Christmas Penny Readings: Original Sketches for the Season

“Hurrah, Dick! Tompkins has peached, and they sent fifty pheasants up in Ruddles’s cart this morning; but the old rascal’s locked up, and – hum! That sort of thing looks pretty,” he continued, for we were certainly taken somewhat by surprise. “But, you dog,” he roared, as Jenny darted from the room, “you did not catch the scoundrel.”

However, after that morning’s take, even if a hundred pheasants had been sent in the cart, my uncle would have been plastic as clay, while, an hour afterwards, he exclaimed:

“Why, Dick, I’d almost forgotten my gout.”

Chapter Nineteen

The Spirits of the Bells

Heart-sore and spirit-weary,Life blank, and future dreary,Mournfully I gazed upon my fire’s golden glow,Pondering on idle errors,Writhing under conscience terrors,Gloomily I murmured, with my spirits faint and low.I had drained the golden measure,Sipped the sweets of so-called pleasure,Seeing in the future but a time for newer joy;Now I found their luscious cloying,Ev’ry hope and peace destroying,Golden visions, brightest fancies – bitter, base alloy.Riches, comfort spoke then vainly,To a brain thus tinged insanely,Wildly throbbing, aching, teeming,Fancy-filled with hideous dreaming,Speaking of an aimless life, a life without a goal:While as if to chide my murmur,Came a voice which cried, “Be firmer,Would’st be like the beasts that perish? Think thou of thy soul.”Starting from my chair and trembling,Vainly to my heart dissembling,’Twas an idle fancy that had seemed to strike my ear;Still the words came stealing round me,Horror in its chains had bound me;Dripping from my aching brow, were beads of deepest fear.Hurrying to my moonlit casement,Throwing up the sash,Highest roof to lowest basementSeemed to brightly flash,Glitt’ring white, with Winter’s dressing;While each crystal was caressingPurest rays that glanced around it from the moon’s pale light.Nature slept in sweetest beauty,Gleaming stars spoke hope and duty:Calmer grew my aching brow, beneath the heavenly sight.Christmas-Eve! the Christian’s morrowSoon would dawn on joy and sorrow,Spreading cheer and holy pleasure brightly through the land;Whilst I, lonely, stricken-hearted,Under bitter mem’ries smarted,Standing like an outcast, or as one the world had banned.Sadly to my chair returning,By my fire still brightly burning,Battling with the purer rays that through the window gleamed;Like two spirits floating o’er me,Vividly rays played before me,Each to wrap me in its light that on my forehead streamed.The glowing fire with warm embracingTold of earthly, sinful racing:Warmth and pleasure in its looks, but in its touch sharp pain;While the moonbeams, paler, purer,Spoke of pleasures, sweeter, surer,Oft rejected by Earth’s sons for joys that bear a stain.Suddenly with dread I shivered,As the air around me quivered,Laden with the burden of a mighty spirit-tone,Rolling through the midnight stilly,Borne upon the night-wind chilly,Rushing through my chamber, where I sat in dread alone.“Soul!” it cried, in power pealing,“Soul!” the cry was through me stealing,Vibrating through each fibre with a wonder-breeding might.“Soul!” the voice was deeply roaring;“Soul!” rang back from roof and flooring,Booming thro’ the silence of the piercing winter night.Now came crashing, wildly dashing,Waves of sound in power splashing,Ringing, swinging, tearing, scaring,Shrieking out in words unsparing,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Roaring through my chamber portal,Borne thro’ window, borne thro’ ceilingEver to my sense revealing,Still the bells these words were pealing,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Till my room seemed filled with bells that rang the self-same strain;While, above the brazen roaring,Mightily the first tone pouring,Boomed out “Soul!” in mighty pow’r, and linked in with the chain.Then an unseen presence o’er meLeant, and from my chamber tore me:Out upon the night-wind I was swept among the sounds,Whirling on amid the pealing,Warning to the city dealingOf the coming morrow, in reverberating rounds.Still they cried, as from doom’s portal,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Shrieking all around me as I floated with the wind,Ever borne away and crying,Every