false alarm?” cries she,—“Heaven grant
it!—But now, dear _Cherry_, take your little Charge out of Harm’s
Reach—and bid _Nell_ tend dear _Hugh_ all she can—I’ve Everything I want
here, and they can set down my Meals at the Door without coming in.”
I looked back at her as I closed the Door, and saw her smiling so over
her Baby that it really seemed as if she felt she had in it Everything
she wanted. And when I lay down by my little _Cherry_ at Night, and felt
its little Mites of Hands straying over my Face, I felt drawn towards it
with a Love I had never experienced for a Child before, and wondered not
how _Kitty_, who might call it Part and Parcel of herself, could so
cheerfully risk her own Life for that of her Child.
Next Morning, both our Heads were thrust simultaneously out of our
Bedroom Windows. “_Violet_ is doing purely,” cries she; “there’s no
Plague-spot—How is _Cherry_?” We exchanged Congratulations and heartfelt
Blessings.
In short, it proved a false Alarm; but as _Cherry_ was so miraculously
contented under my Care, her Mother would not have her back till every
Fear of Danger was over, by which Time the pretty Creature was well
weaned. If _Hugh_ had loved his Wife before this, he now absolutely
adored her: he said he had learned the Value of his Treasures too dearly
to run any farther Risk of losing them, come what might to his Business.
So he shut up Shop, left an old Woman in Charge, bought a Tent, Horse,
and Cart, and Everything else he wanted or could take; and, one fair
Morning, he mounted _Kitty_ all smiling under the Tilt, with a Darling
on each Arm, and Bags, Baskets, and Crockery-ware all about her; and
shouldering his Carter’s Whip, started off with his Family for _Kent_,
like a blythe, honest Patriarch.
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IX
_Foreshadows_
AH! with that little Gipsey-party went all the Smiles I was to see for many
a Day, though I knew it not.
My Father about this Time seemed dull and sorry of Cheer. I asked him if
aught ailed him in Body or Mind, or had gone wrong in his Affairs. He
said, no—that he was sensible of a Heaviness on his Spirits, but could
no Ways account for it. And, with that Stoutness of Heart which had
become a second Nature, he bustled about and tried to cast it off. Still
I watched him narrowly, but could detect no Signs of Disorder. I lay
awake at Night, thinking of him; and amid the Stillness all about, could
faintly hear the distant Wail of that poor distracted Madman, who
incessantly ran about the Streets of the City, crying, “Oh! the great
and dreadful GOD!”
After Breakfast, my Father said to me, “_Cherry_, I shall be absent for
an Hour or two, but you may expect me punctually at Dinner.”
I said, “Oh, Father! why must you go forth? is there any pressing
Occasion?”
“Why, yes, there is,” said he, “for a Man who owes me Money is going to
make the Plague a Pretext for leaving the Country, and has succeeded, I
understand, in getting a clean Bill of Health.”
I said, “Let it be, if it be no great Matter.”
“Nay,” he said gently, “it _is_ a great Matter to People in our
Condition, with whom Trade is at a Stand-still. I have not yet held
aloof from any necessary Affairs, but I give you my Word I will run no
needless Risks.”
And so was going forth, when I said, “There is a little white on your
shoulder,” and brushed it off with my Apron. When I had done it, he
turned about and kissed me.
We were to have Bacon and Eggs that Day. I had a Presentiment he would
be after his Time, in spite of what he had said, and told _Dolly_ not to
fry them till he came in. Hour after Hour passed, long after
Dinner-time, and still he came not. Then I grew troubled, and kept
looking along the _Bridge_.
At last, when it was growing dusk, I put on my Hood and went to the
Bridge Gate. I said to the Gate-keeper, “Did you see my Father pass the
Gate this Morning, Master _Princeps_?”
“Yes, Mistress _Cherry_, I did,” returned he, “more by Token he said he
was going either through or to _Lime Street_, I forget which.”
I said, “I can’t think why he don’t come back.”
“Oh!” says he, “he’ll be back presently,” which, though spoken entirely
at random, yet being uttered in a cheerful Tone, somewhat heartened me,
and I returned Home.
Master _Benskin_ was putting up his Shop Shutters. I said, “I can’t
think what has become of my Father, Master _Benskin_.” He said, “Has not
he come Home? Oh, Something unforeseen must have delayed him. You know
that might happen to any of us.” And put the Screw in his last Shutter.
I said, “What should you do if you were me?” He said, “Well, I’m sure I
can’t tell what I should do—I don’t see I could do Anything—He’ll come
Home presently, I dare say ... don’t be uneasy.” And went in. I thought,
“_Job’s_ Comforters are ye all.”
About ten o’ the Clock at Night, I went down to the Bridge Gate again.
They were shutting it up for the Night, and making up the great Bonfire
in the Middle of the Street. This Time I could hardly speak for crying;
I said, “Master _Princeps_, I can’t think _why_ my Father doesn’t come
back! I think Something must have happened!”
“Nay,” says he, “what can have happened? Very likely he has been
unexpectedly detained, and thinks he shall not be back before the Gate
is shut, and is too neighbourly to wish to knock me up. So he takes a
Bed with the Friend he is with.—Now we’ve got it all clear, depend upon
it!”
“But,” said I, “there’s no Friend he can be with, that I know of.”
“Why, in _Lime Street_!” says he, with all the Confidence imaginable.
“_Lime Street?_ Dear Master _Princeps_, my Father knows nobody in _Lime
Street_.”
—“Don’t he though?” says he doubtfully. “Well, I’m sure I think he said
he was going through or to _Lime Street_, I can’t justly remember
which.”
I turned away in deep Disappointment and Trouble. As I passed under the
deep Shade of the Houses, some one coming close up to me, said,
“_Cherry!_ pretty _Cherry_! is that you?” But it was not my Father’s
Voice, and I passed on in Disgust. I would not fasten the House-door,
and sat just within it all Night, a Candle set in the Window. I opened
my Bible at random, in Hope of Something to hearten and comfort.—The
Words I lighted on were, “I sought him, but could not find him; I called
him, but he gave me no Answer.” And the Page was wet with my Tears.
As soon as Day broke, I was again at the Door. People going to Market
early looked at me strangely as they passed. It struck me my Appearance
was not very tidy, so I went in, washed and re-dressed myself, which
refreshed me a little, drank a Cup of Milk, and then put on my Hood and
went down to the Gate. I said, “Master _Princeps_, I can’t think what’s
come to my Father.”
“Bless my Soul!” cries he, “what, has he not been Home all Night? Then
you see, he _must_ be sleeping out, and will not have risen yet, to
disturb his Friend’s Family. So, go your Ways back, Mistress _Cherry_,
and don’t be fretting; rely on it he will return as soon as he has
breakfasted, which he cannot have done yet.”
So I turned away, sad at my Heart; and as I passed _John Armytage’s_
Shop, I looked up at _Violet’s_ Window, and saw her dressed, and just
putting back her white Curtains. She looked down on me, and nodded, and
smiled, but I shook my Head sorrowfully, and turned my Face away. Before
I reached my own Door, I felt some one twitching my Cloak behind, and
she comes up to me all panting.
“_Cherry!_ dear _Cherry_!” says she breathlessly, “what’s the Matter?”
“I’ve lost my Father,” said I, with filling Eyes.
“Dead!” cries she, looking affrighted.
“He may be,” said I, bursting into Tears, “for he has not come Home all
Night.”
“Oh, if that’s all,” says she, putting her Arm round me and drawing me
into the House, “all may yet be well.—How many Women might cry,
_Cherry_, if they thought their Husbands and Fathers were dead, every
Time they stayed out all Night! Come, tell me all about it——” And she
entered with such Concern into my Grief that its Bitterness was allayed.
“Come,” she said, “let us give him till Dinner-time—he may drop in any
Minute, you know, and if you go looking for him, you know not where, you
may miss him. So give him till Dinner-time, and after that, if he comes
not, go and knock at every Door in _Lime Street_, if you will.”
And she stayed, wiling the slow Time as long as she could with talking
of this and that. At length, Dinner-time came; I could scarce await it,
and directly the Clock struck, I started forth. It occurred to me I
would go to _Mark_.
As I approached the Gate, I heard Master _Princeps_ say to the second
Gate-keeper, “I’ll lay you a Wager this Girl is coming again to ask me
why she can’t find her Father.”
[Illustration:
Cherry seeking her father
]
Instead of which, I only said as I came up to him, “I’m going to look
for my Father, Master _Princeps_.”
“Well,” says he, “I wish you may find him with all my Heart, but it
seems like looking for a Pin in a Hayfield.—Perhaps he’ll return while
you are away.... Take Care where you go; the Streets and Lanes are
dangerous——”
There were People paying Toll; and while I was waiting to pass, I heard
one Man ask another if he had seen the great Plague-pit dug in
_Aldgate_, forty Feet long, and twenty Feet deep; adding, he believed
many People that were picked up in the Streets were cast into it before
it was well known if they were dead or alive.
I darted through the Toll-gate the Moment it was clear, and made for
_Cheapside_. Oh! how awful the Change, during a few Weeks! Not a
Creature stirring, where lately all had been alive.—At the Turn of a
Lane I met a Man wheeling a dead Person in a Hand-barrow, and turning
his own Head aside. Houses were deserted or silent, marked with the
fatal red Cross. Within one, I heard much wailing and sobbing. At length
I reached _Mark’s_ House. ’Twas all shut up!—and a Watchman sat smoking
on the Door-step. He said, “Young Woman, what do you want?” I said, “I
want to speak to _Mark Blenkinsop_.” ... He said, “Nobody must go out or
in—the House is under Visitation.”—My Heart sank when I remembered
_Mark’s_ Forebodings of himself, and I said, “Is he dead?” “I know not
whether he be dead or no,” replied the Watchman; “a Maid-servant was put
into the Cart the Night before last, and a ’Prentice the Night before
that.—Since then, they’ve kept mighty quiet, and asked for Nothing,
though I’ve rung the House-bell two or three Times. But the Night-watch
told me that a Woman put her Head out of Window during the Night, and
called out, ‘Oh! Death, Death, Death!’ three several Times.”
I said, “Ring the Bell again!”
He did so, and pulled it so violently this Time, that the Wire broke. We
gave each other a blank Look.
“See!” said I, “there’s a Window open on the Second Story——”
“’Tis where the Woman put out her Head and screeched, during the Night,”
said he.
“Could not you get a Ladder,” said I, “and look in?”
“Well,” said he, “I will, if you will stay here and see that no one
comes out while I’m gone.”
So I said I would, but I should have been a sorry Guard had any one
indeed rushed forth, so weak was I and trembling. I thought of _Mark_
lying within, perhaps stiff and cold.
Presently the Watchman returned with a Ladder, but it was too short, so
then he had to go for another. This Time he was much longer gone, so
that I was almost beside myself with waiting. All this Time not a
Creature passed. At length a Man came along the Middle of the Street,
holding a red Rod before him. He cried, “What do you there?” I said, “We
know not whether the Family be dead or have deserted the House—a
Watchman has gone for a Ladder to look through the open Window.” He
said, “I will send some one to look to it,” and passed on.
Then the Watchman and another Man appeared, carrying a long Ladder
between them. They set it against the Window, and the Watchman went up.
When he had looked in, he cried out in a fearful Voice, “There’s a Woman
in white, lying all along on the Floor, seemingly dead, with a Casket of
Jewels in her Hand.—Shall I go in?”—“Aye, do,” I exclaimed. The other
Man, hearing talk of Jewels, cried, “Here, come you down, if you be
afraid, and I’ll go in,” and gave the Ladder a little Shake; which,
however, only made the Watchman at once jump through the Window. Then up
came two Men, saying, “We are from my _Lord Mayor_, empowered to seal up
any Property that may be left, if the Family indeed be dead.”—So they
went up the Ladder too, and the other Man had no Mind to go now; and
presently the Watchman comes out of the House-door, looking very pale,
and says he, “Besides the Lady on the Floor, with all her Jewels about
her, there’s not a Soul, alive nor dead, in the House; the others must
have escaped over the back Walls and Out-houses.”
