Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison

by Arthur Morrison

  “Ay,” repeated Roboshobery Dove, “his father had been a genelman once, an’ his father before him, in foulness, like others I could tell.”

  “The Doves, eh?” I suggested.

  “That I won’t say, sir, though true ’tis I was christened after Roboshohery Dove as fit for King Charles agin Crom’ell. ‘’Tis arl a possibility,’ says the parson to my father, ‘that you be descendants, an’ ’tis a fine handsome name.’ An’ so he christened me. That were Master Ellwood. He were a parson o’ th’ oad sort, were he. Wore silver buckles to his breeches, an’ slep’ in his wig; an’ his walkin’ stick were five foot long.”

  I had heard Roboshobery so describe Parson Ellwood more than once before; and experience told me that the old seaman was groping his mind for a story. So I waited.

  “Speakin’ o’ oad families come down, an’ likewise speakin’ o’ Crom’ell,” he said at length, “folk’ll tell ‘ee mostly, when things is broke in a church, as ‘twere Crom’ell’s sogers did it. Leastways that’s what ye hear in these parts. But ‘taren’t so — not allus. You know the Haddock monument in the church, with the head off? Well I count they’ll lay that to Crom’ell’s sogers, but ‘tweren’t. I knew the oad soger as did that, an’ he were none o’ Crom’ell’s; far from a soger at all, sarten to say. I’ll tell ‘ee his courtin’ tale, if you like.”

  “A courting tale? That’s new. You never told me one of your own.”

  Roboshobery Dove closed one bright blue eye for a full quarter of a minute. “Bin a bacheldor all my life,” he said. Then he opened the closed eye and shut the other.

  “Very well,” I said. “Go on.”

  “The Haddock as that monument was to,” Dove proceeded, “was him as built the almshouses. It were a big family once — admirals an’ knights an’ what not: but the one as left the alms-houses were nayther, though a rich man, ’tis doubtless. I dunno how many years ’tis since they were rich, but I count it’s hundreds; an’ now there’s none on ‘em, rich or poor.” So much I had myself read in the county history, where the family, once the greatest in these parts, was noted as extinct.

  “There’s no more of ‘em,” the old man pursued, “an’ I knowed the last. He were a long way from knight or admiral, or even rich man, though he were a bit of a miser in his way. Jim Haddock were his name — oad Jim Haddock, as mostly called — an’ he got his livin’ one way an’ another with a bit o’ field-work here an’ there an’ a bit o’ higglin’ in between, him keepin’ fowls. His father before him had been a hedger, and his gran’father too, like as not; but oad Jim couldn’t forget as the family had been gentry once, an’ he didn’t let nobody else forget it, nayther. The taproom weren’t good enough for he; he’d sit in the parlor o’ the Ship here, or the Castle, up at Hadleigh, an’ wait to be asked to drink. If nobody offered him rum, he’d take sixpenny ale — nothin’ lower. An’ he’d sniff over the pot an’ screw his mouth, like as ‘twere an insult he were swallerin’.

  “‘’Tis a wicked thing to think on,’ he’d say, ‘me here drinkin’ six-ale as was born by rights to be drunk on port wine every night o’ my life, like any other genelman. Ah well! Human greatness be a passin’ show!’ But he’d go on a-sniffin’ an’ drinkin’ the sixpenny just as long as you’d go on payin’ for it, an’ longer. An’ the next man ‘ud hear a deal of his mighty grievance agin you, because ‘tweren’t better drink.

  “When he sold ten eggs once an’ got threepence for ‘em, same as any other man was glad to get in them days, he went half round the parish with the money in his open hand before him, callin’ the world to witness his hainish afflictions, whereby he’d a-bin give only three dirty coppers for ten eggs, like any common feller. He would ha’ gone all round ‘stead of half, but the half-way came down on Leigh Strand there, an’ a chap three sheets in the wind fetches him a lift under the hand with a boat-stretcher as sent the coppers flyin’ across the quay, an’ he never found more’n one of ‘em.

  “He never complained in that exact way afterwards, but he complained just as much. He got back that twopence an’ a deal more, one way an’ another. He used to forget to give change whenever you’d let him, an’ talk wide an’ noble about the word of a genelman if you tried to putt it right. His idea of a share in a harvestin’ job was to draw summat on account, an’ then sit on a beer-barr’l an’ tell the master how the work ote to be done, very condescendin’.