bell-tone swiftly flyingO’er the silent city, to its slumber now consigned.Hurried round each airy tower,Writhing with the unseen powerVainly, for a spirit-chain each struggling limb would bind;Doomed to hear those words repelling,Ever on my senses knelling,Still – a booming hurricane —we wrestled with the wind.Sweeping o’er the sluggish river,Where dark piles the waves dissever,’Neath the bridges, by the shipping,Sluice-gates, with the waters dripping,By the rustling, moaning rushes,Where the tribute-water gushes;Forced to gaze on ghastly faces,Where the dread one left his traces,Faces of the suicide, the murdered floated on,Whose blue, leaden lips, unclosing,Shrieked out words, my brain that froze in,Crying I had stayed my help in hours long passed and gone.“Hopeless, hopeless!” ever crying,“Hopeless we are round you dying,Asking vainly for the aid withheld in selfish grasp;Hopeless, from the crime that’s breeding,Ever to new horrors leading,Horrors, growing, flow’ring, seeding,Soon to spread a poison round more deadly than the asp.”Still an unseen presence bound me;Still the bells were shrieking round me,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Rising, falling, ever calling,Thought and mem’ry, soul appalling,Borne away and louder crying,In the distance softly dying;Here in gentle murmurs sighing,Then again far higher flying,Swiftly o’er the houses hieing;While around these fear-begettersBound me in their brazen fetters.On I sped with brain on fire,’Mid the bell-tones, higher, higher,List’ning to their words upbraiding,Each with dread my soul new lading.Now away, the mighty chorusSwept around a church before us,In whose yard were paupers lying.From their graves I heard them crying,Joining in the words upbraiding,Loudly piercing, softly fading:“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”“Cease your murmurs, cease your sorrow,From our fate a lesson borrow:Never heeded, lost to pity,Dying round you through the city.Leave us to our peaceful sleeping,Freed from hunger, care, and weeping.”O’er and o’er the hillocks grassy,Now away o’er buildings massy:Ever cries, as from doom’s portal,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Thro’ the wards where pain was shrieking,Where disease was vengeance wreaking,Still the sounds were hurrying, crying,As in emulation trying;Many a fev’rish slumber breaking;O’er the lips that knew no slaking.All were crying, help imploring;While the bells from roof to flooring,Still, as from the first beginning,Still the self-same burden dinning,Spite of all my writhing, tearing,Onward still my spirit bearingFar away in booming sallies,Rushing thro’ the crowded alleys,Where grim Want his wings was quiv’ringO’er the pinched forms, half clad, shiv’ring;Where disease and death were hov’ring;Where deep sorrow earth was cov’ring.Away, again, where life was failing;Away, again, by orphans wailing;Thro’ the prison bars now darting,Where the fettered wretch lay smarting,Wakened from his sleep, and starting,He too shrieked in bitter partingCurses on my aid withholden,In the glorious hours golden,Wasted, thrown away in madness —Hours that might deep sorrow, sadness.Misery, have chased from numbers, —Chased the want the earth that cumbers.Away, away, and faster speeding,Away, the tones seemed round me pleadingLessons to my madness reading,From the scenes I’d lived unheeding.Still the unseen fetters bound me;Still the burden floated round me:“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”But the words came softer, lower,Calmer still, and sweeter, slower,Till they murmured off in silence on the wintry air;Save returning, booming, rolling,Came that one vast warning, tolling“Soul!” as when at first it called me, sitting in my chair.Now again from earth rebounding,Quick and fast, the bells were sounding,And I sprang from out my seat, with wild and startled look.’Twas the blest Redeemer’s morning! —Sunshine brightly Earth adorning, —And the Christmas jocund peal my brightened casement shook.Hope has risen clearer, purer,O’er my life-course firmer, surer,Since that eve, when gloomily I pondered on my life;When I heard, as from doom’s portal,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Booming on my aching brain, with murmurs thickly rife.

