I made the round of the bottles, first separate (to say I had done it), and then mixed 'em all together (to say I had done it), and then tried two of 'em as half-and-half, and then t'other two. Altogether, I passed a pleasin evenin, but with a tendency to feel muddled, until I considered it good manners to get up and say, "Mr. Chops, the best of friends must part, I thank you for the wariety of foreign drains you have stood so 'ansome, I looks towards you in red wine, and I takes my leave." Mr. Chops replied, "If you'll just hitch me out of this over your right arm, Magsman, and carry me down-stairs, I'll see you out." I said I couldn't think of such a thing, but he would have it, so I lifted him off his throne. He smelt strong of Maideary, and I couldn't help thinking as I carried him down that it was like carrying a large bottle full of wine, with a rayther ugly stopper, a good deal out of proportion.
When I set him on the door-mat in the hall, he kep me close to him by holding on to my coat-collar, and he whispers:
"I ain't 'appy, Magsman."
"What's on your mind, Mr. Chops?"
"They don't use me well. They an't grateful to me. They puts me on the mantel-piece when I won't have in more Champagne-wine, and they locks me in the sideboard when I won't give up my property."
"Get rid of 'em, Mr. Chops."
"I can't. We're in Society together, and what would Society say?"
"Come out of Society!" says I.
"I can't. You don't know what you're talking about. When you have once gone into Society, you mustn't come out of it."
"Then if you'll excuse the freedom, Mr. Chops," were my remark, shaking my head grave, "I think it's a pity you ever went in."
Mr. Chops shook that deep Ed of his, to a surprisin extent, and slapped it half a dozen times with his hand, and with more Wice than I thought were in him. Then, he says, "You're a good fellow, but you don't understand. Good-night, go along. Magsman, the little man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain." The last I see of him on that occasion was his tryin, on the extremest werge of insensibility, to climb up the stairs, one by one, with his hands and knees. They'd have been much too steep for him, if he had been sober; but he wouldn't be helped.
It warn't long after that, that I read in the newspaper of Mr. Chops's being presented at court. It was printed, "It will be recollected"--and I've noticed in my life, that it is sure to be printed that it _will_ be recollected, whenever it won't--"that Mr. Chops is the individual of small stature, whose brilliant success in the last State Lottery attracted so much attention." Well, I says to myself, Such is Life! He has been and done it in earnest at last. He has astonished George the Fourth!
(On account of which, I had that canvass new-painted, him with a bag of money in his hand, a presentin it to George the Fourth, and a lady in Ostrich Feathers fallin in love with him in a bag-wig, sword, and buckles correct.)
I took the House as is the subject of present inquiries--though not the honour of bein acquainted--and I run Magsman's Amusements in it thirteen months--sometimes one thing, sometimes another, sometimes nothin particular, but always all the canvasses outside. One night, when we had played the last company out, which was a shy company, through its raining Heavens hard, I was takin a pipe in the one pair back along with the young man with the toes, which I had taken on for a month (though he never drawed--except on paper), and I heard a kickin at the street door. "Halloa!" I says to the young man, "what's up!" He rubs his eyebrows with his toes, and he says, "I can't imagine, Mr. Magsman"--which he never could imagine nothin, and was monotonous company.
The noise not leavin off, I laid down my pipe, and I took up a candle, and I went down and opened the door. I looked out into the street; but nothin could I see, and nothin was I aware of, until I turned round quick, because some creetur run between my legs into the passage. There was Mr. Chops!
"Magsman," he says, "take me, on the old terms, and you've got me; if it's done, say done!"
I was all of a maze, but I said, "Done, sir."
"Done to your done, and double done!" says he. "Have you got a bit of supper in the house?"
Bearin in mind them sparklin warieties of foreign drains as we'd guzzled away at in Pall Mall, I was ashamed to offer him cold sassages and gin- and-water; but he took 'em both and took 'em free; havin a chair for his table, and sittin down at it on a stool, like hold times. I, all of a maze all the while.
It was arter he had made a clean sweep of the sassages (beef, and to the best of my calculations two pound and a quarter), that the wisdom as was in that little man began to come out of him like prespiration.