  “But the wust of all his troubles, the most hainish grievance oad Jim Haddock ever had, were the alms-houses. It grieved him sick to see a bit o’ freehold ground an’ twelve cottages as had belonged to some great gran’ father of his, about ten times removed, bein’ lived in by other parties, an’ him a-looking on an’ gettin’ nothen’ out on’t. He thote over it an’ he grieved over it, an’ he thote over it again, till at last he went to the rector. ‘Twere the rector and churchwardens, you understand, as had the management of the alms-houses, by will of oad Jerry Haddock. ‘Twere a huntin’ day when oad Jim went to the rectory, an’ the rector were waitin’ for his hoss to be brote round, an’ gettin’ impatient.

  “‘Good-morning sir,’ says oad Jim. ‘I been a-thinkin’ over the matter o’ them almshouses.’

  “‘Oh, you have, have you?’ says the rector, cockin’ his eye.

  “‘I have,’ says oad Jim, very firm an’ decided. ‘I’ve been a-considerin’ the matter very deep. It seems to me as how my fam’ly has been out o’ that there property long enough. I don’t want to be hard on nobody, but the circumstances o’ the fam’ly ain’t what they was! so I’m compelled to give notice. I’ll thank ‘ee to clear out all them oad parties, parson, by quarter day.’

  “What the rector said ain’t quite sarten. I’ve heard different accounts, an’ none of ‘em ain’t what you might expect from a parson, these here days. But that rector were one o’ th’ oad sort, an’ anyhow what he did is sarten. He took oad Jim by the scruff o’ the neck an’ he runned him out o’ the rectory garden that fast that he den’t stop till he hit up agen this here churchyard fence.

  “Oad Jim Haddock took it bitter unkind o’ the parson, an’ complained most touchin’ to everybody as ‘ud listen. ‘Tweren’t the way for one genelman to treat another, he said; the proper way, when two genelmen couldn’t agree on a matter o’ business, was to split the difference; an’ he’d a been very well satisfied with half the alms-houses.

  “Well, he went on complainin’ very woeful; but seein’ he couldn’t do no better he settled with hisself at last to get one o’ the houses in the reg’lar way. You know what it says — it’s up in the church — about the alms-houses bein’ for decayed parishioners, men an’ women, married an’ single. Well, oad Jim were pretty sound an’ able for work, an’ not quite what you might look for in an alms-house, but he reckoned his fam’ly claims ‘ud get over that. The houses were allus full, but there were one poor oad chap named Styles in one, about eighty-five, with a stroke down one side an’ a cough that joggled him to bits, an’ oad Jim counted his house as good as took, in a month or two. He went in, most wonnerful affectionate, every day, to see how poor oad Styles were a-gettin’ on, an’ to slap him very hard on the back when he coughed, an’ tell him how much wuss he was a-lookin’.

  “Oad Styles lasted about a month longer than Jim expected, but he went arter all, an’ then there was another disappointment, for instead o’ oad Jim they putt a widder into the house. Not so partic’lar oad a widder, neither; but she’d had two husbands, an ’tis like they counted she wouldn’t easy get a third. But anyhow oad Jim Haddock went half-cracked. He said a mort of unrespectful things about oad Jerry Haddock wasting the family substance in riotous almshouses, an’ then he went to the rector again. The rector den’t run him out this time; oad Jim runned hisself when the parson grabbed his walkin’-stick. So when he found it was no good tryin’ that way, he set out to see the widder herself.

  “‘Good-morning, Mrs. Bartrip,’ say he, sniffin’ an’ snuffin’ an’ screwin’ his nose. ‘Umf! umf! Be you
decayed?’

  “‘What?’ says the widder, lookin’ very hard at him.

  “‘I were only makin’ inquiration,’ says he, a bit milder. ‘The rules o’ the will says decayed parishioners, an’ I felt a bit anxious about ‘ee. If so be you ben’t decayed I doubt the parson ‘ll be after turnin’ ‘ee out. He be terr’ble strict, the parson. An’ the churchwardens too. ’Tis a very serious punishment, by Parliament act, for livin’ here if you ben’t decayed. But there — I make no doubt you be ‘cordin’ to rules, Mrs. Bartrip.’

  “‘I be ‘cordin’ enough to rules to stay where I am,’ says the widder.

  “‘Ah, no doubt,’ says oad Jim. ‘The pity is ’tis knowed all over the parish. Can’t help it, ye see, livin’ here, ‘cordin’ to rules. Though ‘tain’t what a party ‘ud like knowed an’ talked about. Still, no doubt ’tis what parties come to, gettin’ so far on in years.’