Then my Heart gave a great Beat, for I concluded _Mark_ had escaped,
leaving his Wife to die alone; and now all my Thoughts returned to my
Father. I hastened to one or two Acquaintances of his, who, it was just
possible, might have seen him; but their Houses were one and all shut
up, and, lying some Way apart from each other, this took up much Time. I
now became bewildered and almost wild, not knowing where to look for
him; and catching like a drowning Man at a Straw, I went to _Lime
Street_. Here I went all up one Side and all down the other, knocking at
every Door that was not padlocked. At first I made my Inquiries
coherently enough, and explained my Distress and got a civil Answer;
but, as I went on and still did not find him, my Wits seemed to
unsettle, and, when any one came to the Door, which was often not till
after much knocking and waiting, I had got nothing to say to them but,
“Have you seen my Father?” and when they stared and said, “Who is your
Father?” I could not rightly bring his Name to Mind. This gave me some
Sign of Wildness, I suppose, for after a While, the People did not so
much look strange as pitying, and said, “Who is your Father, poor Girl?”
and waited patiently for me to answer. All except one rough Man, who
cried fiercely, “In the Dead-pit in _Aldgate_, very likely, where my
only Child will be to-night.” Then I lost Sense altogether, and
shrieked, “Oh! he’s in the Pit! _Father! Father!_” and went running
through the Streets, a-wringing my Hands. At length a Voice far off
answered, “Daughter! Daughter! here I am!” and I rushed towards it,
crying, “Oh, where? I’m coming! I’m coming!” And so got nearer and
nearer till it was only just at the Turn of the next Street; but when I
gained it, I came upon a Party of disorderly young Men. One of them
cries, “Here I am, Daughter!” and burst out laughing. But I said, “Oh,
you are not he,” and brake away from him.
“Stay, I know all about him,” cries another. “Was he tall or short?” Oh,
wicked, wicked Men, thought I, ’tis such as you that break Fathers’
Hearts!
[Illustration]
How I got back to the _Bridge_, I know not. I was put to Bed in a raging
Fever. In my Deliration I seemed to see my Father talking earnestly with
another Man whose Face I knew not, and who appeared to hear him with
Impatience, and want to leave him, but my Father laid his Hand upon his
Arm. Then the other, methought, plucked a heavy Bag from under his
Cloke, and cast it towards my Father, crying, “Plague take it and you
too!” Then methought my Father took it up and walked off with it into
the Street, but as he went, he changed Colour, stopped short, staggered,
and fell. Presently I seemed to hear a Bell, and a dismal Voice crying,
“Bring out your Dead!”—and a Cart came rumbling along, and a Man held a
Lanthorn to my Father’s Face, and without more Ado, took him up and cast
him into the Cart. Then methought, a Man in the Cart turned the Horse
about, and drove away without waiting to call anywhere else, to a dismal
lone Field, lying all in the Blackness of Darkness, where the Cart
turned about, and shot a Heap of senseless Bodies into a great, yawning
Pit ... them that a few Hours back had been strong, hearty Men,
beautiful Women, smiling Children.
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER X
_A Friend in Need_
WHEN I returned to my Reason, it was with an inexpressible Sense of Weakness
and Weariness. The first Thing I saw was dear _Violet’s_ Face close to
mine, her large, dark Eyes fixed full upon me; and as soon as she saw
that I knew her, she exclaims, “_Cherry_, dear _Cherry_! I thought I had
no more Tears left to shed, but I must cry again with Pleasure now—” and
wept over me.
I said, “Is he come back yet?” She said, “You must only think of getting
well now.”
“Ah,” I said, “I know he is not,” and turned my Head away, and still
felt her warm Tears dropping over me. They seemed to heal where they
fell; and presently, I shed Tears too, which cleared my Head, and
somewhat relieved me; but oh! the Weakness!—
I was very slow getting well. All the While, dear _Violet_ kept with me,
read to me, cheered me, cherished me ... oh, what a Friend! How Trouble
brings out the real Good in People’s Characters, if there be any!
Before I was well able to sit up, Master _Benskin_ sent in Word he had
Something important to say to me as soon as I was equal to hearing it. I
thought he might have got some Clue to my Father, and said I was quite
equal to hearing Anything he had to tell. Then he came in, treading on
Tip-toe, and looking very awe-stricken; and, says he, “Mistress
_Cherry_,”—taking a Chair as he spoke, a good Way off from me,—“the
lamented Event which we may now consider to have taken place....”
“No, Master _Benskin_, no,” interrupted I, faintly; “I still hope there
has been _no_ lamented Event——”
“Makes it my Duty,” continued he, without minding me, “to tell you that
you need be under no Uneasiness about pecuniary Circumstances.”
“I am not, I assure you,” said I. “Oh that I had nothing worse to be
uneasy about!”
“This House,” continued he, “was your Father’s for ninety-nine Years,
and is now yours; and he moreover had saved six hundred Pounds, three
hundred of which he lent me, and three hundred _Hugh Braidfoot_, we
paying him five per Cent., which we will continue to pay you, or hand
over to you the Principal, whichever you like.”
“Thank you, Master _Benskin_,” said I; “I should wish Everything to
continue just as it is.... I am sure my Father’s Money can’t be in
better Hands; and I shall recommence inquiring for him directly I am
strong enough, which I almost am already.”
“Ah,” said he, with a sorrowful Smile and a Shake of the Head, “how slow
Women are to give up Hope!... Sure enough, ’tis one of the cardinal
Virtues; but they practise it as if ’twere their Nature, without making
a Merit of it. I wish you well from my Heart, Miss _Cherry_.”
All this While I was fretting to see Master _Blower_. I said often to
_Violet_, “I wish Master _Blower_ would look in to see me, and talk to
me and pray with me as he used to do with my Mother. Sure, I’m sick
enow! and he might, for as long as he has known me, count me the same as
one of his own Congregation.”
And _Violet_ would make Answer, “Indeed, _Cherry_, if you consider how
the good Man is wearing himself out among his own Flock, going hither
and thither without setting his Life at a Pin’s Purchase, spending all
his Time in Visitation that is not taken up with the Services of the
Church, you need not be surprised he comes not so far as this,
especially as he knows not of your Affliction nor your Illness.”
“How do you, that are not a Church-woman, know he does all you say?”
said I.
“I had it from the old Woman that brings the Curds and Whey,” returned
_Violet_; “she, you know, is one of his Parishioners; and, from what she
says of him, it appears he could not do more if he were a Dissenter.”
“A Dissenter, indeed! I admire that!” said I. “If he were a slothful,
timid, self-indulgent Person, you would bestow all his Faults on his
Church; but because his Light shines before Men, so that they cannot
help glorifying his Father which is in Heaven, you say he could hardly
do more if he were a Dissenter!—I shall go to him as soon as ever I get
well.”
And so I did; while, indeed, I was hardly strong enough for so long a
Walk; for I had a Notion he would tell me where to find my Father; or
comfort me, maybe, if he thought he could not be found. It was now late
in _September_.—His Parish was one of the worst in _Whitechapel_,—he
lived in a roomy, gloomy old Parsonage-house, too large for a single
Man, in a Street that was now deserted and grass-grown. The first Thing
I saw was a Watchman asleep on the Steps, which gave me a Pang; for,
having heard Master _Blower_ was so active in his Parish, I somehow had
never reckoned on his being among the Sick, though that was a very just
Reason why he should be. I had thought so good a Man would lead a
charmed Life, forgetful that in this World there is often one Event to
the Righteous and to the Wicked, and that if the Good always escaped, no
Harm would have befallen my Father. However, this sudden Shock, for such
it was, brought Tears into my Eyes, and I began to be at my Wits’ End,
who should tell me now where to find my Father, and to lament over the
Illness of my good and dear Friend, Master _Blower_. Then I bethought
me,—Perhaps he is not in the House, but may have left it in Charge of
some Woman, who is ill,—if I waken the Watchman, he certainly will not
let me in; the Key is grasped firmly in his Hand, so firmly that I dare
not try to take it, but yet I must and will get in.—
Then I observed that, in carelessly locking the Door, the Lock had
overshot it, so that, in Fact, the Door, instead of being locked, would
not even shut. So I stept lightly past the Watchman and into the House;
and the first Thing within the Threshold was a Can of Milk, turned quite
sour, which shewed how long it must have stood without any Body’s being
able to fetch it. I closed the Door softly after me, and went into all
the ground-floor Rooms; they were empty and close shuttered: the Motes
dancing in the Sunbeams that came through the round Holes in the
Shutters. Then I went softly up Stairs, and looked timidly into one or
two Chambers, not knowing what ghastly Sight I might chance upon; but
they were tenantless. As I stood at pause in the Midst of one of them,
which was a Sitting-room, and had one or two Chairs out of their Places,
as if it had been never set to rights since it was last in Occupation, I
was startled by hearing a Man in the Room beyond giving a loud,
prolonged Yawn, as though he were saying, “Ho, ho, ho, ho, hum!” Then
all was silent again: I thought it must be Master _Blower_, and went
forward, but paused, with my Hand on the Lock. Then I thought I heard a
murmuring Voice within; and, softly opening the Door and looking in,
perceived a great four-post Bed with dark green Curtains drawn close all
round it, standing in the Midst of a dark oaken Floor that had not been
bees-waxed recently enough to be slippery. Two or three tall,
straight-backed Chairs stood about; a Hat upon one, a Boot upon another,
quite in the Style of Master _Blower_; and close to the Bed was a Table
with Jugs, Cups, and Phials, and a Night-lamp still burning, though
’twas broad Day. The Shutters also were partially shut, admitting only
one long Stream of slanting Light over-against the Bed; but whether any
one were in the Bed, I could not at first make out, for all was as still
as Death. Presently, however, from within the Curtains came a somewhat
thick Voice, exclaiming, “Oh LORD, my Heart is ready, my Heart is ready!
I will sing and give Praise with the best Member that I have! Awake,
Lute and Harp! I myself will awake right early!”
[Illustration]
Here the dear good Man fell a-coughing, as if Something stuck in his
Throat; and I tip-toeing up to the Bedside, withdrew the Curtains and
softly said, “Master _Blower_!”
Never shall I forget my first Sight of him! There he lay on his Back,
with Everything quite clean and fresh about him, not routed and tumbled
as most Men’s would have been, but as smooth as if just mangled:—his
Head, without e’er a Nightcap, lying straight on his Pillow, his Face
the Mirror of Composedness and Peaceification, and his great, brown
Eyes, glowing with some steady, not feverish Light, turned slowly round
upon me, as if fresh from beholding some beatific, solemnifying Sight.
“Why, _Cherry_,” says he, looking much pleased, “are you come to look on
me before I die? I thought I had taken my last Sight of all below,”—and
reaching out his Hand to me from under the Bedclothes, I was shocked to
perceive how it was wasted: every Knuckle a perfect Knob.
“Don’t touch me!” cries he, plucking it away again, and burying it out
of Sight,—“I forgot you hadn’t had the Plague. What a selfish Fellow I
am!—How’s your dear Father, _Cherry_?”
I could not withhold myself from weeping, and was unable to answer.
“Ah, I see how it is,” says he kindly; “poor _Cherry_! poor _Cherry_!
‘the Righteous perish and no Man layeth it to Heart,’—I heard a Voice
say, ‘Write: Blessed are the Dead which die in the LORD. Yea, saith the
Spirit, for they rest from their Labours.’... I shall see him before you
will, _Cherry_. Go Home, Child, go Home, ... this Air is fraught with
Danger.”
I said, “I am not afraid of it, Sir,—I would rather stay a While with
you.”
“Well, then,” said he, “just give me a Drink of Water, or Anything
liquid you can find; for I have had Nothing but what I could help myself
to, these twenty-four Hours. My Throat is so bad, I cannot swallow
Anything solid.... Oh! Oh!—” And as he held back his Throat to drink, I
noticed the Plague Swellings.
“That will do nicely, now,” sighed he, when I had smoothed his Pillow;
“and now go, I prithee, dear _Cherry_, and look after poor _Dorcas_,
who, I fear, must be dead or dying somewhere about the House.”
So I did as he bade me; and, as I knew she was not on the Floor below, I
went in quest of her up Stairs. _Dorcas_ had lived with Master _Blower_
ever since he commenced Housekeeping; and had had the Help of a younger
Maid, who now, it seemed, had left, or died. She was a Widow-woman in
her third score, eccentric, like her Master, in some Matters; but
withal, of the sweetest, pleasantest Countenance! and of pleasant
Conditions too, so that they were well matched. She preferred being
called Mistress _Peach_; but Master _Blower_ liked calling her _Dorcas_,
and carried his Point.
I found her in the upper Story, lying all across her Bed, dressed, but
more dead than alive. “Alas! young Woman,” says she.... “What! is it
Mistress _Cherry_? Heaven be praised! How is my Master? Doth he live
yet?”
I said, Yes, and I hoped was going on well.
“Ah,” says she, “I left him at Death’s Door, but could no longer keep
about myself; so, set him straight as well as I could, and then crawled
up here, thinking to bundle my Mattress down Stairs, and at all events
die within hearing of him. But ’twas quite beyond my Strength.... I fell
all along, and here I’ve been ever since.”
Then she began to groan terribly, but I made her as comfortable as I
could, dressed her Throat, persuaded her to swallow a little cooling
Drink, and loosened her Clothes; all which she took very thankfully, but
then became restless about her Master, and prayed me to go down to him,
for he wanted me more than she did.