Chapter Twenty

A Rogue and a Vagabond

“You must fetch the doctor,” says Dick, as I stood over him looking at his poor worn face, all drawed with pain and hollow-looking, although he’d got his paint on and the band and spangles were round his head, though his black hair was all rough with him a-tossing about.

There was the bit of candle flaring away and guttering down, the wind flapping the canvas backwards and forwards and coming in fierce through the holes, while the rain was dripping from the top because the canvas hadn’t got well soaked and tight, and I couldn’t help thinking about what a miserable place it was for a sick man. There was the drum a-going and the clarinet squeaking, while another of the company was rattling away at a pair o’ pot-lid cymbals; the grease-pots were flaring in front of the stage, and them all a dancing and one thing and another over and over again, while Balchin’s voice, husky and bad with his cold, could be heard telling people to walk up for the last time that night; but they wouldn’t, for it was wet and miserable and spiritless as could be.

Poor Dick had been out ever so long in his tights and fleshings doing his summersets and bits o’ posturing, till his thin things were wet through, when he comes in at last to me, where I was nursing little Totty, hard at work to keep her quiet, and he says with a bit of a groan —

“I’m knocked over, lass. It’s like a knife in my chest,” and I could hear his breath rattling hard, as he looked that ill I couldn’t keep the tears back. You see he’d been bad for days and taking medicine for his cough; but then what good was that with us, going from place to place in wet weather and him obliged to take his turn with the rest, and we always sleeping under the canvas. Why, he ought to have been in a house and with a doctor to him, though he wouldn’t hear of it when I talked about it.

“Can’t afford it, Sally,” he’d say, and then, poor fellow, he’d sit up in bed and cough till he’d fall back worn out, when as soon as he was laid down, back came the cough again worse than ever, and I’ve lain quiet and still, crying because I couldn’t help him. Don’t know anything more sad and wearying than to hear some one cough – cough – cough the whole long night through, with it resting a little when sitting up, and then coming on again worse and worse as soon as you lie down.

And that’s how it was with poor Dick, but he had a heart like a lion and would never give up. All the others used to lodge about at the public-houses, ’cept Balchin, who lived in the van, but Dick said he liked being under the canvas best, for you were like in your own place, and there was no noise and bother with the landlords, besides sleeping in all sorts of dirty places after other people, so we always kept to the corner of the tent and under the stage, making use of a bit of charcoal fire in a stand.

And Dick wouldn’t have the doctor till that night, when he says at last, “you must fetch him.” I’d been watching him lying there hardly able to breathe, and sometimes, when his eyes were nearly shut, you could only see the whites, while his hands tore like at the covering, he seemed in such pain.

Just then in came Balchin, looking very cross and out of humour, for there was the ground to pay for, and he’d taken next to nothing that night.

“What did you sneak off like that for, Dick Parker?” he says, and then Dick started up, but he fell back with a bit of a groan, when Balchin grumbled out something, and turned round and went off.

“Could you mind little Totty?” I says to Dick, for I didn’t like to take the child out in the wet.

He didn’t speak, but made a place aside him for the little thing, and the next minute the poor little mite had nestled up close to him, and I turned to put on my shawl, when who should lift up the canvas and come in but Balchin, with a steaming hot glass of whisky and water in his hand?

“Here we are, my boy,” he says, in his rough cheery way, that he could put on when he liked. “Now is the sun of summer turned to glorious winter, so away with discontent and a merry Christmas and a happy noo year to you, my boy. You’re a bit outer sorts you are, and so was I just now, but I’m what you’re going to be directly, so tip some of this up.”

But Dick only shook his head and smiled, and then whispering him to please stop till I got back, I slipped out to fetch the doctor.

It isn’t hard to find the doctor’s place in a town, and I was soon there standing, ring, ring, ring, while the rain, now half sleet and snow, began to come down so, that I shivered again. But I hardly thought about it, for my mind was all upon poor Dick, for a terrible thought had come into my head, and that was, that my poor boy was going to leave me. Everything now seemed to tell me of it: the cold howling wind seemed to shriek as it tore away through the long street, the clock at the big church seemed to be tolling instead of striking twelve, while the very air seemed alive with terrible whispers of something dreadful going to happen.

At last a window upstairs was opened, and I asked if the doctor was at home.

“Who wants him?” said a voice.

“I want him to come to my poor husband, for he’s – ” I couldn’t finish the word for a sob that seemed to choke me.

“Where do you live?” said the same voice.

“At the show in the market-place,” I said, feeling all the while half ashamed.

“You’d better go to Mr Smith, he’s the parish doctor,” said the voice, and then the window was shut. And I stood half blind with the tears that would come, as I dragged my shawl closer round me, and stood shivering and wondering which way to turn so as to find the parish doctor. The wind was sweeping and howling along; the snow came in heavy squalls which whitened me in a few moments, while the cold seemed to chill one’s very marrow; but I hardly thought of it, for I was all the time seeing poor Dick lying in our miserable bit of a bed by the light of the flaring candle, while above the howling of the wind I seemed to be hearing his low hacking cough.