  “‘Is’t, indeed?’ says the widder, liftin’ her chin.

  “‘Ah, they do. Not that there’s anythin’ to be ashamed of in a few years more or less, for a sensible woman. When you get to sixty, ten years here or there don’t make much difference.’

  “‘What do I know about sixty?’ says the widder.

  “‘Oh, I’m not tryin’ to bind ye to sixty, Mrs. Bartrip; far from it. Sixty or seventy makes nothen’, as I said, an’ some decays later’n others. Poor oad Styles, now, he were late. Some thote ‘twere the house bein’ unhealthy; an’ sarten to say he were terr’ble bad toward the end. But he lasted fair well, did poor oad Styles. He were over two year here, an’ I count ye might last quite as long as that, if the house don’t get no damper. An’ that wouldn’t seem easy possible, ’tis sarten.’

  “‘Ah!’ says Mrs. Bartrip, ‘a damp house suits me wonnerful; allus did.’

  “Well, all was for nothen’. Mrs. Bartrip wouldn’t move for pride, nor for wish to be thote young, nor for damp. So oad Jim waited a month an’ tried her with ghosts.

  “‘Good-mornin’, Mrs. Bartrip,’ says he. ‘I wondered if you mightn’t be ill, seein’ a light in your keepin’ room so late last night.’

  “‘Light in my keepin’ room?’ says the widder. ‘Why, I weren’t up after dark.’

  “‘Indeed, mum? Then it must ha’ been oad Styles agen. I’ve seed him about the garden two or three nights, but I den’t think best to say nothen’, you bein’ a lone woman an’ like as not nervous o’ ghosts; I never guessed he’d ha’ gone indoors.’

  “‘I wouldn’t ha’ guessed it either,’ says the widder.

  “‘But ’tis allus that way with them almshouses,’ says oad Jim. ‘The oad parties do cling to ‘em wonnerful.’

  “‘Don’t blame ‘em,’ says the widder.

  “‘It’s allus been the way, mum. Allus the way in that row o’ houses. If the property had still been in the family I’d ha’ had it attended to long ago, along with the plaster. But as it is, there’s oad Styles a-walking the house all silent every night.’

  “‘Well, that’s fust-rate,’ says the widder. ‘I allus did like a ghost in the house, specially a silent one. It’s company, an’ it don’t tell no lies.’

  “Anybody but oad Jim would ha’ give up the job after that. But he never give up nothen’ he could hoad on to, an’ fore long he were round at the widder’s again. This time he didn’t try to drive her out. He saw that weren’t to be done, so he split the difference (like a gentleman) an tried to get in without. He never brought up a word o’ what had been said before, ‘cept that the widder liked company; an’ as company he recommended hisself very strong, to say nothen’ of protection from ghosts. An’ the end of it was they were married.

  “The parson laughed half an hour by the clock when they went to put up the banns, an’ he congratulated oad Jim Haddock on enterin’ into the ancestrial property at last. As to the weddin’ there never was no sich fanteeg in all these parts. You wouldn’t ha’ believed there was half as many tin pots in Essex. The parson he set ‘em a weddin’ breakfast on his own lawn, an’ had all the rest o’ the alms-house people to help eat it. All that day they was squire an’ lady, an’ oad Jim Haddock was such a swell he might ha’ fancied hisself his own great-gran’father ten times back.

  “But next mornin’ he were seen choppin’ firewood very early, which wasn’t like his reg’lar habits. What had been said or done to cause it nobody knew, but ’twas whispered what happened when Madam Haddock showed herself at last.

  “‘Husband,’ says she, sittin’ easy in th’ armchair, ‘I be a decayed oad ‘ooman. Wash down that doorstep.’

  “Oad Jim made fare to objeck, but she grabbed the broom that sudden he changed his mind. An’ there began a little crowd by the door to see oad Jim a-cleanin’ a doorstep; an’ the crowd growed an’ growed for half an hour before Mrs. Haddock were quite satisfied with the job.

  “Then says she, sittin’ easy as ever in the arm-chair: ‘I be an oad’ ooman o’ seventy, or mayhap eighty, ten years more or less not matterin’; so I need plenty o’ rest. Peel you them taters for dinner.”

  “She lied the broom across her knee, handy-like, an’ oad Jim went an’ did what she bid. ‘Twere guessed as he’d tasted of that broom earlier in the mornin’, ‘fore he chopped the firewood. So he peeled the taters an’ putt ‘em in the pot, an’ the bacon with ‘em like as ordered.