So I returned to Master _Blower_, whom I now found a good deal more
suffering and feverish than when I left him, and beginning to toss
about. I quite gave up all Intention of leaving the House, yet thought
_Violet_ might be uneasy about me; therefore I stepped down to beg the
Watchman to send a Message to her; but found the House-door locked.
On my rapping against it and calling, he unlocked it and looked in.
“Hallo, young Woman,” says he, “how came you here?”
“I stepped in while you were asleep,” said I, “the Door being ajar.”
“Asleep? that’s a pretty Tale to tell of me,” quoth he. “I wonder if
_you_ wouldn’t feel sleepy sometimes, sitting from Morn to Night on a
Door-step, full in the Sun!”
“I want to tell no Tales,” said I, “but only desire to send Word to my
Friends on the _Bridge_ that I cannot return to them at present, being
wanted here.”
“Return? of course you cannot,” says he. “Why, do you suppose Persons
are to be allowed to walk in and out of Houses under Visitation at their
Will? ’Tis clear against my _Lord Mayor’s_ Orders.”
This had escaped me; however, it made no Difference; and he engaged to
let _Violet_ know the Cause of my Detention. Then I returned to my
Charges, and, to my great Surprise, found _Dorcas_ had crawled nearly
all down the Flight of Stairs between her and Master _Blower_, and was
now lying all along. She said, “I thought I must see how Master was ...
if you will but tumble the Mattress down, Mistress _Cherry_, I’ll lie
just within his Door,—then you won’t have to run up and down Stairs so
often.” It did, indeed, make it easier for me to attend to them both;
and truly I never had such a Night before nor since; for though my dear
Mother’s Sufferings had been long drawn out and very sad to witness,
they had never amounted to acute Agony. The Fever of both ran very high
all Night, and it seemed to me that Master _Blower_ in his Deliration
went through the whole Book of _Job_ in his Head, from the disjointed
Fragments he uttered here and there. Also he seemed much argufying with
an impenitent Sinner in his Flock, his Reasonings and tender Persuasives
with whom were enough to have melted a Stone. As to Mistress _Peach_, I
must say her Thoughts ran mostly on her Jams, ... she conceited herself
opening Pot after Pot and finding every one fermented; and kept
exclaiming in a doleful Voice, “Oh dear, here’s another Bishop’s Wig!”
So that, what with being ready to laugh at her, and to cry over him, I
was quite carried out of myself, and away from my own Troubles. Towards
Day-dawn they both became quiet; I fumigated the Room, bathed their
Temples with Vinegar, moistened their Mouths, and then knelt down in a
Corner to pray; after which, I dozed a little. I had heard the
Death-cart going its melancholy Round during the Night; and had felt
thankful we had no Dead to be carried out.
In the Morning, both my Patients seemed bettering. _Dorcas_, with my
Help, got to her Master’s Bedside, and looked in on him. “Dear Sir,”
says she, “how are you now?”
“Somewhat easier, but very thirsty, Mistress _Peach_,” says he.
“Oh dear, Sir,” says she, “don’t call me Mistress _Peach_, or I shall
think you’re going to die. I like _Dorcas_ best now. What a Mercy it
was, Sir, Mistress _Cherry_ came in as she did, for we were both at
Death’s Door. I dare say, Sir, you missed me?”
“How should I do otherwise?” said he, speaking very thick, and with
evident Pain.... “I’ve got a Wasp’s Nest in my Throat, I think.... How
should I do otherwise, I say, when no one came near me for twenty-four
Hours?”
“Ah, Sir,” says she, “I’m sure I beg your Pardon for behaving so
ill,—for _being_ so ill, that is; but indeed I could not help it. I
thought,” continues she, turning to me, “I wouldn’t die, as ’twere, just
under his Nose, so crawled out of Sight; but put Everything near him
that he could want before I took the Liberty of leaving him; and did the
best Thing I could for him at parting, by putting a fine drawing Plaster
round his Throat.... Pray, Sir, did it draw?”
“Draw?” cries he, with the first indignant Flash I ever saw from his
pleasant Eyes ... and ’twas half humourous, too,—“Like a Cart-horse! I
should have been dead Hours ago, you Woman, had I kept it on!”
Sorrowful as I was, I could not help bursting out a-laughing, and he did
so too, when suddenly stopping short and looking very odd,—“I don’t know
whatever has given way in my Throat,” says he, “but verily I think that
Laugh has saved me! Here! give me some Water, or Milk, or Anything to
drink, for I can swallow now.”
So I gave him some Water, and ran down Stairs for some Milk, the
Night-watchman having promised to set some within the Door. When I got
back, there was quite another Expression on his Face; composed and
thankful. _Dorcas_ was shedding Tears as she tended him, quite
thoughtless of herself.
“Now, _Cherry_,” says he, “do persuade this dear Woman to lie down and
take Care of herself, for she has had Faith enough in her famous
Plasters to have put one about her own Throat, and I know what she must
be suffering, or will have to suffer.”
So I gently led her back to her Mattress, and then, sitting down by
Master _Blower_, fed him with some Sponge-cake that was none the worse
for being stale when sopped in Milk, warm from the Cow. He took it with
great Satisfaction, and said he hoped I should not think him greedy when
I remembered how long he had fasted. Then he would not be peaceified
till I went down Stairs and breakfasted by myself: telling me his Mind
to him a Kingdom was, or somewhat to that Effect, which I could
thoroughly believe. When I came back, _Dorcas_ seemed sleeping soundly,
though not very easily. Master _Blower_ had got the same heavenly Look
as when I first saw him. I asked him if there were Anything I could do
for him. He said, Yes, I could read him the fortieth Psalm. When I had
done so, he said, “And now you can read me the hundred and sixteenth.”
That, he said, would do to reflect upon, and I might go my Ways now; he
should want Nothing more for a good While. So I sat down in a great
Arm-chair with a tall Back, wherein, the Chair being mighty comfortable,
and I somewhat o’erwearied with watching, (not being very strong yet,)
or ever I was aware I fell asleep, which certainly was not very good
Nursing nor good Manners.
When I woke up, which may perhaps have been not so soon as it seemed to
me, “Well, Mistress _Cherry_,” says Master _Blower_, somewhat
ironically, “I hope you have had a good Nap. A Penny for your Dream.”
I said it had been a wonderful pleasant one ... too wonderful, I feared,
to come true.
“Well, let’s have it, nevertheless,” says he; “I like hearing wonderful
Dreams sometimes, when I’ve Nothing better to do. So, now for it.”
—When I came to think it over, however, it seemed so different, waking
and sleeping, that I despaired of making it seem to him Anything like
what it had seemed to me.
“Come,” said he, “you’re making a new one.”
“Oh no, Sir!” said I, “I would not do such a Thing on any Account.—My
Dream was this;—only I fear you’ll call it a comical one.... Methought I
was walking with you, Sir, (I beg your Pardon for dreaming of you, which
I should not have done if I had not been nursing of you, I dare say)——”
“Pardon’s granted,” says he. “Go on.”
“I thought, Sir, I was walking with you in a Garden all full of Roses,
Pinks, Crownations, Columbines, Jolly-flowers, Heartsease, and—and....”
“A Kiss behind the Garden-gate,” says he.
I was quite thrown out; and said, I did not believe there was such a
Flower.
“Oh yes, there is,” says he,—“Well but the rest of your Dream——”
“That’s all, Sir.”
“_All?_” cries he.
“Yes, Sir; only that we went on walking and walking, and the Garden was
so mighty pleasant.”
“Why, you told me there was Something wonderful in it!” says he.
I said it _had_ seemed wonderful at the Time——
“That there was _not_ a Kiss behind the Garden-gate,” says he, laughing.
“O fie, _Cherry_!”
I felt quite ashamed; and said it was very silly to tell Dreams, or to
believe in them.
“Why, yes,” said he seriously, “it _is_ foolish to believe in the
disjointed Images thrown together by a distempered Fancy; though
aforetime it oft pleased our HEAVENLY FATHER to communicate his Will to
his Servants through the Avenues of their sleeping Senses. How should
you and I be walking in a Garden together? There are no Gardens in
_Whitechapel, Cherry_. In _Berkshire_, indeed, my Brother the Squire has
a Garden something like what you describe, full of Roses, Pinks, and
Gilly-flowers, with great, flourished iron Gates, and broad, turfen
Walks, and Arbours, like green Wigs, and clipped Hedges full of Snails,
and Ponds full of Fish. If I go down there to get well, _Cherry_, as
peradventure I may, for I shall want setting up again before I’m fit for
Work—(I’ve fallen away till I’m as thin as _Don Quixote_!) I’ll ask his
Wife to invite you down, _Cherry_, to see the Garden; and then we’ll
look up all those Flowers we were talking about.”
“Thank you kindly, Sir,” said I, sorrowfully, “but I don’t think I can
go.... I must be looking for my Father.”
“Your Father!” cries he, in Amaze. “Why, dear _Cherry_, I thought you
told me he was dead!”
I tried to answer him, but could not, and fell a-sobbing.
“Come,” says he, quite moved, “I want to hear all this sad Story.”
When I was composed enough to tell it him, he listened with deep
Attention, and I saw a Tear steal down his Cheek.
“_Cherry_,” says he at length, “you must give over hoping he will
return, my Dear. There is not a Likelihood of it. Consider how long a
Time has elapsed since he went forth; and how many, as dear to their
Families as your Father to you, have been cut off in the Streets at a
Moment’s Notice, and carried off to the Dead-pits before they were
recognised. For such awful Casualties the Good are not unprepared.
Instead of carrying back Infection and Desolation to his Home, and
lingering for Hours and Days in unspeakable Agonies, the good Man was
doubtless carried at once to the Bosom of his GOD.”
Then he spake Words that killed Hope, and yet brought Healing; and after
weeping long and plentifully, I began to see Things as he did, and to
feel convinced I should see my Father’s Face no more: which, indeed, I
never did.
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XI
_Distinction between would & should_
DORCAS, who continued very ill all this Day, began thereafter to amend, and
was able to take the sole Night-watch. But the Watchman would not let me
go forth, though he would send my Messages to _Violet_, and give me the
Packages of Clothing and so forth that _Violet_ sent me. However, one
Day a Doctor called, and gave as his Reason for not coming before, that
he had been ill himself. And he said both my Patients were in such a
fair Way of Recovery, that he thought in another Week I might leave the
House without Danger to myself or others, only attending to the proper
Fumigations.
Master _Blower_ now sat up in his easy Chair, half wakeful, half dozing,
for he was too weak to read much. But he liked me to read to him, which
I did for Hours together; and the Subject-matter of the Book often gave
Rise to much pleasant Talk, insomuch that I began to be secretly and
selfishly sorry that the Time was so near at Hand when he would be well
enough to do without me.
At other Times I got him to talk to me about the Country-house of his
Brother, the Squire, wherein he himself had been born, and had spent all
his boyish Days. And when I heard him tell about the little ivy-covered
Church, and the pretty Churchyard planted with Flowers, and the rustic
Congregation in their red Cloaks and white Frocks, and the Village Choir
with their Pipes and Rebecks, it seemed to me I would rather, a thousand
Times, be Vicar or even Curate of such a Place as that than have ever
such a large, grand Living in _Whitechapel_. And so I told him.
At other Times I sat sewing quite silent by the Window, leaving him to
doze if he could; and sometimes I could see without looking up, that his
Eye would rest on me for a good While at a Time. I did not care a Pin
about it, and made as though I took no Notice.
“_Cherry_,” says he, after one of these Ruminations, “what have the Men
been about that you have never got married?”
I plucked up my Spirit on this; and, “Sir,” said I, “if you can tell me
of any suitable Answer I can possibly make to such a Question as that,
I’ll be much obliged to you for it, and will make Use of it!”
“Well!” says he, “it _was_ a queer Question ... only, the Thing seems so
wonderful to me! Such a pretty Girl as you were when I first knew you!”
“Ah, that was a long While ago, Sir,” said I, threading my Needle.
“It was!” said he, decidedly; and then looking at me in an amused Kind
of Way, to see how I took it. “A long While ago, as you say, _Cherry_!
And, do you know, I think exactly the same of you now, that I did then!”
“I am very much obliged to you, Sir,” said I; and went to make him a
Bread-pudding.
Another Time, we fell to talking about the Awfulness of the Visitation,
which, he said, he feared would make no lasting Impression on the
People. And he spoke much about individual Sins helping to bring down
national Chastisements; and individual Intercessions and Supplications
inviting Forgiveness of general Transgressions; quoting _Daniel_, and
_Abraham_, and _Jeremiah_, “Run ye to and fro through the Streets of
_Jerusalem_, and see now and know, and seek in the broad Places thereof,
if ye can find a Man that executeth Judgment, that seeketh the Truth;
and I will pardon it.”
