Sawn Off: A Tale of a Family Tree

“Brotherly?” cried Max. “Sir, I disown all relationship with you. You’ve hung on to my skirts too long, and now I’ll be free of you. Miserable, grovelling beggar!”

“I never begged or borrowed of you,” said Dick.

“No; because I checked the impulse, or I should have had to keep you. And now you want to disgrace me and mine.”

“I’m sure no man could have been more industrious,” put in Mrs Shingle.

“Industrious?” cried Max, looking round at the shabby half workshop, half sitting-room. “Industrious? Yes, always idling in his wretched slough, instead of trying to improve his position – to get on. But I’ll have no more of it: leave this place you shall at once.”

“Oh, Mr Shingle – Uncle Max!” cried Jessie piteously, “it was all my fault: I ought to have known better. Don’t turn poor father and mother out. They work and try so hard.”

“Bah!” ejaculated Max contemptuously; while Tom made for Jessie, but a heavy arm was laid across his chest.

“Don’t – pray don’t,” sobbed Jessie, joining her hands and looking piteously up in the smooth, smug face. “Don’t do that, and I’ll promise never to see – never to see Tom. No, no: I can’t – I can’t – I can’t!” she cried, bursting into an agony of weeping.

“You shall promise no such thing, Jessie – dear cousin,” cried Tom, in a manly way, as, extricating himself, he stepped up to her side and tried to take her hand; but she shrank from him and clung to her mother. “Jessie,” he exclaimed, “as I’m a man, I’ll be true to you in spite of everything.”

“This is your work,” cried Max furiously, as he turned to his brother. “Do you see now what you have done?”

“That was well spoke, Tom, and I never thought better of you than I do now,” said Dick, rousing himself, though his face looked more perplexed than ever. “But I’ve had enough of this here. You and your father belong to the swells, and I’m a poor working man. You two are ile, and floats on the top – we’re only water, and goes to the bottom. But p’r’aps the water’s got as much pride in it as the ile; and so’s my poor girl, when she’s got her bit of sorrow over. You’re no match for her.”

Max gave a loud, contemptuous laugh, which made Mrs Shingle look up as if she would wither him.

“Not,” continued Dick, “but what she’s the best girl in the whole world, though I as her father says it.”

Dick took up his hammer in a helpless, meaningless way, and turned it over and over, examining the handle and the head, and gazed from one to the other, as if asking their opinion about the quality of the tool.

“I don’t think I was ever so hard up in my life,” continued Dick – “and mother here will bear me out if I don’t speak what’s good as Gorspel; but afore I’d stay under your roof I’d try the workus. You needn’t be afraid, Mr Maximilian Shingle, as your poor shoemaker of a brother, as has been unlucky all his life, a and never see the way to get up the ladder without shouldering and pulling some one else down – which wasn’t his way – will ever trouble you again, nor let your wife’s boys come hanging about after his poor dear gal. I never encouraged it, and never shall. Some day, p’r’aps, you’ll come yourself and ask for it to be.”

“I ask!” cried Max – “a common sempstress, an impudent drab!”

“Mr Shingle!” cried Tom furiously.

“Silence, sir!” shouted Max, who, roused by the opposition he had received, struck at his step-son with his tasselled cane. “I said an impudent, bold-faced drab!”

“Stop!” roared Dick, from whose face the puzzled look seemed to have departed, to give place to one of angry decision; and he stepped, hammer in hand, close up to his brother. “Look here, Max,” he cried, in a low, hoarse voice, “I don’t want to play Cain, and there ain’t much of the Abel about you; but my poor gal here,” – he placed his arm round her as he spoke, and she hid her hot, indignant face upon his shoulder – “my poor gal here, I say, once read to me when she was a little un about a blacksmith knocking a man down with his hammer because he insulted his daughter. Now, you’ve insulted my dear, sweet gal, as the very poorest and lowest labourer about here has a respectful word for, and even the very costers at the stalls; and you’ve made my blood bile – poor, and thin, and beggarly as it is. So, now then, this is my house till I leaves it. I ain’t Wat Tyler, and you ain’t a tax-gatherer, but if you ain’t gone in half a moment I’ll give you what for.”

“You scoundrel – you shall repent this!” cried Max.

But Dick made at him so menacingly that he hurried out of the house.

“Uncle,” began Tom, who had stopped behind.

“Off with you!” cried Dick sternly. “I won’t hear a word. No: nor you sha’n’t touch her. Jessie, say good-bye to him, and there’s an end of it. We’ll emigrate.”

“Oh, father, what have I done?” cried Jessie.

