Dickens at Christmas (Vintage Classics)

by Charles Dickens

  So Old Cheeseman went on, and didn’t he lead a miserable life! Of course the Reverend turned up his nose at him, and of course she did – because both of them always do that, at all the masters – but he suffered from the fellows most, and he suffered from them constantly. He never told about it, that the Society could find out; but he got no credit for that, because the President said it was Old Cheeseman’s cowardice.

  He had only one friend in the world, and that one was almost as powerless as he was, for it was only Jane. Jane was a sort of a wardrobe woman to our fellows, and took care of the boxes. She had come at first, I believe, as a kind of apprentice – some of our fellows say from a Charity, but I don’t know – and after her time was out, had stopped at so much a year. So little a year, perhaps I ought to say, for it is far more likely. However, she had put some pounds in the Savings’ Bank, and she was a very nice young woman. She was not quite pretty; but she had a very frank, honest, bright face, and all our fellows were fond of her. She was uncommonly neat and cheerful, and uncommonly comfortable and kind. And if anything was the matter with a fellow’s mother, he always went and showed the letter to Jane.

  Jane was Old Cheeseman’s friend. The more the Society went against him, the more Jane stood by him. She used to give him a good-humoured look out of her stillroom window, sometimes, that seemed to set him up for the day. She used to pass out of the orchard and the kitchen garden (always kept locked, I believe you!) through the playground, when she might have gone the other way, only to give a turn of her head, as much as to say ‘Keep up your spirits!’ to Old Cheeseman. His slip of a room was so fresh and orderly, that it was well known who looked after it while he was at his desk; and when our fellows saw a smoking hot dumpling on his plate at dinner, they knew with indignation who had sent it up.

  Under these circumstances, the Society resolved, after a quantity of meeting and debating, that Jane should be requested to cut Old Cheeseman dead; and that if she refused, she must be sent to Coventry herself. So a deputation, headed by the President, was appointed to wait on Jane, and inform her of the vote the Society had been under the painful necessity of passing. She was very much respected for all her good qualities, and there was a story about her having once waylaid the Reverend in his own study and got a fellow off from severe punishment, of her own kind comfortable heart. So the deputation didn’t much like the job. However they went up, and the President told Jane all about it. Upon which Jane turned very red, burst into tears, informed the President and the deputation, in a way not at all like her usual way, that they were a parcel of malicious young savages, and turned the whole respected body out of the room. Consequently it was entered in the Society’s book (kept in astronomical cypher for fear of detection), that all communication with Jane was interdicted; and the President addressed the members on this convincing instance of Old Cheeseman’s undermining.

  But Jane was as true to Old Cheeseman as Old Cheeseman was false to our fellows – in their opinion at all events – and steadily continued to be his only friend. It was a great exasperation to the Society, because Jane was as much a loss to them as she was a gain to him; and being more inveterate against him than ever, they treated him worse than ever. At last, one morning, his desk stood empty, his room was peeped into and found to be vacant, and a whisper went about among the pale faces of our fellows that Old Cheeseman, unable to bear it any longer, had got up early and drowned himself.

  The mysterious looks of the other masters after breakfast, and the evident fact that Old Cheeseman was not expected, confirmed the Society in this opinion. Some began to discuss whether the President was liable to hanging or only transportation for life, and the President’s face showed a great anxiety to know which. However, he said that a jury of his country should find him game; and that in his address he should put it to them to lay their hands upon their hearts, and say whether they as Britons approved of Informers, and how they thought they would like it themselves. Some of the Society considered that he had better run away until he found a Forest, where he might change clothes with a woodcutter and stain his face with blackberries; but the majority believed that if he stood his ground, his father – belonging as he did to the West Indies, and being worth Millions – could buy him off.

  All our fellows’ hearts beat fast when the Reverend came in, and made a sort of a Roman, or a Field Marshal, of himself with the ruler; as he always did before delivering an address. But their fears were nothing to their astonishment when he came out with the story that Old Cheeseman, ‘so long our respected friend and fellow pilgrim in the pleasant plains of knowledge,’ he called him – O yes! I dare say! Much of that! – was the orphan child of a disinherited young lady who had married against her father’s wish, and whose young husband had died, and who had died of sorrow herself, and whose unfortunate baby (Old Cheeseman) had been brought up at the cost of a grandfather who would never consent to see it, baby, boy, or man: which grandfather was now dead, and serve him right – that’s my putting in – and which grandfather’s large property, there being no will, was now, and all of a sudden and for ever, Old Cheeseman’s! Our so long respected friend and fellow pilgrim in the pleasant plains of knowledge, the Reverend wound up a lot of bothering quotations by saying, would ‘come among us once more’ that day fortnight, when he desired to take leave of us himself in a more particular manner. With these words, he stared severely round at our fellows, and went solemnly out.