Oh! it was pitiful, pitiful, standing out there on that bitter night, close to Christmas-time, when people’s hearts are said to be more charitably disposed; but now, though bright lights shone in windows here and there, I was alone, alone, in the bitter storm, without a soul to direct me or teach me where to go for a doctor. I hurried to the end of the street – then back along the other side, up one street and down another, eagerly looking for a lighted lamp over a door, or for some one to tell me; but not a soul was to be seen, and every public-house was shut.

On I went again, growing almost frantic, for the howling wind seemed to form itself into cries – wild, appealing cries to me for help for my boy, who lay suffering in our wretched wandering home; and at last I ran up to a door and rang the bell, but no one answered. Then I heard the muffled sound of wheels, and stood listening. Yes, they were coming nearer and nearer – they were in the street, and I ran into the road to try and stay the driver, as I shrieked for help, for I was most mad with anxiety; but there was the sharp stinging cut of a whip across my cheek, and half-blinded and smarting, I started back, and the next minute the round of the wheels had died away.

“Oh, oh, oh!” I moaned piteously, wringing my hands; what shall I do, what shall I do? But the next moment my heart leaped, for by the light of one of the street lamps I saw a man approaching and hurried up to him.

“Sir, sir,” I cried; “the doctor – the – ” But an oath and a rude push, which sent me staggering off the pavement to fall in the mud and snow of the road, was my answer, and then, as half bewildered I slowly got up, I heard a harsh laugh and the man began whistling.

I could not sob now, but felt as if something was clutching at my heart and tearing it, but again I hurried along half blind with the heavy snow, and now once more I saw a man in front, but dimly seen through the heavy fall.

“Help, help,” I cried hoarsely, with my hands clasped together.

“Eh! what?” he said.

“Oh, sir, a doctor, for God’s sake – for pity’s sake – my poor boy!”

“Who, who?” he said, taking hold of my arm.

“My poor husband,” I said, “he’s dying.”

The next moment he was walking beside me, as I thought to show me where the doctor lived, and it was nearer the market-place where the show stood.

“Come in here,” he said, opening a door with a key, when feeling trembling and suspicious, I hung back, but the light falling upon my new companion, showed me a pleasant faced old man, and I followed him into a surgery, where he put something into a bottle, and five minutes after we were standing in the booth where Balchin and his wife and a couple more of the company were standing about the bed where poor Dick lay, breathing so heavily that it was pitiful to hear him, and me not daring to wake him for fear of his cough.

“God bless my soul,” muttered the doctor I had so fortunately met; “what a place and what a night! Can’t you move him to a house?”

“No,” said Dick, suddenly sitting up. “I’ll die here. This is good enough for a rogue and a vagabond of a strolling player. But doctor,” he said, with his eyes almost blazing, “can you cure my complaint?”

“Well, well! we’ll see,” said the doctor, laying his hand upon poor Dick’s chest.

“No, no; not there, sir,” said Dick. “It’s here – here – in my heart, and it’s sore about that poor girl and this little one: that’s my complaint, not this cough. What are they to do? Where are they to go? Who’s to keep them when I’m gone? Not that I’ve done much for them, poor things.”

“Dick, Dick,” I said, reproachfully.

“My girl!” he says, so softly and tenderly and with such a look, that I was down next moment upon my knees beside him, when he threw one arm round my neck and rested his head again my cheek so loving, so tender, while his other arm was round the little one now fast asleep.

And there we all stayed for a bit; no one speaking, for the doctor stood with his head bent down and his hat off, while the light of the candle shone amongst his silver-looking hair. Two or three times over I saw Balchin and his wife and the others look hard at him, and once Balchin touched him on the sleeve, but he stood still looking on, while poor Dick lay there with his head upon my shoulder, and me, not crying but confused and struck down, and dazed like with sorrow.

At last every one seemed so still and quiet, that I looked up wondering to see the doctor hold up his hand to the others to be silent, when, whispering to me that he would be back in a few minutes, he hurried away. And still no one moved for perhaps a quarter of an hour, when through being half blind now with the tears that began to come, I could not see the doctor come back; and this time he had something in his hand which he made as though he would give to Dick, but he shrunk back next moment shaking his head, gave the glass to Balchin to hold, and then as Mrs Balchin began sobbing loudly, the doctor knelt down beside the bed and said some words in a low tone at first, but getting more earnest and loud as he went on and then he was silent, and Dick seemed to give a deep drawn sigh.