Another Time, feeling weaker than common, he began to despond about
getting down to his Brother the Squire’s. I said, “Dear Sir, if you are
not equal to so long a Journey, you can come, for Change of Air, to your
old Quarters on the Bridge.”
“Ah, _Cherry_,” said he, faintly smiling, “what would Folks say if I did
that?”
“Why, what _should_ they say, Sir?” said I.
“I’m not considering what they _should_ say,” said he; “what they
_would_ say, _Cherry_, would probably be, that I meant to marry you; or
ought to mean it.”
I said I did not suppose they would or could say any such Thing; I being
so long known on the Bridge,—and he of his Years——
“Humph!” said he, “I am but forty-four! To hear you talk, one might
think I was a—” ... I forget what Sort of an Arian he called
himself,—“Do you know what that means, _Cherry_?”
I said, I believed it was some Sort of a Dissenter. On which he laughed
outright; and said it meant sixty or seventy Years of Age, I forget
which.
“And I’m not quite such an old Codger as that,” said he, “so I won’t
accept your kind Invitation, though I thank you heartily for it. But we
must not let our Good be evil spoken of.”
All this was spoken in such a simple, genial, attaching Sort of a
Way,—for his Manners were always gentle and well-nurtured,—that it only
went to make me like him more and more, and think what a Privilege it
was to be thus in hourly Communion with Master _Blower_.
Parting Time came at last. It was my own Fault if I left not that House
a wiser, better, and happier Woman. _Dorcas_ and I saw him start off for
_Berkshire_; and there was a Tear in my Eye, when he took my Hand to bid
me Farewell.
“_Cherry_,” said he, still holding my Hand, and looking at me with great
Goodness and Sweetness, “I shall never forget that to you, under Heaven,
I owe my Life. And, by the Way, there is Something I have often thought
of naming to you, only that it never occurred to me at the proper Time
... a very odd Circumstance.—When I escaped to _Holland_, and, as some
People thought, was in Want of Money, I found seven gold Pieces in the
Inside of one of my Slippers! Who could have put them there, do you
think? Ah, _Cherry_!—There! GOD bless you!”
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XII
_Camping out in Epping Forest_
WHEN I returned Home, my Neighbours looked strangely on me, as though I were
one risen from the Dead, after nursing two People through the Plague
without Hurt. I said not much, however, to any of them except to
_Violet_.
When I had told her all I had to tell, she said, “Well, I think the Tale
ends rather flatly: you and Master _Blower_ might as well have made a
Match of it.”
“Truly, _Violet_,” said I, “I think Women of our age may be capable of a
disinterested Action, without Question of Matchmaking.”
“As to Women of _our_ Age,” retorted she, “speak for yourself, if you
please! You may make out yourself to be as old as you will; but I mean
to stick at Twenty-eight!”
I said not another Word, but secretly wondered how strangely tender some
People are on the Subject of Age. Even Master _Blower_, who had owned to
Forty-four, did not like me to reckon him at Fifty.
It was now quite the latter End of _October_, the Distemper was abating,
and People were beginning to venture back to their Homes, and a few
Shops were re-opened. _Hugh Braidfoot_ and his Family returned among the
rest. But too heedless an Exposure to the Infection yet lingering among
us caused the Distemper to rage again with great Fury before it abated
for good.
I now kept myself close, and spent the Chief of the Day at my Needle or
Book, working much for the Poor, who were like enough to be destitute in
the Winter. First, however, I put on Mourning for my poor, dear Father,
whom I could not bear to deny this Mark of Remembrance, though the
Mortality being so great, People had quite left off wearing Black for
their Friends. Much he dwelt in my sad, solitary Thoughts; and when they
ran not on him, they chiefly settled on Master _Blower_. The more I
considered their Characters, the more Beauty I found in them.
I never opened the Shop-shutters now, except for a little Light. Trade
was utterly stagnant; and my Father’s Business had dropped with him. The
little I might have done in the Perfumery Line, had the Town not been
empty, would not have been worth speaking of: it was a Mercy, therefore,
that my dear Father had left me well provided.
One Evening, when it was getting too dusk to work or read, and I was
falling into a Muse, a tall Shadow darkened the Door, which happened to
be ajar, and the next Moment a Man whom I did not immediately recognise,
entered the Parlour and stepped up to me.
“_Cherry!_ dear _Cherry_!” he said in a stifled Voice, and took me in
his Arms with a Brother’s Affection. It was poor _Mark_.
“Dear _Mark_!” I said, “where _have_ you been? Oh, how often have I
thought of you!”
“Aye, _Cherry_, well you might, and pray for me, too,” said he, somewhat
wildly. “Oh, what a Tale I have to tell you!—You will either hate or
despise me.”
“You are ill, very ill,” said I, looking fearfully at his haggard Face;
“let me give you Something before you say another Word.”
“Wine, then,” said he; and drank with avidity the Glass I poured out,
and then filled it again himself. “Thanks, dear _Cherry_!—will my Uncle
be coming in?”
I looked at him and at my Dress, and could not speak; but there was no
need—“Ah!”—said he; and wrung my Hand, and then dropped it.
[Illustration]
“_Cherry_,” said he, after a Moment’s Pause, “you know how afraid I was
of the Plague, and how my Wife taunted me for it, and for taking the
commonest Precautions. She herself braved it, defied it; secure in her
Amulet and Fortune-telling. What was worse, she cruelly exposed her
Servants to it, for the merest Trifles. We had Words about it often:
bitter Words, at last—She accused me, utterly without Foundation, of
caring more for the Servant-girl than for her, reviled me for tempting
my own Fate by Fear; finally, said I should be no great Loss, for I had
never cared much for her, nor she for me. All this embittered me against
her. Well, the poor Maid caught the Plague at the Butchers’ Stalls, and,
the next Night, was in the Dead-cart. The following Day, our youngest
’Prentice died. The other decamped in the Night. I now became nearly Mad
with Fear and Anger; and, finding my Wife would not stir, or at least,
as she said, ‘not yet,’ I considered that Self-preservation was the
first Law of Nature; and, taking a good Supply of Money with me, I left
the House in the Night. Fear of being driven back was my sole Feeling
till I got clear out of _London_; then, I began to have an Impression I
had done wrong. But ’twas Death, ’twas Madness to think of turning back.
On I went....
“It had been my Impression, _Cherry_, that, with plenty of Money in my
Pocket, I could make my Way wherever I would; but now, in whatever
Direction I went, I came upon a Watchman, who, because I had no Clean
Bill of Health to show, would not let me pass. At length, after running
hither and thither, throughout the Night, I came upon a couple of Men,
with a small Cart and Horse. They seemed to be in the same Strait as
myself, and talked of fetching a Compass to _Bow_. I asked them to let
me join them, and they consented. They were a rough Sort of Fellows; one
it seemed had deserted his Mother, the other his Wife. Their Conduct,
and their brutal Way of talking of it, only made mine seem more ugly.
“On _Bow Bridge_ the Watch would have questioned us, but we crossed the
Road into a narrow Way leading to _Old Ford_. Afterwards we got on to
_Homerton_ and _Hackney_, and at length into the northern Road. Here we
went on till we saw some Men running towards us; then we struck into a
Lane, halted at a Barn, and had some Bread and Cheese. The Food was
theirs, but I paid for my Share; and I saw them curiously eyeing my
Money. Afterwards they asked one or two Questions about my Resources,
which I did not much like.
“Well, we kept on till we were many Miles from _London_, occasionally
dodging Villages and Constables. At Nightfall we reached the Skirt of a
Wood. Here my Companions proposed to sleep; but as soon as they were
fairly off, I stole away. I wandered a long Way from them in the Wood;
at length took refuge in a Cow-shed. I thought I heard Voices, not far
off, which made me uneasy; however, I was so tired that I fell asleep.
“As soon as Day dawned, I made off; and, not knowing which Track to
take, went on at Random, till I came to a large old Barn. To my
Surprise, I heard some one praying within. I looked in, and saw, not
one, but a dozen Men, and two or three Women and Children. I stood
reverently aside till the old Man had done, and heard him pray that they
might all continue to be spared from the awful Visitation. When they
uncovered their Faces, I stept forward, on which there was a loud Cry,
and they warned me off. It was to no Use speaking, they would not hear
me as I had no Passport. Dispirited and hungry, I strayed away till I
came to the Skirt of the Wood, in Sight of a Cluster of Houses. I was
about to make for them, when three Men, with a Pitchfork, Bludgeon, and
Horsewhip, rushed upon me and collared me, saying, ‘Here’s one of
them!’—I struggled, and said, ‘One of whom? I belong to no Party, and am
a healthy, innocent Man.’ ‘That sounds well,’ said one of them, ‘but we
guess you are one of a Gang that, after threatening and intimidating our
Town yesterday, broke into a lone Farmhouse last Night; so we’ll take
you before a Magistrate.’ ‘Do so,’ said I, ‘for it will be better than
starving in the Wood, and I shall be able to clear myself.’ So, after a
Time, finding I made no Resistance, they gave over dragging me, and let
me walk by myself, only keeping close about me, with an ugly Bull-dog at
my Heels. However, I did not feel over-sure, _Cherry_, that my Story
would satisfy the Magistrate, so when we reached a small Public-house
where we found a Constable, I privately slipped a Half-crown into his
Hand, and he, after a little Parley, gave it as his Opinion that I was
an honest Man, whereon the others desisted from giving me in Charge. But
they would by no Means admit me into the House, only brought out some
Bread and Beer and set them at a Distance, and then went away while I
ate and drank.
“There seemed nothing to do but to turn again into the Wood; and as I
was without Object, foot-sore, and spiritless, I paused at the first
inviting Spot I came to, and cast myself along under a Tree. Here I
suppose I slept a good While: when I awoke, it was with a strange Sense
of Depression, and it occurred to me I might be plague-stricken after
all. As if I could fly yet from the Distemper, if that were the Case, I
resolved to be moving; for I had no Mind to die like a Rat in a Hole.
Just then I heard Voices close on the other Side the Tree; and, eyeing
the Speakers between the Branches, could make out a numerous Band of Men
and a few Women, who were eating and drinking. I did not like their
Appearance much, and thought of retreating, when one of them, seeing me
stir, cries,—‘A Spy!’ and drags me into the Midst. I was pretty roughly
handled till they settled it to their Minds I was a harmless Sort of a
Fellow; and then they told me they would let me join the Crew if I would
cast my Lot among them, and put whatever I had about me into the common
Stock. I was no Ways minded to do this; however, I gave them a few
Shillings, which, after a little Demur, they took, and I then was free
of the Company. I soon had Reason to apprehend they were the Band who
had affrighted the Townsmen the Day before, and plundered the Farm in
the Night; and it seemed as if a select Council of them were concerting
Something of the Sort again, though they did not invite me to
participate. As this was not the Sort of Company I had any Mind to
associate with, I dragged through the Afternoon and Evening as well as I
could, mostly apart. They then began to put up Booths and Tents for the
Night, at which I was glad to assist, rather than do Nothing; but I lay
a little Way off, under a Tree. In the Night I felt some one lugging at
the little Parcel of Clothing I laid my Head upon.—I hit a Blow at
Random, which made whoever it was move off without a Word; and then I
thought it was Time for me to move off too. I got away unperceived, and
could not settle again all Night. When Day broke, I was in a Part of the
Forest that was new to me.... The Sun was shining on some gnarled old
Oaks, and along green Glades; there were Birds singing, Hares running
across the Grass, and Wildflowers overhanging a little Brook of clear
Water. Oh, _Cherry_! how I should have enjoyed idling in such a Place if
I had had a quiet Mind!
“I drank some Water, and washed my Face; and just then I saw some Women
passing through the Trees, carrying large, country Loaves, and tin Cans
of Milk. They did not see me, but set down their Burthens near a large
Stone. Then they retreated and stood a little Way off, and presently,
two pretty-looking Girls came tripping out of the Wood, took up the
Loaves, emptied the Milk into brown Pitchers of their own, put some
Silver on the Stone, and cried, ‘Here’s your Money, good People!’”