  There was precious consternation among the members of the Society, now. Lots of them wanted to resign, and lots more began to try to make out that they had never belonged to it. However, the President stuck up, and said that they must stand or fall together, and that if a breach was made it should be over his body – which was meant to encourage the Society: but it didn’t. The President further said, he would consider the position in which they stood, and would give them his best opinion and advice in a few days. This was eagerly looked for, as he knew a good deal of the world on account of his father’s being in the West Indies.

  After days and days of hard thinking, and drawing armies all over his slate, the President called our fellows together, and made the matter clear. He said it was plain that when Old Cheeseman came on the appointed day, his first revenge would be to impeach the Society, and have it flogged all round. After witnessing with joy the torture of his enemies, and gloating over the cries which agony would extort from them, the probability was that he would invite the Reverend, on pretence of conversation, into a private room – say the parlour into which Parents were shown, where the two great globes were which were never used – and would there reproach him with the various frauds and oppressions he had endured at his hands. At the close of his observations he would make a signal to a Prizefighter concealed in the passage, who would then appear and pitch into the Reverend till he was left insensible. Old Cheeseman would then make Jane a present of from five to ten pounds, and would leave the establishment in fiendish triumph.

  The President explained that against the parlour part, or the Jane part, of these arrangements he had nothing to say; but, on the part of the Society, he counselled deadly resistance. With this view he recommended that all available desks should be filled with stones, and that the first word of the complaint should be the signal to every fellow to let fly at Old Cheeseman. The bold advice put the Society in better spirits, and was unanimously taken. A post about Old Cheeseman’s size was put up in the playground, and all our fellows practised at it till it was dinted all over.

  When the day came, and Places were called, every fellow sat down in a tremble. There had been much discussing and disputing as to how Old Cheeseman would come; but it was the general opinion that he would appear in a sort of a triumphal car drawn by four horses, with two livery servants in front, and the Prizefighter in disguise up behind. So, all our fellows sat listening for the sound of wheels. But no wheels were heard, for Old Cheeseman walked after all, and came into the school without any preparation. Pretty much as he used to be, on
ly dressed in black.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said the Reverend, presenting him, ‘our so long respected friend and fellow pilgrim in the pleasant plains of knowledge, is desirous to offer a word or two. Attention, gentlemen, one and all!’

  Every fellow stole his hand into his desk and looked at the President. The President was all ready, and taking aim at Old Cheeseman with his eyes.

  What did Old Cheeseman then, but walk up to his old desk, look round him with a queer smile as if there was a tear in his eye, and begin in a quavering mild voice, ‘My dear companions and old friends!’

  Every fellow’s hand came out of his desk, and the President suddenly began to cry.

  ‘My dear companions and old friends,’ said Old Cheeseman, ‘you have heard of my good fortune. I have passed so many years under this roof – my entire life so far, I may say – that I hope you have been glad to hear of it for my sake. I could never enjoy it without exchanging congratulations with you. If we have ever misunderstood one another at all, pray my dear boys let us forgive and forget. I have a great tenderness for you, and I am sure you return it. I want in the fulness of a grateful heart to shake hands with you every one. I have come back to do it, if you please, my dear boys.’

  Since the President had begun to cry, several other fellows had broken out here and there: but now, when Old Cheeseman began with him as First boy, laid his left hand affectionately on his shoulder and gave him his right; and when the President said ‘Indeed I don’t deserve it, Sir; upon my honour I don’t;’ there was sobbing and crying all over the school. Every other fellow said he didn’t deserve it, much in the same way; but Old Cheeseman, not minding that a bit, went cheerfully round to every boy, and wound up with every master – finishing off the Reverend last.

  Then a snivelling little chap in a corner, who was always under some punishment or other, set up a shrill cry of ‘Success to Old Cheeseman! Hoorray!’ The Reverend glared upon him, and said ‘Mr Cheeseman, Sir.’ But, Old Cheeseman protesting that he liked his old name a great deal better than his new one, all our fellows took up the cry; and, for I don’t know how many minutes, there was a thundering of feet and hands, and such a roaring of Old Cheeseman, as never was heard.

  After that, there was a spread in the dining room of the most magnificent kind. Fowls, tongues, preserves, fruits, confectionaries, jellies, neguses, barley – sugar temples, trifles, crackers – eat all you can and pocket what you like – all at Old Cheeseman’s expense. After that, speeches, whole holiday, double and treble sets of all manners of things for all manners of games, donkeys, pony chaises and drive yourself, dinner for all the masters at the Seven Bells (twenty pound a head our fellows estimated it at), an annual holiday and feast fixed for that day every year, and another on Old Cheeseman’s birthday – Reverend bound down before the fellows to allow it, so that he could never back out – all at Old Cheeseman’s expense.