“Nothing, Jessie, but what is right, my own darling; and here, before your father and mother – ”

“Tom!” shouted Max from without.

“I swear,” continued Tom, “that I’ll never give you up.”

“That’ll do,” said Dick, uncompromisingly. “He’s calling you. Out of my house!”

“Uncle,” said Tom, “when you are cooler you’ll think better of me, I hope. I can’t help this. I do love Jessie dearly.”

“I won’t hear a word,” cried Dick.

“But you’ll shake hands with me?”

“No: I’m a poor shoemaker, and you’re a gentleman. Be off!”

“Oh, father! father!” cried Jessie; and she flung her arms round his neck.

“No, I won’t give way,” cried Dick; but he was patting and soothing his child as he spoke.

“Shake hands with him, Dick,” whispered Mrs Shingle. “It ain’t his fault.”

“I won’t!” cried Dick. “It is his fault. He had no business to come.”

“No, father, it was my fault,” sobbed Jessie. “Shake hands with him – please do!”

All this while Tom was standing with extended hand; and at last Dick’s went out to join it for a moment, and was then snatched away.

“Good-bye, dear Jessie,” said Tom then; “but mind, I shall keep to my word.”

“Is that scoundrel coming?” said Max from without. Dick made a vicious “offer,” as if to throw his hammer at the door; but Mrs Shingle took it from his hand.

“I’m coming,” said Tom loudly; and then, taking Jessie’s hand, he kissed it tenderly, and, as the poor girl began to sob piteously, he hurried out of the house and was gone.

Volume Two – Chapter Five.

Fred is Busy

The offices of Maximilian Shingle were on the first-floor, in a narrow turning close to the Royal Exchange; and, though they were dark and inconvenient, they were handsomely furnished, as befitted a suite of three rooms for which a heavy rent was paid. The outer room was occupied by four clerks, the second room was allotted to his wife’s elder son, and the inner sanctum was Max’s own.

A morning or two after the visit to Crowder’s Buildings, Fred was seated at his table, with a small open book before him – one which evidently had nothing to do with stock-broking; but he was studying it so hard that the lines were deeply marked upon his effeminate face.

Twice over he started, and closed it hastily, as he heard a step outside; but, after listening for a few moments, he resumed his task, and kept on with his study for some time. Then he closed the little memorandum book with a sigh, placed it carefully in his pocket, and opening a drawer, took out some doubled blotting paper, between which, on opening it, lay a piece of tracing paper and an old bill of exchange.

Placing this convenient to his hand, he also took a large blotter, arranged in it a sheet of paper, and wrote in the date and some half-dozen lines, before moving blotter and letter into a handy position.

This done, he listened for a few moments, and then taking the tracing paper and bill, began to go over the signature very carefully, writing it again and again, beginning at the top of his tracing paper, and forming a column of signatures.

Then there was a knock at the door; and as Fred cried “Come in!” the blotter was drawn deftly over the tracing paper, and he went on writing.

A clerk brought in a couple of letters to be signed, and this being done he retired; when Fred resumed his task, working away patiently, and always going over the writing again.

This went on for half an hour or so, until the young man started, and hastily drew the blotter over his work; for the door was being opened very slowly and quietly, and in a heavy, noiseless way, old Hopper entered the room.

“How do, Fred?” he said, approaching the table slowly.

“How do?” was the short, sharp reply. “What does he want?” he muttered.

“Hey?”

“I say what hot weather.”

“Don’t shout: I’m not so deaf as all that,” said the old fellow hastily. “Father in his room?”

“Yes,” said Fred; “he’s in there.”

“Hey?”

“I say he’s in there,” roared the young man.

“I wish you wouldn’t shout so, my lad,” said the old man sourly. “I don’t want the drums of my ears split. I could hear what you said. And how is the dear, good man, eh?”

“Same as usual,” replied Fred, with a grin.

“Ah!” said Hopper, “you ought to be a very good young man, having such a step-father.”

“I am,” replied Fred.

“Hey?”

“I say I am,” shouted Fred.

“So I suppose,” said the old fellow, chuckling, and looking at him with a strange expression of countenance. “Well, tell him I want to see him.”

Ting!

There was the sharp sound of a gong heard in the next room, and Fred rose to answer it. He glanced first at the old man, and then down at his letter; but a second stroke on the gong made him hurry to the inner door, which he opened, and stood with his head half inside; but a few sharp peremptory words were heard, and he went in and closed the door, leaving Hopper waiting.

Fred was not gone many minutes; and when he returned it was to find the visitor had taken a chair, and was busy over the contents of a bulky pocket-book, which he secured as the young man appeared, and returned to the pocket in the breast of his ugly, ill-cut dress-coat.