[Illustration]
“Then they returned into the Wood, and I followed them. I said, ‘Shall I
carry one of your Pitchers?’ They looked affrighted, and cried, ‘Pray,
Sir, keep off ... how do we know that you may not have the Plague?’ I
said, ‘I assure you, it was to escape from the Plague that I came into
the Wood, and here I seem likely to starve, though I have Plenty of
Money.’ They looked at one another, and said, ‘If it be true, his Case
is hard,—let us tell my Father.’ They went away, and by and by an
elderly Man came to me from among the Trees. He questioned me very
narrowly, and satisfying himself at length that I was both sound and
respectable, he admitted me to their little Encampment, which consisted
of five or six little Huts, a Family in each; besides a few Cabins the
single Men had set up for themselves. I did the like, added my Stock to
theirs, and continued with them all the Time their Encampment lasted,
which was till Yesterday, when, the Weather turning cold, and the News
of the Abatement of the Distemper having reached us, we resolved to
return to our Homes.—I could make you quite in Love with our Camp Life,
_Cherry_, if I chose to enlarge upon some Things, and leave others out
of Sight,—in short, make it appear the Thing it was not. But, honestly
speaking, though we were very thankful to buy our Safety at the Price of
much Inconvenience, all the Romance of our Situation soon faded away,
and we were right glad to set our Faces homewards again, even without
being fully certified we could do so with Impunity.”
“But, to what a Home did I return! The House was padlocked up, and
Everything in the Possession of the _Lord Mayor_. And, from a Watchman
out of Employ, who was taking Care of a House over the Way, and who did
not know me, I heard the Circumstances of my Wife’s frightful Death. Oh,
_Cherry_! we did not care for each other much; but I fear it was
cowardly and cruel of me to forsake her!”
—And _Mark_ laid his Head on his Arms and wept. Presently he said, “What
to do, I know not. I shall be able, by Application to the _Lord Mayor_
to-morrow, to get back my House and Property; but—to tell you the
Truth—I have no great Fancy to go back there; at any Rate, till the
House has been well fumigated. So that ... will you take Compassion on
me, and let me return awhile to my old Quarters, _Cherry_?”
Of course I said I would.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XIII
_Ghosts_
IT was now Supper-time; and _Mark_, having lessened the Sense of his
Troubles by telling of them, although he began by thinking he could not
eat a Mouthful, ended by making a very hearty Supper. Indeed, he so much
commended the one or two simple Dishes set upon Table, and spoke so
strongly, though briefly, on the Subject of good and bad Cookery, that,
as it had been his Disposition to be contented with Anything that was
set before him in his unmarried Days, I set it all down to the
Discomfort of his late Life in the Forest. Afterwards I was disposed to
change my Mind about this, and to decide that Mistress _Blenkinsop_, who
in their early married Days had pampered and petted him amazingly,
(whereby his good Looks had suffered no little,) had really destroyed
the simple Tastes which were once so becoming in him, and had made him
Something of an Epicure.
After the Table was cleared, he drew near me again, and with real
Concern in his Manner, pressed me to tell him about my Father. I did so
from first to last, with many Tears; adding thereunto my nursing of
Master _Blower_. He sighed a good many Times as I went on, and after I
had done; exclaiming at last, “What a Difference between you and me!”
“All People have not the same Qualifications,” said I.
“No,” said he, and seemed to think I had now hit the right Nail on the
Head.
“And _Violet_——” said he, after a Pause, and colouring deeply. “Is she
quite well, _Cherry_?”
“Quite,” I said; and could think of Nothing more to say.
“I wonder,” said he in a low Voice, as if he were almost afraid to hear
the Echo of his own Thoughts, “whether she would now have Anything to
say to me?”
I said, looking away from him, “Such Questions as that should only be
put to the Parties concerned.”
“You are right,” said he; and sat a long While silent, leaning his Head
upon his Hand. At length, he said, “I am rich now, and she is poor,
_Cherry_.”
I said, “Riches and Poverty don’t make much Difference, _Mark_, when
People really love one another.”
“As I have loved—” said he.
I said, “It is Bed-time now, and here is _Dolly_ coming in to Prayers.”
The next Morning, he said he must go to the _Lord Mayor_ about his
House. For the abandoned Effects of such Families as were entirely swept
away and left no known Heirs, went to the _King_, who made them over to
the _Lord Mayor_ and _Aldermen_, to be applied to the Use of the Poor;
and _Mark’s_ Absence had made it appear that his Property was in that
Case.
Soon after he was gone, the uncommon, and, I may almost say,
unparalleled Event occurred to me of receiving a Letter; I was so
surprised at the Circumstance, that for the Moment, I thought it must be
_from my Father_; or, at least, to tell me he was alive. But no, it was
from Master _Blower_; and this was what he put in it:
[Illustration]
“_Bucklands Hall, Berks._
“_Oct. 27, 1665._
“Dear Mistress _Cherry_,
“On first coming down here, I was so ill at Ease and out
of Sorts, as to require much Care and Nursing. Heaven be
praised, I am now well, and I hope you are the same. Though the
Pinks and Gilly-flowers are pretty well over, there are still
some gay Autumn Flowers in the old Garden with the Iron Gate;
and my Brother, the Squire, and his good Wife want to see the
brave Mistress _Cherry_ who nursed me through the Plague. So
come down to us, dear _Cherry_, to-morrow, if you can. _John_,
the Coachman (a steady Man), will be at your Door, with a white
Horse and a Pillion, at Seven o’ the Clock. And be so good, if
it will not be inconvenient to you, as to bring my Sister-in-Law
a little Mace and green Ginger; and also (on my Account) one of
those Saffron-cakes they used to be so famous for at the Bridge
foot.
“Your faithful and obliged Friend,
“NATHANAEL BLOWER.
“If you don’t come, you must write.”
Here was an Event! An Invitation to the Country was a still more
startling Occurrence than the Receipt of a Letter. Many of the
Circumstances connected with it were delightful; but then, it seemed so
strange, so awful, to go to stay with People I had never seen, ... such
grand People, too! I that was so unused to fine Company, and did not
know how to behave!—And Master _Blower_ knew all this, knew exactly what
I was, and yet had prevailed with them to say they should be happy to
see me!—Oh, his Goodness of Heart had this Time carried him too far!
They had said so just to please him, without expecting I should go!—And
yet, if the Lady were _very_ much put to it for Mace and green
Ginger.... And if Master _Blower’s_ Heart were very much set upon giving
her the Saffron-cake.... I supposed I had better go. If I found myself
very much out of Place, I could come away the next Day.
Then I thought I would go and consult _Violet_; for, in Fact, I wanted a
little persuading to do what I very much liked. So I stepped across the
Bridge. The Shop was open, but nobody was in it; so I went to the
Parlour Door, and opened it.
Directly I had done so, I saw _Violet_ and _Mark_, sitting close
together, their Backs to me, and his Arm round her Waist. I closed the
Door so softly that they did not know it had been opened, and went Home.
A Pang shot through my Heart. It was entirely on their own Accounts, for
I had ceased, for Years, to have Anything but a most sisterly Concern in
him; and his Character, compared with those of the People I had most
loved, failed to stand the Test: but I thought this was too quick, too
sudden, to be quite comely or decent; there was too much Passion, too
little Self-respect.
I now made up my Mind without any more Hesitation, that I would go into
the Country. I gave my parting Directions to _Dolly_, and desired her to
let _Mark_ have Things comfortable. Then I made up my little
Travelling-equipage, not forgetting my Commissions. Being in fresh,
well-made Mourning, there was no Trouble or Anxiety about Dress. I quite
enjoyed the pleasing Bustle of Preparation, though I did not expect to
be absent longer than a Week.
_Mark_ was not very punctual to the Supper-hour; and as he said Nothing
of his Visit over the Way, I was to conclude him all Day at my _Lord
Mayor’s_ or in _Cheapside_. But the deep Carmine of his Cheek and the
burning Light of his Eye, told Tales. I asked him if he had dined. He
carelessly replied yes, with a Friend. I asked him if he had seen the
_Lord Mayor_. He said yes, it had been a more troublesome Business than
he expected: they had asked him so many searching Questions, and had got
the whole Story out of him. He feared he had cut a sorry Figure. At any
Rate, he had in his own Sight. Then I asked him whether he had got back
his House. He said yes, and had put an old Woman into it, who had
undertaken to fumigate it. Everything seemed sealed up, but he could not
help fearing many Things were gone. The old Place looked so dismal, he
came away as soon as he could.
After a Pause, he said, “_Cherry_, I feel a strong Inclination to get
rid of that Concern altogether. The Situation is capital, and I shall
get Something for the Business; but I have a great Mind to set up
somewhere else; and though your Father’s was a much smaller Business
than ours, yet my happiest Hours have been passed under this Roof; and
if you like to give up the Shop to me, I will give for it whatever I get
for my own. And you can still live with us.... I mean, we can still live
here together. What say you, _Cherry_?”
I said, “Dear _Mark_, I have no Wish to receive for these Premises what
you get for your own. The Shop you are welcome to; the Business you will
have to remake for yourself, for it has dwindled quite away; I shall be
very glad to continue to live with you as long as you like to have me.”
“We ... I shall _always_ like to have you, _Cherry_,” said he, “for
there is only one Person dearer to me in the whole World.”
“My Father has left me so comfortably provided,” said I, “that I shall
never need to be a Burthen on any one.”
“I am glad of it for your own Sake,” returned he; “but, as to my taking
up the Business without paying for it, that is not to be thought of.
Whatever I get for mine, you shall have for yours.”
“So let it stand at present, at any Rate,” said I. “Henceforth, the Shop
is yours. And, _Mark_, you will have the whole House to yourself
to-morrow, for I am going into the Country.”
“Where?” said he, opening his Eyes very wide.
“To _Bucklands Hall_, in _Berkshire_; to stay with Master ... with
Squire and Mistress _Blower_.”
A broad Smile spread over his Face. “I am very glad indeed to hear of
it, _Cherry_,” said he.—“_Very_ glad of it.”
Afterwards, as we sat chatting over our Supper, we got on the Subject of
Ghosts. He asked me if I believed in them. I said no.
“Well, I do,” said he, sighing. And told me of a Story he had had from
the Servant of Sir _Richard Hart_, who, travelling with his Master, had
been summoned by him early one Morning, and charged to ride Home with
all Speed, a Distance of seventeen Miles, and see how fared his
Daughter, whom he conceited to have seen in the Night, standing at his
Bed-foot, with her Hand pressed to her Head. The Man rode back as he was
told; and returned with the News that the young Lady had indeed been
taken ill about four o’Clock that Morning, but had had a Doctor with
her, and was now pretty well again. However, in the Course of the Day
she died.
I said, “Her Father, in a Dream, may have had so strong an Impression he
was waking, that to him it had all the Effect of being awake.”
“But such a Dream as should so raise the Dead, or pre-figure their
Death, _Cherry_,” said _Mark_, “would be as bad as if they _were_
raised—to _us_.... I think I, for one, could not stand it.” And I saw
then why he was afraid to return to his own House.
We talked the Matter quietly over for some Time; and I asked him why, if
the Course taken by Divine Providence in the Administration of human
Affairs ever admitted of the Re-appearance of the Dead, the recorded
Cases of such supposed Appearances should only be to frighten some timid
Person, restore a Bag of Gold, or acquaint some one with what they would
otherwise know a few Hours after. This appeared to strike him; but he
said it might be for the Sake of Warning. I said, If for Warning, why
not for Comfort? How glad should I have been, for Instance, to be
informed supernaturally that all was well with my Father? He said, not
_that_ Way, surely. I replied yes, that Way or any Way that it had
pleased the ALMIGHTY to vouchsafe me such Knowledge. I should not be
afraid (and there was an Intensity of Earnestness in me as I said it) to
see either him or my Mother, either in or out of the Body.
“Well,” muttered he, half under his Breath, “I wish I could feel as much
with regard to my Wife.” And, regarding me with some Earnestness, added,
“You’re a bold little Thing, _Cherry_!”
As I wished him Good-night, he stayed me for a Moment, and said, with
all his old Frankness and Trust, “_Violet_ and I have made Things out
between us, _Cherry_.”
I said fervently, “Then, may you both be happy. My Belief is, that she
is likelier to make you happy now, than she was before.”
“Not quite so pretty, though,” said he, rather regretfully. “However, I
don’t mind that.—For, you see, _Cherry, I love her_!”
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XIV
_Riding a Pillion_
DOLLY and I had spent great Part of the Afternoon in brushing up and
cleaning an old black riding Skirt of my Mother’s, which it was a Wonder
I had not cut up into Garments for the Poor. When we had cleaned it with
Hollands, and ironed it nicely, it looked very well; for our House was
so airy, that our Clothes never had the Moth.
Precisely at the Hour named, an old Man in purple Livery rode up to the
Door, on a grey Horse with a Pillion. _Mark_, who was very lively this
Morning, told me he thought the Horse looked like a Bolter; but I knew
he was only laughing at me. Then he asked me how I meant to mount; I
said, with a Chair, to be sure. He said, “Nonsense!” and lifted me up in
a Moment, and arranged my Riding-skirt as nicely as if he had been a
Lady’s Groom. Then he told the old Man to be careful of me; but the old
Coachman proved to be both dull and deaf, by reason of great Age; so
_Mark_ whispered me that he was not afraid of his running away with me,
if the Horse did not; finishing with “Good-bye, _Mistress Blower_.”