Then I waited to hear the next sigh, for all was still and quiet; Balchin and his wife stood with their heads bent down, and Mrs Balchin had left off sobbing; the others stood about, one here and one there, and the good doctor was still upon his knees, and I couldn’t help thinking how calm and easy poor Dick’s laboured breathing had become, when all at once little Totty began to say some prattling words in her sleep, and then as if some bright little dream was hers she began to laugh out loud in her little merry way, and nestled closer to her father.

All at once I started, for a horrible thought came into my mind, and turning my face I looked as well as I could at poor Dick’s eyes. The light was very dim and I could only see that they were half open, while there was a quiet happy smile upon his lip. Then I eagerly held the back of my hand to his mouth to feel his breath, but there was nothing. I felt his heart – it was still. I whispered to him —

“Dick! Dick! speak to me,” and I fancied there was just another faint sigh, but no answer – no reply – for with his arms round all he loved and who loved him on this earth, he had gone from us – gone without me fancying for a moment it was so near. And then again for a moment I could not believe it, but looked first at the doctor, and then at first one and then another, till they all turned their heads away, when with a bitter cry I clasped him to me, for I knew poor Dick was dead.

Chapter Twenty One

A Spirit of the Past

Of course they were – the good old times, or, as Macaulay has it, “the brave days of old.” Things are not now as they used to be; and mind, O reader, these are not my words, but those of a patriarch. Things are not as they used to be; the theatres even have not the casts now that they had fifty years since; those were the fine old coaching times, when team after team started from the old Post-office in style. There were beaux and bucks, and men of spirit then – men who could dress, and spent their money as it should be spent. Gambling, duelling, and such spirited affairs were common, and really, there can be no doubt of it, times are altered.

I am foolish enough to think for the better – but then I am only a unit, – and I think so in spite of the incessant mess the railway, gas, water, telegraph, pneumatic, and all the other companies are making of our streets. One cannot help admiring our monster hotels, gigantic railway schemes, palatial warehouses, etcetera, etcetera, but then we miss many of our delightful old institutions. Where are the dustmen’s bells of our childhood? Surely those polished articles in our railway stations, always reposing upon a wooden block when one is at a distance, but which our approach seems to be the signal for the “stout porters” to seize and jangle harshly in our ears – surely those are not the “bells, bells, bells” so familiar of old. Where are the organs with the waltzing figures turning round and round to the ground-up music of Strauss or Weber, then in their popularity? Where the people who so horrified our diaper pinafore-encased bosom by walking upon stilts to the accompaniment of drum and Pan pipes? Where the ancient glories of Jack in the Green and Guido Fawkes? Where are numbers of our old street friends who seem gone, while Punch alone seems immortal, and comes out yearly with fresh paint covering his battered old phiz? Certainly we had in the street “twopence more and up goes the donkey,” though no man had the good fortune to be present when the twopence more was arrived at, and the miserable asinine quadruped was elevated upon the ladder and balanced upon its owner’s chin – certainly we had that; but after all said and done, how our acrobats have improved, how much brighter are the spangles, how much better greased the hair and developed the muscles. Look at that tub feat, or the man balanced upon the pole, of course an improved donkey trick. Look at – look at the length of thy article, oh! writer.

It seems only yesterday, but some years have passed now since we used to lie in bed of a cold, dark winter’s morning, and listen to the prolonged rattle of the sweep’s brush upon some chimney-pot far on high, and then hear the miserable little fellow’s doleful “halloo, halloo, halloo,” by way of announcement that he had achieved his task, and had head and shoulders right out of the pot. And it seems only yesterday, too, that, by special favour, our household Betty allowed me to descend and see the sweeps do the kitchen chimney, when I stood trembling in presence of our blackened visitors and the smoke-jack, and then saw the great black pall fastened before the fireplace with three forks, when the sooty boy covered his head and face with a cap, grinning diabolically at me before he eclipsed his features, and then by the light of the blackened tallow candle I saw him disappear behind the cloth.

That was quite enough, and I could stand no more, but turned and fled upstairs, feeling convinced that he would never come down again.