“He says you can go in, but he can only give you ten minutes,” said Fred.

“Won’t see me for ten minutes?” said the old fellow.

“Says you may go in for ten minutes,” shouted the young man; and then, in a whisper, “Confounded old nuisance!”

Old Hopper turned half round, and gave him a peculiar leer, shaking his head and chuckling to himself as he went slowly towards the door of Max Shingle’s office, putting down his stick heavily in the recurring pattern of the floorcloth, closely followed by Fred, who showed him in.

“What the governor has that deaf old beetle hanging about him for, I can’t make out,” said the young man, returning to his seat; and he was about to continue his task when a fresh knock at the door made him hastily thrust his papers into the drawer of the table, lock it, and take out the key.

“Ah, my dear Hopper, how are you?” said Max, smiling amiably, and making his eyes beam upon his visitor.

“Hey? How am I?” snarled the old fellow, giving his stick a thump on the floor. “What’s that to you? I’m not dying yet. Ain’t you sorry?”

“Sorry? Heaven forbid!” said Max unctuously, as he shook his head reproachfully at his visitor, and then, taking hold of his watch-ribbon, threw himself back in his chair and began to spin the seals round and round.

“Don’t! Be quiet!” cried Hopper, thrusting out the point of his stick, so that the seals struck upon it and were arrested in their motion. “Think I’m not bilious enough with looking at you, without having that thing spun round in my face?”

Max laughed, but looked annoyed; while the old fellow took a seat unasked.

“What can I do for you?” said Max at last, smiling blandly.

“Give me a glass of wine. I’m hot and tired.”

“Really, I – ” began Max.

“It’s in that stand,” said the old fellow, chuckling, as he pointed with his stick at a handsome mahogany cellarette at one end of the room; when Max, whose smile was tempered a good deal with a look of annoyance, rose, sighed, secured the door with a little bolt, and then unlocked the cellarette and took out a decanter and glass.

“No, thank you – I don’t smoke cigars,” said the old fellow, as he watched the sherry poured into the glass. “Hey! You weren’t going to offer me one? Ho! I was afraid you were.”

Max had not spoken; but he winced as he heard these words – preserving his smile, though, when he turned his face to his visitor and passed the wine.

“Not bad, Max – not bad,” said the old fellow, tasting the sherry and smacking his lips before pouring the rest down his throat. “How you must mug yourself here! Lucky dog, lucky dog! Now, if I had taken to stock-broking instead of ship’s husbanding, I might have been as well off as you.”

“Oh dear, no; I’m not well off,” said Max.

“Hey?”

“I say I’m not well off,” said Max, more loudly.

“That’s a pity,” said the old fellow. “Never mind, I’ll have another glass, all the same. Fill it full this time.”

Max shut his teeth with a snap, but he filled the glass brimming full, and then restopped the decanter.

“So you’re not well off, hey?” said Hopper.

“Very, very short,” said Max, with his mouth close to his visitor’s ear.

“Humph! Sorry to hear it, because I want to borrow five pounds of you,” said Hopper. “You’ve got that, I suppose?”

“Indeed, no. I’m very sorry,” began Max.

“So am I,” said the old fellow shortly. “Hah, Max Shingle, how you’d have liked to stick a dose of poison in that wine, wouldn’t you?”

“Really, Mr Hopper,” began Max indignantly, and he half rose.

But the old man laid his stick upon his shoulder like a sceptre, and forced him down.

“Sit still, stupid!” cried the old man. “I know what you are going to say. Surprised at my making such remarks, and so on. But you would like to, and I believe you’d do it if it was not for the fear of the law. I say, Max,” he chuckled, “it would take a strong new rope to hang you.”

Max laid his hands upon the arms of his handsome, well-stuffed easy chair, and turned of a pale dough colour, as he glared at his visitor.

“I don’t wonder at it,” chuckled Hopper. “It must be very unpleasant to have a man come to see you, and invade the sanctity – sanctity, yes, sanctity, that’s the word – of your home and private office, who knows what a scoundrel you are.”

“For Heaven’s sake, speak lower!” cried Max, in a hoarse whisper.

“All right,” said Hopper, nodding. “Especially to a man like you, who goes in for the religious dodge, and is so looked up to and respected by every one. Ha! ha! ha!” he chuckled – “what a wonderful deal is done in this world, Max, by humbug!”

Max began to wipe his wet face with his handkerchief, glaring the while helplessly at his tormentor.