I gave him an indignant Look, and said, “For shame, _Mark_! I have not
deserved that!”
“Well,” said he, “_I_ think you _have_.” And just then the old Man
jerked the Rein of the old Horse, which moved off so suddenly, that I
was fain to catch hold of the old Man’s Coat; and the last Glance I had
of _Mark_ was a merry one.
At first I felt a little bit frightened; but soon got used to my new
Position; especially as the Horse walked till we were off the Stones.
Still we seemed a long while getting out of _London_; and we met a great
many People returning to it, in Carts, Waggons, and Coaches.
At length we got quite out of Town, and between green Hedges, with Trees
beyond them that were turning all manner of Colours; with only a House
here and there, or a Wayside Inn. At one of the latter we stopped in the
middle of the Day, to rest the Horse, and take some Refreshment. Then we
continued our Journey, which lasted till Sunset, and the latter Part of
which was mighty pleasant and delightsome; only I was beginning to be a
little weary with so much shaking. But, when I saw how charming a Place
the Country was, I wondered how People could live in Towns ... unless on
a Bridge.
At length we turned off the Highway into a Bye-road, shaded with tall
Trees, which, after a Mile or two, brought us to a straggling Village;
and, says the Coachman, “Mistress, now we’s in _Bucklands_.” Presently
we passed the absolutest curiosity of a little old Church!... it seemed
hardly bigger than a Nutmeg-grater!—and hard by it, the old Parsonage,
with three Stone Peaks in front, and a great Pear-Tree before the Door.
Then we came to a Village Green, with a Clump of large Trees in the
Midst, that had Seats round them, whereon sat old Men, while young Men
played Cricket, and little Boys were setting a Puppy to bark at some
white Geese. Here we came to a great Iron Gate, at which stood a hale,
hearty-looking Gentleman about fifty; square-built, and not over-tall;
with a good-humoured, red, mottled Face. And, says he, coming up to me,
as we stopped, “Mistress _Cherry_, I’m Squire _Blower_. I can guess who
you are, though my Brother did not tell me you were such a pretty
Girl.—Oh, the Sinner!” And lifted me off the Horse.
“Well,” says he, “you don’t look quite sure that I’s I.... I _am_,
though! Certainly, not much like _Nat_, who was always the Beauty of the
Family. Ah! now you laugh, which was just what I wanted. My Brother said
your silver Laugh saved his Life;—do you know what he meant by that?”
We were now walking up a strait gravel Walk, between clipped Hedges, to
an old red-brick House, with stone Facings. “I suppose, Sir,” said I,
after thinking a little, “he meant that my laughing was as good as
Silver to him, because it saved him the Doctor.”
“That was it, no doubt,” returns he; “just such an Answer, Mistress
_Cherry_, as I expected. I see we shall get on very well together,
though _Nat_ is not here to help the Acquaintance.—He has gone to see
his old Foster-mother, who is dying. People _will_ die, you know, when
they get to eighty or ninety.”
[Illustration:
An old red-brick House
]
We were now going up a Flight of shallow Steps, with Stone Ballusters,
which led us into a Hall, paved with great Diamonds of black and white
Marble, and hung about with Guns, Fishing-rods, and Stag’s Horns. An
Almanack and King _Charles’s_ golden Rules were pasted against the Wall;
and a stuffed Otter in a Glass Case hung over the great Fire-place,
where a Wood-fire burned on the Hearth.
Before this Wood-fire was spread a small _Turkey_ Carpet; and on the
Carpet stood a Table and four heavy Chairs; in one of which sat an old
Lady knitting. The Squire bluntly accosted her with “Mother, here’s
Mistress _Cherry_;” on which she said, “Ho!”—laid down her Knitting, and
looked hard at me; first over, and then through her Spectacles.
“Hum!” says she, “Mistress _Cherry_, you are welcome. A good Day to you.
Pray make yourself at Home, and be seated.”
So I sat down over against her, and we looked at each other very stiff.
She was short and fat, with round blue Eyes, and a rosy Complexion; and
had a sharper, shrewder Look than the Squire.
“I dare say she’s hungry, Mother,” says the Squire; “give her a Piece of
Gingerbread or Something.—How soon shall we have Supper?”
“You are always in such a Hurry, Father, to be eating;” says his Lady.
“Forsooth, are we not to wait for your Brother?”
And without waiting for his Answer, she took a bunch of Keys from her
Apron-string, and unlocked a little Corner-cupboard, from which she
brought me a Slice of rich Seed-cake, and a large Glass of Wine.
“Thank you, Madam; I am not hungry,” said I.
“Pooh! Child, you must be;” returns she, rather authoritatively. “Never
be afraid of eating and drinking before Company, as if it were a Crime!”
So, thus admonished, I ate and drank: though I would as lief have waited
a little.
“Are you stiff with your Ride?” says she.
“A little, Madam,” said I; “for I was ne’er on a Horse before.”
“Is it possible,” cries she, bursting out a-laughing. “Father, did you
hear that?”
“Famous!” said he; and they eyed me as if I were a Curiosity.
“Do you know, now,” says the Squire’s Lady to me, after a while, “I
never was in _Lunnon_!”
“That seems as strange to me, Madam,” said I, “as it seems to you that I
should never have been on Horseback.”
“It _is_ strange,” says she. “Both are strange.”
“And now _I’ll_ tell you Something that is strange,” says the Squire,
“since we all seem surprising one another. Do you know, Mistress
_Cherry_,” stepping up behind his Wife, and laying a Hand on each of her
Shoulders, while he spoke to me over her Head, “that this little
round-about Woman was once as pretty a Girl as you are?”
“Stuff! Squire,” says his Lady.
“Fact!” persisted he. “Nay, prettier!”
“Not a Word of Truth in it,” says she, shaking him off. “I was all very
well,—nothing more. Come, Father, here’s _Gatty_ going to spread the
Cloth for Supper, which you’ll be glad of. But, _Gatty_, in the first
Place shew Mistress _Cherry_ to her Chamber, ... she will perhaps like
to dress a little. You’ll excuse my attending you, my Dear; the Stairs
try my Breath.”
I followed _Gatty_ up Stairs to the prettiest Room that ever was! When I
came down, the Cloth was spread, and the Squire’s Lady signed me to the
Chair over against her, and was just going to say Something, when,
crossing between me and the Sun, I saw the Shadow of a Man against the
Wall, and knew it for Master _Blower’s_. Ah! what came over me at that
Moment, to make me so stupid, I know not.—Perhaps that saucy Saying of
_Mark’s_ ... but whatever it was, instead of my going up to Master
_Blower_, when he came in, which he did the next Moment, and asking him
simply and straitforwardly how he was, I must needs colour all over like
a Goose, and wait till he came quite up to me, without having a Word to
say for myself.
“Ah, _Cherry_!” says he, taking my Hand quite frankly, “how glad I am to
see you! Are you quite well?”
And, the Moment I heard his pleasant Voice, I was quite comfortable
again, and felt myself at Home for the first Time.
“Quite, thank you, Sir,” said I, “and I hope you are better than you
were.”
“Well, now that civil Things have passed on both Sides,” said the
Squire, who had already seated himself, “come and say Grace, _Nat_, for
here’s a Couple of beautiful Fowls getting cold.”
—Well, the Supper was as pleasant as could be, and it was growing quite
dusk before the Table was cleared, yet the Squire would not hear of
having Candles; so then his Lady desired _Gatty_ to carry Lights into
the green Parlour, “Where,” says she, “I and this young Person will
retire, and be good enough Company for each other, I dare say.”
Oh, I’m a young Person, am I? thought I. So I followed her into the
green Parlour, where she settled herself in an easy Chair, with her Feet
on a Footstool, and made me sit facing her. “Now,” says she, “the Men
can prose by themselves, and we’ll have a Coze by _our_selves. Pray,
Child, how was it you came to think of nursing my Brother?”
So I began to tell her how I went to him in Hope of his telling me how
to find my Father; but then, she wanted to know how my Father came to be
missing, so I had to go further back. And then I could not help putting
in by the Way how good and excellent a Man he was, how tender a Father,
how loving a Husband, which brought in my Mother. But I checked myself,
and begged the Lady’s Pardon for entering on that, which I knew could no
Ways interest her.—“Nay, let me hear it all,” says she, “I shall like to
hear Something about your Mother.” So then I told her of her holy Life,
and saintlike End; and of Master _Blower’s_ invaluable Ministrations,
which of course interested her a good deal; and indeed I saw a Tear
steal down her Cheek, while I kept mine down as well as I could. Then I
went on to the Plague, and my Father’s Heaviness of Spirits; and his
going forth and never coming back, and my going in quest of him, and all
the Events of that terrible Day, which I could not go over without
crying very heartily. She wept too; yet cried, “Go on, go on!” So then I
got to Master _Blower_, and the sleeping Watchman, and my getting into
the House, and going from Room to Room, and hearing him yawn,—which made
her laugh; though she cried again when she heard of his praying, and of
his Sufferings that fearful Night and many Days after. At the End of
all, she got up, put her Arms about my Neck, and kissed me. “_Cherry_,”
says she, “you’re an excellent Creature!”—Just then, a great Bell began
to ring,—“That’s the Prayer-bell!” says she. “We will return to the
Hall, my Dear.”
So we returned to the Hall, much more at our Ease together than when we
left it. And there, standing in a Row, were half a Dozen Men and Women
Servants, and the Table had Candles and a large Bible on it. Master
_Blower_ read, and then prayed: had I not been so tired, I could have
wished him to go on all Night! Then we dispersed to our several
Chambers; and I had so much to think about that it seemed as though I
should never get to sleep: however, I did at last.
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XV
_The Squire’s Garden_
BEFORE I went to Bed, I peeped out of my Window, and saw the full Moon
shining over the broad gravel Walks and Fishponds; and I thought how
much I should like to go round the Garden before Breakfast. However,
when I woke in the Morning, I feared I had been oversleeping myself, so
dressed in a great Hurry, and went down Stairs. There I found two Maids
flooding the great Hall with Pails of Water, and they told me we were to
breakfast in the green Parlour, but not for an Hour yet. So I strayed
out into the Garden, where were still a good many Flowers, though the
Season was so late, backed by Evergreen Hedges, and Rows of tall Trees
that were turning yellow and scarlet; and it seemed to me just like the
Garden of _Eden_.
So I went on and on, thinking it mighty pleasant, and wondering what
might be the Names of some of the Flowers; and at length I came to a
Bowling-green, of wonderful fine Turf, between high Horn-beam Hedges;
and having a Sun-dial at one End, and a little brick Summer-house faced
with Stone at the other. Into the Summer-house I went; and there, with
all his Books and Papers about him, sat Master _Blower_ writing.
[Illustration:
A Bowling-Green of wonderful Fine Turf.
]
“Ah, _Cherry_!” says he, holding out his Hand, “so you’ve found out my
Snuggery! Have they sent you to summon me to Breakfast?”
“No, Sir,” said I, “I did not know you were here.” And turned away.
“Stop a Minute,” says he, hastily putting up his Papers, “and we will
take a Turn together round this wonderful Garden. The Garden of your
_Dream, Cherry_.”
I said how very odd it was I should have dreamed about it,—the Garden of
my Dream being so exactly like the Reality.
“Why, you simple Girl,” says he, laughing; “because I must have
described it to you before, though you and I had forgotten it!”
I felt quite sure in my own Mind that he had not.
“Well,” says he, setting out with me along the Bowling-green, “what’s
the News, _Cherry_? The Plague, you say, is abating, but not gone. Have
you seen or heard Anything of my poor People?”
I said yes. Mistress _Peach_ had come to me on my sending for her the
Evening before I left; and had told me how Things were going on.
“And how _are_ they going on?” said he.
“Well, Sir, it would be a poor Compliment to you, if they were going on
as well in your Absence, as in your Presence.”
“That’s true,” says he, looking grave; “but, for Particulars.”
“Many Persons in Trouble of one kind or another, knock at your Door; and
when they find they cannot see you, go away in Tears.”
“Poor Souls!” said he, much moved, “I will return to them shortly. I
think I am almost well enough now, _Cherry_. They think I am neglecting
them?”
“No, Sir, they are very sorry you need recruiting; but they are sorry
for themselves too.”
“It’s a very nice Point,” says he musingly, “when we ought to lie by. I
believe, had I not left Town when I did, I might have been dead now—and
yet, perhaps I was like a Soldier deserting his Post.”
I said, “No, Sir, you were liker to a Soldier carried off the
Battlefield to the Hospital.”