"Magsman," he says, "look upon me! You see afore you, One as has both gone into Society and come out."
"O! You _are_ out of it, Mr. Chops? How did you get out, sir?"
"SOLD OUT!" says he. You never saw the like of the wisdom as his Ed expressed, when he made use of them two words.
"My friend Magsman, I'll impart to you a discovery I've made. It's wallable; it's cost twelve thousand five hundred pound; it may do you good in life--The secret of this matter is, that it ain't so much that a person goes into Society, as that Society goes into a person."
Not exactly keepin up with his meanin, I shook my head, put on a deep look, and said, "You're right there, Mr. Chops."
"Magsman," he says, twitchin me by the leg, "Society has gone into me, to the tune of every penny of my property."
I felt that I went pale, and though nat'rally a bold speaker, I couldn't hardly say, "Where's Normandy?"
"Bolted. With the plate," said Mr. Chops.
"And t'other one?" meaning him as formerly wore the bishop's mitre.
"Bolted. With the jewels," said Mr. Chops.
I sat down and looked at him, and he stood up and looked at me.
"Magsman," he says, and he seemed to myself to get wiser as he got hoarser; "Society, taken in the lump, is all dwarfs. At the court of St. James's, they was all a doing my old business--all a goin three times round the Cairawan, in the hold court-suits and properties. Elsewheres, they was most of 'em ringin their little bells out of make-believes. Everywheres, the sarser was a goin round. Magsman, the sarser is the uniwersal Institution!"
I perceived, you understand, that he was soured by his misfortunes, and I felt for Mr. Chops.
"As to Fat Ladies," he says, giving his head a tremendious one agin the wall, "there's lots of _them_ in Society, and worse than the original. _Hers_ was a outrage upon Taste--simply a outrage upon Taste--awakenin contempt--carryin its own punishment in the form of a Indian." Here he giv himself another tremendious one. "But _theirs_, Magsman, _theirs_ is mercenary outrages. Lay in Cashmeer shawls, buy bracelets, strew 'em and a lot of 'andsome fans and things about your rooms, let it be known that you give away like water to all as come to admire, and the Fat Ladies that don't exhibit for so much down upon the drum, will come from all the pints of the compass to flock about you, whatever you are. They'll drill holes in your 'art, Magsman, like a Cullender. And when you've no more left to give, they'll laugh at you to your face, and leave you to have your bones picked dry by Wulturs, like the dead Wild Ass of the Prairies that you deserve to be!" Here he giv himself the most tremendious one of all, and dropped.
I thought he was gone. His Ed was so heavy, and he knocked it so hard, and he fell so stoney, and the sassagerial disturbance in him must have been so immense, that I thought he was gone. But, he soon come round with care, and he sat up on the floor, and he said to me, with wisdom comin out of his eyes, if ever it come:
"Magsman! The most material difference between the two states of existence through which your unhappy friend has passed;" he reached out his poor little hand, and his tears dropped down on the moustachio which it was a credit to him to have done his best to grow, but it is not in mortals to command success,--"the difference this. When I was out of Society, I was paid light for being seen. When I went into Society, I paid heavy for being seen. I prefer the former, even if I wasn't forced upon it. Give me out through the trumpet,
in the hold way, to-morrow."
Arter that, he slid into the line again as easy as if he had been iled all over. But the organ was kep from him, and no allusions was ever made, when a company was in, to his property. He got wiser every day; his views of Society and the Public was luminous, bewilderin, awful; and his Ed got bigger and bigger as his Wisdom expanded it.
He took well, and pulled 'em in most excellent for nine weeks. At the expiration of that period, when his Ed was a sight, he expressed one evenin, the last Company havin been turned out, and the door shut, a wish to have a little music.
"Mr. Chops," I said (I never dropped the "Mr." with him; the world might do it, but not me); "Mr. Chops, are you sure as you are in a state of mind and body to sit upon the organ?"
His answer was this: "Toby, when next met with on the tramp, I forgive her and the Indian. And I am."