“You’re such a good man, too, now,” said Hopper, laughing, and evidently enjoying the other’s discomfiture. “I saw you coming from service last Sunday, with the wife, and that dear youth in the next room, Fred, all carrying limp hymn-books. I say, Max, your prayers must be precious limp, too.”

“Say what you have to say, and then go, for Heaven’s sake!” gasped Max.

“Hey! say what I have to say? How I can read your fat lips, Max! I never feel my deafness when you are speaking. Well, I am saying what I have to say. I don’t often speak out like this.”

“Only when you want money,” muttered Max.

“Only when I want money? Right. There, I told you I could read off your lips every word you say, so don’t begin to curse me, and wish I was dead, because it will only make me want more. Think it, if you like. I say, you must look sharp after that boy Fred, or he’ll go to the bad.”

Max frowned.

“If he was half such a lad as Tom!”

“Tom’s a scoundrel – a vagabond!” exclaimed Max furiously.

“Yes, yes, of course. To be sure he is. Every one is who doesn’t do as you wish, Max Shingle. I’m a horrible old scoundrel, and yet you’re obliged to put up with me. You can’t afford to offend me, and I come to your house as often as I like; and I shall keep on doing so, because it’s good for you. I’m like a conscience to you, and a devilish ugly old conscience, eh? – a deaf conscience – and I keep you from being a bigger scoundrel than you are. I say, Max, you’d give a thousand pounds down, now, to hear I was dead, wouldn’t you?”

“What is the good of talking like this?” said Max, leaning over to whisper to his visitor.

“Hey? What’s the good? A deal – does you good. I say, Max, I’ve often thought that you might be tempted to get me killed – by accident, of course. It is tempting, I know. You’d feel as if the old slate with the nasty writing on was wiped clean with a sponge. But it would be so ugly for such a good man to be exposed to such a temptation, and uglier still to add the crime of side-blow murder to his other sins. So do you know what I’ve done to save you from temptation?”

There was a curious malignity of expression in the old man’s face as, with a chuckling laugh, he asked his question and saw its effect.

“No! What?” exclaimed Max, in agony.

“Well, I’ve written it all down neatly on paper – not on a slate; and I’ve deposited it with my will.”

“Where?”

“Ah, yes, that’s another thing. Where it would be opened and read directly I was dead. Ha! ha! ha! Max, what an exposé that would be! But don’t be nervous, man, and look so white. It wouldn’t be a hanging matter.” Max stretched across the table, and laid his hand upon his visitor’s lips; but the old man thrust his chair back, gave the hand a sharp rap with his stick, and Max shrank back in his chair.

“It isn’t, I say, a hanging matter. But I say, Max, old fellow, I should look sharp after that boy Fred. Don’t let him get into temptation. Like father, like son. Now, Tom – ”

“Curse Tom!” cried Max, biting his nails.

“Not I,” laughed the old man. “He isn’t so bad; and you curse him quite often enough, you know. Ah, Max, what a blessing and relief it must be to you that you have reformed so, and become such a good, pious man!”

Max raised his hands.

“One of those dear, good creatures,” chuckled the old fellow, “who go through life saying ‘Have mercy upon us miserable sinners,’ and then feel so happy. Not a bit of the Pharisee about you, Max – all humble Publican. I say, why don’t you build a church or a chapel? That’s the proper thing to do. ‘Publican’ put me in mind of it. It’s what the brewers and distillers do. Make fortunes out of the vice and misery of the people, and then buy a seat in the heavenly Parliament by building a church – ”

“My dear Hopper,” began Max.

“And endowing it.”

“Will you listen to me, Hopper?”

“They think they can cheat God with their sham repentance. Ha! ha! ha! – it’s a rare joke, ’pon my word. Now, you know, Max, I’m just such a fool in my way, for I get thinking He’d have more respect for an honest old reprobate like me. But we shall see, Max, when we die – when we die; when you die, and the gravedigger puts you to bed with a shovel.”

A spasm seemed to shoot across the other’s face at these last words.

“I am an out-and-out bad one, you know, Max. I never go to chapel and hold the plate – never dip a little out of it, Max, in the vestry!”

“Man, are you the Devil?” muttered Max.

“Yes, if you like.”

“Then you are not deaf!” cried Max triumphantly.

“Honestly; but I can read your lips as well as your heart, my dear friend. Devil? Because I know about that ugly bit of forgery for which you ought to have served your time.”

“Will you be silent?” cried Max, with an agonised look at the door.