“Thank you, _Cherry_,” says he, taking my Hand and drawing it under his
Arm. We had now reached the End of the Bowling-green; but instead of
turning into the Garden, we continued walking up and down.
“And what else?” says he. “Come, let me hear all.”
“Well, Sir,” said I, “there’s not much more to tell——”
“Something, though, I can see!” said he. “Come! out with it, _Cherry_!”
“Sir,” said I, “it’s of no Use for us to trouble and vex ourselves about
what wicked People will say of us in mere wantonness.”
“Sometimes, though, we may hear the Truth from an Enemy,” says he. “And
what do wicked, wanton People say of me?”
“Why, Sir,—some very evil-minded, malapert Person hath writ on your
Church-door, ‘A Pulpit to Let!’”
[Illustration:
The Squire’s Garden
]
“The Rascal!” said he hastily, and colouring very red. “Why now, did I
not keep on, Sabbaths and Week-days, till the Plague-swellings were
actually in my Throat, though my Congregation often consisted of only
two or three old Women? Is not this enough to provoke a Man, _Cherry_?”
I said, “Yes, Sir,—only there’s no Use in being provoked.”
“None, none,” says he, much perturbed,—“GOD forgive me for it!—I can
hardly have Patience, though, with them.”
I said, “Dear Sir, you must have Nothing _but_ Patience with them.”
“You are right, you are right,” says he, cooling, but still much moved.
“Ill or well, I must go back to them forthwith.... The Fact is, there is
a Matter I would gladly have settled here, a little at my Leisure.—But,
Duty before all! So, I’ll go back, _Cherry_, to mine.”
I smiled a little as I said, “Somebody has been doing Duty for you, the
last Week or ten Days, Sir.”
“Who?” cried he.
I said, “An Independent Minister.”
A complex Kind of Expression crossed his Face; for a Moment he looked
pained and provoked, and then burst out a-laughing.
“GOD bless the worthy Fellow!” cries he, “I’ll do him a good Turn if I
can, the first Time he’ll let me! ‘The good LORD accept every one that
prepareth his Heart to seek GOD, the LORD GOD of his Fathers, even
though he be not cleansed according to the Purification of the
Sanctuary!’—Well, _Cherry_, I must go! and that forthwith,—I would fain
have tarried here while your Visit lasted.”
I looked quite blank at the Idea of being left behind; and said, “Must
I, then, stay?”
“Why,” cried he, “what is to prevent you? Your Visit is not to _me,
Cherry_!”
I said, “Oh, Sir, but ...” and stopped, for I did not know whether it
were right to say I should feel so lonely without him. But the Tears
came into my Eyes.
“I hope,” says he, in his kindest Way, “you will stay and have a very
pleasant Visit.”
I said, “It won’t,—it can’t be pleasant now.”
“_Cherry_,” he said, yet more affectionately, “we shall soon meet
again.... You shake your Head.—Well, our Lives are not in our own
keeping, certainly, and may be called in the next Minute, here as well
as in _London_. And I should not like to die away from my Post. But,
_Cherry_, since you are inexpressibly dear to me, and I think I am, in a
less Degree, dear to you, why, when we meet next, should we ever part
again?—Nay, hear me, _Cherry_! for I have long meant to say this, though
not quite so soon.... I thought it would seem so abrupt; I wanted to
bring you to it by Degrees, lest I should get an Answer I did not like.
For, indeed, _Cherry_, I know how much too old I am for you, how
thoroughly unworthy of you.”
I could not stand this, and cried, “Oh, how _can_ you say such Things,
Sir! Unworthy of _me_, indeed! when any Woman——”
Might be proud to have you, was my Thought, but I did not say it.
“_Cherry_,” says he, “there was never——” And just at that Moment a Man
shouted, “High!” at the Top of his Voice, and then, “Breakfast!”
“We’re keeping them waiting,” said I, slipping my Hand from his Arm,
“and you’ve left your Papers all blowing about in the Summer-house.” And
so, ran off to the House.
Fain would I not have gone straight to Breakfast, but there was no Help
for it; and the Squire kept loading my Plate, and yet saying I ate
Nothing. He and his Lady were wondrous sorry to hear Master _Blower_ say
he must return to Town the next Day; and looked rather askance at me for
having brought down any Tidings that should summon him thither. After
Breakfast, however, he took his Brother aside to explain to him how
needful was his Return to his Parish; and Mistress _Blower_, bringing
forth an immense Quantity of Patchwork of very intricate Contrivance,
said, “Now, you and I will do a good Morning’s Work:”—and told me it was
a Fancy of hers to furnish a little Bed-chamber with Patchery, lined
with Pink, and fringed with White. However, Master _Blower_ put a Check
to all this, as far as my Help went, by coming in and saying that as
this was to be his last Day in the Country, he wanted to take a long
Walk with me, and shew me the finest View in the County. Mistress
_Blower_ made one or two Objections, which he summarily over-ruled; so,
in a very few Minutes, off we were walking together. And first, without
any Reference to what had been said before Breakfast, he took me round
the Village Green, and into the Church and Churchyard; and made me look
over the Parsonage Gate. I said, “Dear me, if I were you, Sir, how much
sooner I would be Parson here than in _Whitechapel_!”
“Would you?” cries he. “Oh, but this is a very poor Living!”
I said, “I did not know you cared much for Money.”
“Well,” he said, “not to spend on myself, but as a Means of Usefulness.
And, oh _Cherry_! there is so much Wretchedness in _London_, that one
cannot, after all, relieve!—I’ll tell you what I do,” continues he,
turning down a green Lane with me, “as a general Rule I give away half.
That was _Zaccheus’_ Measure, you know. But, as a single Man, I have
found the other Half a great deal too much for me, so I give away all I
can of it in Casualties ... just to please myself, as it were. But I
don’t consider this Sub-division imperative; therefore, when you and I
commence Housekeeping together, which I hope will be in a _very_ little
While, we will spend the full Half. Will that suffice you?”
“No indeed, Sir,” said I, “I shall be very sorry indeed if I add to your
Expenses so much as that. I would rather give the Poor another Mouthful
than deprive them of one; and as I shall only cost you just what I eat
and wear, I hope it won’t make much Difference.”
“You’re a comical Girl,” says he. “But, _Cherry_, I’m sorry to say, that
rambling old House of mine is now so completely out of Repair, as to be
unfit for a Lady’s Occupation. We must paint it and point it, and mend
the Roof.”
“Well, but,” said I, “my Father has left me six hundred Pounds, which
will do all that very well.”
“Six hundred Pounds!” says he, opening his Eyes very wide, and then
laughing. “Why, you’ve a Fortune, _Cherry_! How could the dear, good Man
have saved it? I thought his Business seemed quite dwindled away.”
“He had some Money with my Mother, Sir,” said I. “And an Uncle left him
a Legacy. Besides this Money, which Master _Benskin_ and Master
_Braidfoot_ pay Interest for, the House is mine for a long Term; and
_Mark_ means to buy the Business; so that I hope I shall not be very
expensive to you.”
“Well,” says he, “it will be for After-consideration whether we repair
the Parsonage at once or not. All shall be as you wish it, _Cherry_.”
And then we went on talking of this and that till we came to a Seat
under a Tree; and there we sat and talked all the Rest of the Morning;
for he did not care much for going on to see the Prospect.
After Dinner, it became Master _Blower’s_ Object to persuade me to name
a very early Day indeed—even that Day Week; and, though I could hardly
endure to think of so sudden a Change, and thought it would seem so
strange and so unwomanly to Everybody, yet the main Thing that wrought
upon me was what I kept to myself; namely, the Danger he was going to
incur in returning to his Duties before the Infection was over. And I
thought how I should reproach myself if he fell ill, and died for want
of my Nursing. But then, again, it would seem so outrageous to the
Squire and his Lady.... Not at all, he said, they knew all about his
wanting to marry me before ever they sent for me, and the Squire’s Lady
had at first been very cool about it; but before we parted at Night, I
had quite won her over; and she said to him when the Door closed upon
me, “Well, _Nat_, you may marry that Girl as soon as you like.”
I could hardly help laughing.—What was I to do? I said, oh, very well, I
supposed they must all have their own Way,—I would try to be not very
miserable about it. So, when we went in to Supper, Master _Blower_ made
no Secret of what we had been talking about; and Mistress _Blower_
kissed me, and so did the Squire, and we had a wonderful pleasant
Supper. When Master _Blower_ was taking leave of me, he asked me if I
had any Message to send Home. It then struck me I must send Word to
_Mark_ and _Dolly_ how soon my Condition was going to be changed,—but,
what could I say?—I had scarce written a Letter in my Life; least of all
to _Mark_; and could not for the Life of me think of any Way of telling
him the News, sufficiently round-about to prevent its seeming abrupt
after all. So, thought I, least said, soonest mended: and, sitting down
to Pen, Ink, and Paper, I wrote in my smallest, neatest Hand,—
“Dear _Mark_,
“I’m going to be Mistress _Blower_.”
And sealed it up and directed it. Master _Blower_ said, “Short, if not
sweet!” and promised it should be faithfully delivered.
When he was gone, the Patchwork was put away, and the Wedding-dresses
sent for. Dear Mistress _Blower_ was as kind as a Mother to me, though
her Husband was only five Years older than mine. Indeed she and the
Squire looked upon me quite as a Girl, though I told them over and over
again I was not. Though they called each other Father and Mother, they
had never had but one Child, which died at three Years old; but I
suppose it was always in their Thoughts.
What a happy Week that was!—though Master _Blower_ was away. On the
Whole, his Absence was a good Thing: it gave me Time to steady a little,
and feel that it was not a Dream that I was going to live always within
the Sound of his dear Voice. And, as there was much Sewing to do, I had
Plenty of Time to think of it. Mistress _Blower_ gave me my
Wedding-clothes,—we had Post-horses to the old Coach, and went to buy
them at the County Town. The Gown was white Silk; the Hat trimmed with a
Wreath of very little pink Roses round the Crown; and I had a
cherry-colour Habit for travelling. Master _Blower_ said he did not
deserve such a pretty Bride,—but that was his kind Way of speaking. I
only wish I were better worth his having!
—We went away from the Church-door,—as happy a Bridegroom and Bride as
ever rode a Pillion. When we had got out of Everybody’s Sight, my
Husband said, “How are you getting on, Mistress _Blower_?” I said, “I am
smiling so that I am quite glad there’s Nobody to see me.” “May the Rest
of your Life be all Smiles and no Tears, _Cherry_,” says he,—“with GOD’S
Blessing, it shall be so if I can make it so!” “Ah!” said I, “I’m
content to take the Rough and the Smooth together, since I shall
henceforth share them with you, Sir.” “Dearest _Cherry_,” says he, “you
really must leave off calling me _Sir_!”
[Illustration]
“I don’t know that I can, Sir,” said I, “but I’ll try.”
Though the Journey was delightsome, yet towards the latter End of it,
every Mile of the Road became less and less pleasant, till at length we
got into the Tide of People, on Horse and on Foot, setting in towards
_London_. Then, how strange it seemed to me that I was not going back to
the Bridge! where I had lived all the Days of my Life till within the
last Week! I began to tremble a little; and the Idea of the great old
roomy, gloomy House in _Whitechapel_, with no bright, sparkling Water to
look out upon, became rather oppressive to me, till I thought how Master
_Blower’s_ continual Presence would light it up. The Streets now
becoming thronged, he pressed my Arm tighter to him and bade me hold on
close; and I felt he was all the World to me, be the House what it
would. But when we reached it, what a Difference! The whole Front had a
fresh Coat of Paint, which made it wondrous lightsome and cheerful; the
Door-step was fresh whitened, the Door fresh varnished, the Knocker
fresh polished, and Mistress _Peach_ standing on the Step with a new Cap
plaited close round her sweet, pleasant Face, and dressed in a new
grass-green Gown. I could not help kissing her as I ran in; she said,
“GOD bless you, Mistress!” with hearty Cordiality, and followed me from
Room to Room. Everything had been cleaned up, and she told me, laughing,
that though she had had Plenty of Helps, it had been the hardest Week’s
Work she had ever had in her Life. The old green Bed-furniture had given
Place to new white Dimity; there was a Lady’s Pincushion on the
Toilette, with “May you be happy!” in minikin Pins; and a Beau-pot of
Flowers on the Window-seat. “All that is Mistress _Violet’s_ doing,”
said _Dorcas_; “she has not left the House half an Hour, I assure you,
and her Needle went in and out as fast as could be when she was
finishing the last Muslin Blind. Oh, she has been very busy, has
Mistress _Violet_! ’Twas she set out the Supper Table with the Flowers,
and Sweet-meats, and Pound-cake.”