It was with fear and trembling that I began to turn the handle; but he sat like a lamb. I will be my belief to my dying day, that I see his Ed expand as he sat; you may therefore judge how great his thoughts was. He sat out all the changes, and then he come off.
"Toby," he says, with a quiet smile, "the little man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain."
When we called him in the morning, we found him gone into a much better Society than mine or Pall Mall's. I giv Mr. Chops as comfortable a funeral as lay in my power, followed myself as Chief, and had the George the Fourth canvass carried first, in the form of a banner. But, the House was so dismal arterwards, that I giv it up, and took to the Wan again.
* * * * *
"I don't triumph," said Jarber, folding up the second manuscript, and looking hard at Trottle. "I don't triumph over this worthy creature. I merely ask him if he is satisfied now?"
"How can he be anything else?" I said, answering for Trottle, who sat obstinately silent. "This time, Jarber, you have not only read us a delightfully amusing story, but you have also answered the question about the House. Of course it stands empty now. Who would think of taking it after it had been turned into a caravan?" I looked at Trottle, as I said those last words, and Jarber waved his hand indulgently in the same direction.
"Let this excellent person speak," said Jarber. "You were about to say, my good man?"--
"I only wished to ask, sir," said Trottle doggedly, "if you could kindly oblige me with a date or two in connection with that last story?"
"A date!" repeated Jarber. "What does the man want with dates!"
"I should be glad to know, with great respect," persisted Trottle, "if the person named Magsman was the last tenant who lived in the House. It's my opinion--if I may be excused for giving it--that he most decidedly was not."
With those words, Trottle made a low bow, and quietly left the room.
There is no denying that Jarber, when we were left together, looked sadly discomposed. He had evidently forgotten to inquire about dates; and, in spite of his magnificent talk about his series of discoveries, it was quite as plain that the two stories he had just read, had really and truly exhausted his present stock. I thought myself bound, in common gratitude, to help him out of his embarrassment by a timely suggestion. So I proposed that he should come to tea again, on the next Monday evening, the thirteenth, and should make such inquiries in the meantime, as might enable him to dispose triumphantly of Trottle's objection.
He gallantly kissed my hand, made a neat little speech of acknowledgment, and took his leave. For the rest of the week I would not encourage Trottle by allowing him to refer to the House at all. I suspected he was making his own inquiries about dates, but I put no questions to him.
On Monday evening, the thirteenth, that dear unfortunate Jarber came, punctual to the appointed time. He looked so terribly harassed, that he was really quite a spectacle of feebleness and fatigue. I saw, at a glance, that the question of dates had gone against him, that Mr. Magsman had not been the last tenant of the House, and that the reason of its emptiness was still to seek.
"What I have gone through," said Jarber, "words are not eloquent enough to tell. O Sophonisba, I have begun another series of discoveries! Accept the last two as stories laid on your shrine; and wait to blame me for leaving your curiosity unappeased, until you have heard Number Three."
Number Three looked like a very short manuscript, and I said as much. Jarber explained to me that we were to have some poetry this time. In the course of his investigations he had stepped into the Circulating Library, to seek for information on the one important subject. All the Library-people knew about the House was, that a female relative of the last tenant, as they believed, had, just after that tenant left, sent a little manuscript poem to them which she described as referring to events that had actually passed in the House; and which she wanted the proprietor of the Library to publish. She had written no address on her letter; and the proprietor had kept the manuscript ready to be given back to her (the publishing of poems not being in his line) when she might call for it. She had never called for it; and the poem had been lent to Jarber, at his express request, to read to me.
Before he began, I rang the bell for Trottle; being determined to have him present at the new reading, as a wholesome check on his obstinacy. To my surprise Peggy answered the bell, and told me, that Trottle had stepped out without saying where. I instantly felt the strongest possible conviction that he was at his old tricks: and that his stepping out in the evening, without leave, meant--Philandering.
Controlling myself on my visitor's account, I dismissed Peggy, stifled my indignation, and prepared, as politely as might be, to listen to Jarber.
THREE EVENINGS IN THE HOUSE
NUMBER ONE.
I.