“No,” said the other coolly. “Devil because I saw through the Uncle Rounce business? Perhaps I am,” he continued, as he saw Max wince, “for I never believed in the Excelsior game – to go up higher – because it’s so cold. I’m not a pure-minded man, Max, but would rather stay in the valley, and lay my head on the nice, pleasant, plump young woman’s breast – so comfortable and cosy and warm. Eh, you dog – eh?”

He poked Max with his stick as he spoke, and then chuckled at the other’s horrified air.

“I’m no cackle-spinner, like you, Max; I never went through the world saying it was all vanity and vexation of spirit, and a vale of tears; and howled hymns, declaring that I was sick of it, and wanted to die and get out of it as soon as I could, because it was such a wicked, wretched place. I never told people I had a call, like you did; and played shepherd in a white choker, and went and delivered addresses to the lost lambs outside the fold.”

“They’ll hear you in the outer office,” cried Max vainly, for Hopper went on: —

“Because I was always a wolf, and liked the world, and thought it very beautiful, and loved it; and when I caught a lost lamb I took him and ate him right off, because it was my nature. Not like you, my gentle shepherd, who, of course without any vanity or self-interest, coaxed the lambs into the fold; and when you killed one, you had him nicely dressed with mint sauce. Eh, Max? mint sauce – the tap out of the barrels that they take into the bank.”

“Are you mad?” exclaimed Max, at last.

“Mad as a hatter,” said the old fellow, grinning; “that’s why I chose the wrong way. Not like you. Ah, Max, when we both die, what a beautiful plump cherub you’ll make up aloft there, and what an ugly old sinner I shall be down below! How sorry you’ll be for me, won’t you?”

“Pray, let us bring this interview to an end,” gasped Max.

“No hurry,” said Hopper. “I told you I was bilious when you were spinning that bunch of seals of yours. This is all bile. I’m getting rid of it. I shall be better afterwards. I have not had a go at you for a twelvemonth. I haven’t half done yet. I’m not a pithy man, like you – more pith than heart – but long-winded. Ah, I’m a wicked old wretch, ain’t I, and always turned a deaf ear to what was good?”

“But I am busy,” pleaded Max.

“So am I,” said Hopper, chuckling, and giving a box on the table a poke with his stick – “busy giving you a taste of my bile. – What have you got there, my pious old saint? ‘Donations for the debt fund of St. Ursula’s Church.’ Ah! that’s a pretty respectable way of doing things – that is. Church in debt. Built up, I’ll be bound, with fal-lals and fancy work and stained glass, and a quire inside – twenty-four sheets to wrap up singing men and boys. Now, look here, Max: if I built a place and hadn’t money to pay for it, you’d call me a rogue.”

“Shall we try and transact the bit of business you came about?” said Max humbly.

“Presently,” said Hopper, who was now wound up, and determined to go on. “Ah, Max, you don’t know what a wicked old man I’ve grown,” he continued, with a sly twinkle in his eye. “But you see I can preach morality – my fashion.”

“We shall never agree upon such points,” said Max wearily.

“Of course not, till you convert me, Max. I’m a brand for the burning, Max. Why don’t you try and save me? Teach me to sing some of those nice hymns you know by heart – ‘Fain would I leave this weary world.’ Bah! How many would fain? Who made it weary? Who filled the beautiful world full of diseases and death and wickedness? Humbugs, sir – humbugs. I’m an old worldling, and I was put here in the world, and the longer I live the more beautiful I find it; and I don’t want to leave it, even to carry your secret with me, friend Max Shingle. I mean to live as long as I can, taking my share of the bad as bitter to make the good sweet; and when it’s time to set sail for the other land, I mean to go like a man, and say ‘Thank God for it all. Amen!’ There’s a wicked old reprobate for you, Max. Why don’t you try to convert this old scoundrel, eh? Ah! I’m a bad one – a regular bad one – hopelessly lost. And now I’ve got rid of all my bile, and feel better, get out your cheque-book.”

Max rose with a sigh, unlocked the iron safe in the corner, and took out a cheque-book and laid it upon a table.

“I can very ill spare this, John Hopper,” he said. “Five pounds are five pounds now.”

“Always were, stupid!” said the old fellow. “Dear me, how much better I can hear to-day! Got rid of all that bile,” he added, considering. “But don’t you draw that for five pounds. Make it ten.”

“Ten pounds!” gasped Max.

“Yes. Five extra for your conscience. You don’t suppose your poor conscience is going to preach to you, as it has to-day, for nothing?”

“But – ” commenced Max.

“Ten pounds, you goodly saint – you man after Heaven’s own heart – you halo-promised piece of piety and man of heavenly manna!” cried Hopper. “Make it ten pounds directly, O smooth-faced piece of benignity, or I shall want twenty in less than a minute.”