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XVI
_The Burning City_
NEXT Day, the Holiday of Life was over, its Duties re-commenced. Master
_Blower_ had an Accumulation of Business to attend to, and I had Plenty
to do about the House. Before the End of the Week, I was immersed in
Cares that were Pleasures to me, inasmuch as they lightened his own. But
I could not resist paying a Visit to the Bridge, and spending an Hour in
the dear old House, and another, afterwards, with _Violet_. She and
_Mark_ came to sup with us. I found they were not going to marry till
six Months were out, which was full quick, after all; but I was thankful
they would wait so long. A Change seemed coming over _Mark_; he was
steady, composed, attentive to Business, and far pleasanter, whether
lively or sad, than in his earlier Days. As to _Violet_, she was
infinitely softened, and the old Spirit of Coquetry seemed quite to have
burned out. We did not see them often, but Master _Blower_ always
received them kindly, and they seemed to consider it a Privilege as well
as a Pleasure to come to us.
Thus, the Winter wore on: the Plague was stayed; and though it was
common to meet in the Streets Men in their Nightcaps, limping, or with
their Throats bound up, no one thought of getting out of their Way, for
the Infection had spent itself. And Persons that were Strangers to each
other might be heard exchanging Congratulations on the improved State of
Things, now that Houses and Shops were re-opening, the Weeds beginning
to disappear from the Thoroughfares, and Men no longer walked along the
Middle of the Streets, but on the Foot-pavements.
My dear Husband endeavoured to impress the Hearts and Minds of his
People, in Season and out of Season, with a Sense of the Mercy that had
preserved them; but, I am sorry to say, with very little permanent
Effect. True it is, at first the Ground was broken up, and the Clods
were soft, and the good Seed that was cast in seemed likely to fructify;
but alas, the hot Sun of worldly Temptation soon hardened the Ground and
burnt the Seed up, and People that had almost miraculously escaped the
general Judgment, seemed little better than they were before. This
depressed my dear Husband very much; but, instead of relaxing his
Efforts, he only redoubled them; and he said I strengthened his Hands.
There was also a great deal of Distress, owing to the general Stagnation
of Trade, and the vast Numbers of People thrown out of Employ. So that,
though we did all we could, it was heart-rending to witness the Misery
in some of the lower Districts of our Parish. We pinched ourselves to
help them, voluntarily giving up such and such Things at our Table; and
this with such Cheerfulness that I really believe our Self-privations
gave us more actual Enjoyment than if we had ate the Fat and drank the
Sweet to our Hearts’ Desire. And once or twice it remarkably happened
that when we had a little exceeded in this Way, and had supplied thereby
the needs of a more than ordinary Number, a great Hamper would arrive
from Mistress _Blower_, full of Game, Poultry, Eggs, Butter, Brawn,
Hams, Tongues, and Everything that was good. Often we talked over that
sweet Place the Hampers came from; and it seemed to me that my Husband
more and more inclined towards the Country; especially as his Throat had
never quite recovered the Effects of the Plague, and he found he could
not make himself heard throughout the remoter Parts of his large Church
without Difficulty. Quite at the End of the Summer, the old Incumbent of
_Bucklands_ Parsonage died; and as the living was in the Squire’s Gift,
and he had some Notion his Brother would like it, he wrote to offer it
to him. My Husband asked my Mind about it; I said I should like it of
all Things, if he could be content with so small and quiet a Field of
Action. He said, yes, the Time had been when it had been otherwise with
him—the harder the Work the greater the Pleasure, especially as carrying
some Sense of Glory in the Victory over it; but it was not so with him
now: he could be content with trying to do good on a small Scale;
especially as he had not been quite so successful on the larger Field of
Action as he had hoped and expected.
“Could I preach like _Apollos_,” continued he, “to what Good, to the
Half of my Congregation, who cannot catch one Word in ten? So that, in
Fact, I preach to a small Congregation already. And I’ve no Mind to
receive the Pay without doing the Work. There’s no Fear, _Cherry_, of my
not making myself audible in _Bucklands_ Church!—Besides, do you know I
fancy I have a little domestic Mission there. My dear, good Brother, who
has dozed under Doctor _Bray_ for so many Years, has languished under a
spiritual Dearth. He is now getting in Years, and I think I may do
Something for him—you know he told you he thought my Sermons were _the
real Thing_.”
“He said,” replied I, “that you not only hit the right Nail on the Head,
but hammered it well in.”
After some further Talk, which only went to prove how completely we were
of a Mind on the Matter, the Letters were written and sent—to accept the
one Living and resign the other. That was on the Second of _September_.
The same Night, broke out that dreadful Fire, which lasted three Days
and three Nights, and destroyed fifteen of the twenty-six City Wards,
including four hundred Streets and Lanes, and thirteen thousand Houses.
Oh, what a dreadful Calamity! We were in Bed, a little after Ten, when
Shrieks and Cries of “Fire!” awoke us; and my dear Husband put his Head
forth of the Window and asked where it was. A Man running along
answered, “On or at the Foot of _London Bridge_!” Then our Hearts failed
us for _Violet_ and _Mark_, and all our old Friends; and we dressed and
went forth, for I could not be stayed from accompanying Master _Blower_.
But before we could reach the Bridge Foot, we found Access to it cut
off, both by Reason of the Crowd and of the Flames: the only Comfort
was, that the Fire kept off the Bridge. There was so much Tumult and
Pressure that we could only keep on the Skirts of the Crowd, where we
hung about without doing any Good for some Hours.
The next Morning, we were in Hope of hearing the Fire had been got
under; instead of which, the whole _Bankside_ was wrapped in Flames, and
all the Houses from the Bridge Foot, and all _Thames Street_, were lying
in Ashes. The People seemed all at Pause, gazing on, without stirring
Hand or Foot, and those that were personal Sufferers were venting their
Grief in Cries and Lamentations. But we could not find that any Life had
yet been lost; and the Fire kept off the Bridge.
When I went Home at Dusk, it was to pray for the poor Sufferers, and
then to muse how far the Calamity might extend. Supper was on Table, but
I had no Mind to eat; which was all the better, as my Husband presently
brought in a poor, weeping Family who had lost Everything, and had not
touched a Morsel all Day. We gave them a good Meal, and Shelter for the
Night. They slept, but we could not. There was no Need of Candles all
that Night, which was as light as Day for ten Miles round. The Fire was
now spreading all along the South Part of the City, leaping from House
to House, and Street to Street, for the very Air seemed ignited; Showers
of Sparks and Ashes were falling in every Direction, and the Pavement
was growing almost too hot to tread upon. My Husband kept bringing in
new Refugees as long as our House would hold them, and I was too busy
caring for them to have Leisure to go forth, even had it been safe; but
each New-comer brought fresh Tidings of the Desolation, which was now
extending to Churches, public Monuments, Hospitals, Companies’ Halls, as
though it would carry all before it. We now began to be in some Alarm
for ourselves; and to consider what we should do if it came our Way; and
now we experienced the Convenience of having but little Treasure that
Moth, Rust, or Fire could injure, for when Master _Blower_ had made up a
small Packet of Papers and ready Money that we could readily carry about
us, there was Nothing left for the Destroyer to consume but our poor
Furniture and the House over our Heads. Very opportunely, at this Time
came to our Door a _Berkshire_ Countryman with one of the good Squire’s
Hampers full of Eatables. I never saw a poor Fellow look so scared! He
got a good View of the Calamity from a Distance, and then set his Face
homewards in as great a Hurry as if the Flames were in Chase of him. The
Streets were now full of Carts loaded with Moveables, which their Owners
were conveying out of Town; giving Way to the Calamity rather than
seeking to arrest it, which, indeed, it was now vain to attempt, though
I think Something might have been done at first. _St. Paul’s_ was now in
a Blaze; the great Stones exploding with intense Heat, and the melted
Lead running along the Gutters. This Night, also, we got scarce any
Rest.
[Illustration:
S^t Paul’s was now in a Blaze
]
The next Morning, while I was overlooking my Stores, and considering how
I should best husband them for my poor Inmates, in comes _Mark_, his
Face blackened, his Hair full of Ashes, his Clothes singed in many
Places, and his Shoes nearly burnt off his Feet.
“Thank GOD, you are safe, then!” cries he, catching hold of both my
Hands. “The Sky looked so fiery in this Quarter during the Night, that
_Violet_ and I were in dreadful Fear for you, and I started at Daybreak,
and came here by making a great Round, to see how it fared with you. And
_Violet_ bids me say that she has not forgotten your Father’s and
Mother’s Kindness to her Father and Mother when they were burned out of
House and Home, nor how she and you were put together in the same
Cradle; and it will make her and me, dear _Cherry_, unspeakably happy to
receive you and Master _Blower_ under the very same Roof, should you be
burnt out of your own.”
I said, “Dear _Mark_, that is so like you and _Violet_! Just the
Kindness I should have expected! Believe me, we shall thankfully accept
it, if there be Need. But at present the Fire is all about us, yet comes
not to us. We have made up our little Parcel of Treasures, (a little
one, indeed, _Mark_!) and are ready to start at a Minute’s Notice,
trusting to a good GOD to spare our Lives. This old House, if it once
catches, will burn like Tinder; meanwhile, come and see how many it
holds.”
So I led him from Room to Room, and shewed him Mothers nursing their
Infants, Children eating Bread and Milk, and old People still sleeping
heavily. He was greatly interested and impressed. “What a good Soul you
are!” said he,—“I can give you no Notion of the Scenes of Misery on the
Outskirts through which I passed on my Way here. People huddled in
Tents, or lying under Hedges, or on Heaps of Litter and broken
Furniture, without a Morsel of Bread or a Cup of Milk, yet none
begging!... I saw a few Bread-carts and Milk-people coming up to them as
I passed along, but many had no Money, not even a Penny, to buy a
Breakfast. I had filled my Purse, _Cherry_, with all that was in the
Till, before I set out; but you see there’s not much in it now——”
And he pulled out an empty Purse, with a Smile that showed he was well
pleased with the Way its Contents had gone. Then we shook Hands
heartily, and parted.
To the loud Crackling of Flames and Crash of falling Buildings, was now
added the blowing up of Houses with Gunpowder, which, indeed, made the
Neighbourhood of them very dangerous to Bystanders, but checked the
Progress of the Fire. However, Nothing effectual could have been done,
had it not pleased ALMIGHTY GOD to stay his Judgment by abating the high
Wind, which fell all at once; whereby the Flames ceased to spread,
though the glowing Ruins continued to burn.
The Crisis being now past, we ceased to be in Apprehension for
ourselves, and devoted all our Attention to the poor, bereft People
under our Care. Some of these were fetched away by their Country
Friends; sooner or later all dispersed; and then we went out into the
Fields adjoining the City, to afford what little Help we could. But oh!
the Desolation! To attempt to assuage that Accumulation of Destitution
by our trivial Means seemed like essaying to subdue the Fire with a Cup
of Water: yet we know that every Little helps; and that even a Cup of
Water, to the thirsty Man who drinks it, quenches not his Thirst the
less, that Thousands beside are parched with Drought. And thus, by
Analogy, concerning the general Amount of human Suffering surrounding us
at all Times, which the wife of a _Whitechapel_ Parson is perhaps as
well qualified to speak of as any one else—We need not be discouraged
from aiding any, because we cannot succour all; since the Relief
afforded is as grateful to him who has it, as though _all_ were
relieved, which it is not GOD’S Will that any should have Power to
accomplish.
By the End of the Month this terrible Calamity was over-past; at least,
as far as we had Anything to do with it, though we continued to give
Shelter to poor, ruined Householders as long as the Parsonage was our
own. The Gentleman who succeeded my dear Husband seemed a benevolent
Sort of Man, a little pompous, maybe, but tenderly disposed towards the
Poor.
And now, Everything being settled, we sold some of our old Furniture,
and sent down the Rest, with Mistress _Peach_, by the Wagon. And my dear
Husband and I entered _Bucklands_ exactly as we had left it, and on the
very same Horse; I in my cherry-colour Habit, that was as fresh as on my
Wedding-day. And here we have been ever since; and he calls me his right
Hand, and says my Attention to all his secular Affairs leaves his Mind
at Liberty to pursue his Duties and Studies without Distraction—and that
I understand the Poor even better than he does—and that I am his best
Counsellor, his dearest Friend, his pleasantest Companion, his darling
_Cherry_!—Yes; he calls me, and I believe he thinks me all this: and as
for _my_ being happy in _him_ ... I should think so, indeed!
FINIS
_Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
_Edinburgh and London_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ The captions for the illustrations don’t exactly match the
captions given in the List of Illustrations.
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ The use of a carat (^) before one or more letters shows they were
intended to be superscripts, as in S^t Bartholomew or L^{d.}
Egemont.
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
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