  “Then says she: ‘I be such a worn-out oad ‘ooman, an’ this here house be that damp an’ unwholesome I ain’t done no washin’ since fust the banns was putt up. Start up the copper-fire an’ go to washin’ the’ linen.’

  “So she began with him an’ so she went on, till poor oad Jim Haddock wished he’d never been born a genelman at all. She sat all day in the easy-chair an’ never let go the broom, ‘cept she made him sweep with it. He scrubbed an’ cooked an’ washed an’ mended an’ got nothin’ by it but chin-music an’ broomstick, turn about. An’ that weren’t all nayther. He had to work outdoor as well as in. She druv him out with his eggs an’ fowls, an’ she saw she got the money too, every farden; an’ ‘tween whiles she found him odd jobs round about, an’ drawed his wages herself. Poor oad Jim was clean broke down, an’ hardly mentioned his ancestrial family once in a week.

  “One day the beadle’s wife falls ill, an’ the rector sends round for Mrs. Haddock to go an’ sweep out the church. So she turns to oad Jim an’ says: ‘There be a job o’ sweepin’ up to church; get along quick an’ do it while I sit in this here unhealthy house an’ keep out the ghosts. An’ mind I don’t get no complaints from parson about it when I go up for the money in the evenin’.’

  “Well, he comes up to the church quiet an’ humble, an’ meets the parson in the porch, an’ when the parson sees him, broom an’ all, he laughs nigh as much as he did before the wed-din’. ‘‘Pon my soul, ’tis too bad of her,’ says the parson, ‘but I dunno as you don’t deserve it. ’Twouldn’t be much of an admiral they’d make o’ you!’

  “Oad Jim went in an’ he started sweepin’ humble an’ quiet enough. But his heart were pretty bitter in him, an’ the parson’s words den’t help it. So he went on a-sweepin’ till he came opposite oad Jerry Haddock’s monument, an’ there were oad Jerry, his great-gran’father ten times over, as had caused all the trouble, smilin’ down at him, blind an’ contempshus. That roused oad Jim at last.

  “‘I dussen’t strike my wife,’ he says, ‘an’ the parson be a man o’ scorn an’ wrath. But you can’t hit me back,’ he says. An’ with that he swings round the broom an ketches oad Jerry Haddock sich a lift under the ear that the head flied clean down the chancel, an’ they found it in the font next christenin’ day!”

  A LUCIFO MATCH

  PERSONS with a choice of several names are not common outside the peerage; but some of them — wholly unconnected with any peer — are to be discovered in London crowds, though discovery is not what they are there for. Crowds, in fact, attract them, from the circumstances that whatever the number of individuals in a crowd there are sure to be several times tha
t number of pockets, mostly with something in them; and a pickpocket who has once been convicted finds a change of name a wise precaution. So we arrive at Johnson.

  It chanced that Johnson stood in quite a small crowd — perhaps of twenty — that stared at a shop-window in Oxford Street. He had only been Johnson for a week, poor fellow, since emerging from some months’ retirement, and as yet the name did not sit easily. He had to keep it continually in mind, lest in some unforeseen emergency he might call himself Jones, or Barker, or Jenkinson, any one of which was dangerous, and had been discarded in its turn for that reason; always after just such another holiday as that he had lately disenjoyed.

  Johnson was a mild person — not at all the sort of man whom one might suppose to be a pickpocket — which was fortunate, of course, for Johnson. He was a meek, rather timid body, whose tastes would have been domestic if he had been a family man; and he would have been a family man if it were not for the expense. He was temperate, thrifty, and inoffensive; he shrank with horror from the idea of anything violent, such as burglary or work; he had no vices, no particular abilities, and only one small talent: he could pick a pocket very well indeed. Altogether, Johnson was an unusually virtuous thief.

  He stood in a small crowd in Oxford Street, as I have said, and while the small crowd stared at the shop window because of some new idea of the shopkeeper’s, Johnson considered pockets according to ideas of his own; having a natural human perference for the easiest pocket in the most sumptuous habiliment. He felt himself much drawn toward a man in an “immensikoff” — a fur-lined overcoat — which was quite the most magnificent garment in the crowd. The large side-pocket of the “immensikoff” gaped invitingly, and, though outside overcoat-pockets were barren vessels as a rule, this was so very easy that it were wasting a chance not to try it. So Johnson placed himself against the pocket and tried, with unexpected success.