Yes, it look'd dark and dreary That long and narrow street: Only the sound of the rain, And the tramp of passing feet, The duller glow of the fire, And gathering mists of night To mark how slow and weary The long day's cheerless flight!
II.
Watching the sullen fire, Hearing the dreary rain, Drop after drop, run down On the darkening window-pane; Chill was the heart of Bertha, Chill as that winter day,-- For the star of her life had risen Only to fade away.
III.
The voice that had been so strong To bid the snare depart, The true and earnest will, And the calm and steadfast heart, Were now weigh'd down by sorrow, Were quivering now with pain; The clear path now seem'd clouded, And all her grief in vain.
IV.
Duty, Right, Truth, who promised To help and save their own, Seem'd spreading wide their pinions To leave her there alone. So, turning from the Present To well-known days of yore, She call'd on them to strengthen And guard her soul once more.
V.
She thought how in her girlhood Her life was given away, The solemn promise spoken She kept so well to-day; How to her brother Herbert She had been help and guide, And how his artist-nature On her calm strength relied.
VI.
How through life's fret and turmoil The passion and fire of art In him was soothed and quicken'd By her true sister heart; How future hopes had always Been for his sake alone; And now, what strange new feeling Possess'd her as its own?
VII.
Her home; each flower that breathed there; The wind's sigh, soft and low; Each trembling spray of ivy; The river's murmuring flow; The shadow of the forest; Sunset, or twilight dim; Dear as they were, were dearer By leaving them for him.
VIII.
And each year as it found her In the dull, feverish town, Saw self still more forgotten, And selfish care kept down By the calm joy of evening That brought him to her side, To warn him with wise counsel, Or praise with tender pride.
IX.
Her heart, her life, her future, Her genius, only meant Another thing to give him, And be therewith content. To-day, what words had stirr'd her, Her soul could not forget? What dream had fill'd her spirit With strange and wild regret?
X.
To leave him for another: Could it indeed be so? Could it have cost such anguish To bid this
vision go? Was this her faith? Was Herbert The second in her heart? Did it need all this struggle To bid a dream depart?
XI.
And yet, within her spirit A far-off land was seen; A home, which might have held her; A love, which might have been; And Life: not the mere being Of daily ebb and flow, But Life itself had claim'd her, And she had let it go!
XII.
Within her heart there echo'd Again the well-known tune That promised this bright future, And ask'd her for its own: Then words of sorrow, broken By half-reproachful pain; And then a farewell, spoken In words of cold disdain.
XIII.
Where now was the stern purpose That nerved her soul so long? Whence came the words she utter'd, So hard, so cold, so strong? What right had she to banish A hope that God had given? Why must she choose earth's portion, And turn aside from Heaven?
XIV.
To-day! Was it this morning? If this long, fearful strife Was but the work of hours, What would be years of life? Why did a cruel Heaven For such great suffering call? And why--O, still more cruel!-- Must her own words do all?
XV.
Did she repent? O Sorrow! Why do we linger still To take thy loving message, And do thy gentle will? See, her tears fall more slowly; The passionate murmurs cease, And back upon her spirit Flow strength, and love, and peace.
XVI.
The fire burns more brightly, The rain has passed away, Herbert will see no shadow Upon his home to-day; Only that Bertha greets him With doubly tender care, Kissing a fonder blessing Down on his golden hair.
NUMBER TWO.
I.
The studio is deserted, Palette and brush laid by, The sketch rests on the easel, The paint is scarcely dry; And Silence--who seems always Within her depths to bear The next sound that will utter-- Now holds a dumb despair.
II.
So Bertha feels it: listening With breathless, stony fear, Waiting the dreadful summons Each minute brings more near: When the young life, now ebbing, Shall fail, and pass away Into that mighty shadow Who shrouds the house to-day.
III.
But why--when the sick chamber Is on the upper floor-- Why dares not Bertha enter Within the close-shut door? If he--her all--her Brother, Lies dying in that gloom, What strange mysterious power Has sent her from the room?
Works of Charles Dickens (200+ Works) The Adventures of Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, David Copperfield & more (mobi) Page 616