  And didn’t our fellows go down in a body and cheer outside the Seven Bells? O no!

  But there’s something else besides. Don’t look at the next storyteller, for there’s more yet. Next day, it was resolved that the Society should make it up with Jane, and then be dissolved. What do you think of Jane being gone, though! ‘What? Gone for ever?’ said our fellows, with long faces. ‘Yes, to be sure,’ was all the answer they could get. None of the people about the house would say anything more. At length, the First boy took upon himself to ask the Reverend whether our old friend Jane was really gone? The Reverend (he has got a daughter at home – turn-up nose, and red) replied severely, ‘Yes Sir, Miss Pitt is gone.’ The idea of calling Jane, Miss Pitt! Some said she had been sent away in disgrace for taking money from Old Cheeseman; others said she had gone into Old Cheeseman’s service at a rise of ten pounds a year. All that our fellows knew, was, she was gone.

  It was two or three months afterwards, when, one afternoon, an open carriage stopped at the cricket field, just outside bounds, with a lady and gentleman in it, who looked at the game a long time and stood up to see it played. Nobody thought much about them, until the same little snivelling chap came in, against all rules, from the post where he was Scout, and said, ‘It’s Jane!’ Both Elevens forgot the game directly, and ran crowding round the carriage. It was Jane! In such a bonnet! And if you’ll believe me, Jane was married to Old Cheeseman.

  It soon became quite a regular thing when our fellows were hard at it in the playground, to see a carriage at the low part of the wall where it joins the high part, and a lady and gentleman standing up in it, looking over. The gentleman was always Old Cheeseman, and the lady was always Jane.

  The first time I ever saw them, I saw them in that way. There had been a good many changes among our fellows then, and it had turned out that Bob Tarter’s father wasn’t worth Millions! He wasn’t worth anything. Bob had gone for a soldier, and Old Cheeseman had purchased his discharge. But that’s not the carriage. The carriage stopped, and all our fellows stopped as soon as it was seen.

  ‘So you have never sent me to Coventry after all!’ said the lady, laughing, as our fellows swarmed up the wall to shake hands with her. ‘Are you never going to do it?’

  ‘Never! never! never!’ on all sides.

  I didn’t understand what she meant then, but of course I do now. I was very much pleased with her face though, and with her good way, and I couldn’t help looking at her – and at him too – with all our fellows clustering so joyfully about them.

  They soon took notice of me as a new boy, so I thought I might as well swarm up the wall myself, and shake hands with them as the rest did. I was quite as glad to see them as the rest were, and was quite as familiar with them in a moment.

  ‘Only a fortnight now,’ said Old Cheeseman, ‘to the holidays. Who stops? Anybody?’

  A good many fingers pointed at me, and a good many voices cried, ‘He does!’ For it was the year when you were all away; and rather low I was about it, I can tell you.

  ‘Oh!’ said Old Cheeseman. ‘But it’s solitary here in the holiday time. He had better come to us.’

  So I went to their delightful house, and was as happy as I could possibly be. They understand how to conduct themselves towards boys, they do. When they take a boy to the play, for instance, they do take him. They don’t go in after it’s begun, or come out before it’s over. They know how to bring a boy up, too. Look at their own! Though he is very little as yet, what a capital boy he is! Why, my next favourite to Mrs Cheeseman and Old Cheeseman, is young Cheeseman.

  So, now I have told you all I know about Old Cheeseman. And it’s not much after all, I am afraid. Is it?

  NOBODY’S STORY

  HE LIVED ON the bank of a mighty river, broad and deep, which was always silently rolling on to a vast undiscovered ocean. It had rolled on, ever since the world began. It had changed its course sometimes, and turned into new channels, leaving its old ways dry and barren; but it had ever been upon the flow, and ever was to flow until Time should be no more. Against its strong, unfathomable stream, nothing made head. No living creature, no flower, no leaf, no particle of animate or inanimate existence, ever strayed back from the undiscovered ocean. The tide of the river set resistlessly towards it; and the tide never stopped, any more than the earth stops in its circling round the sun.

  He lived in a busy place, and he worked very hard to live. He had no hope of ever being rich enough to live a month without hard work, but he was quite content, God knows, to labour with a cheerful will. He was one of an immense family, all of whose sons and daughters gained their daily bread by daily work, prolonged from their rising up betimes until their lying down at night. Beyond this destiny he had no prospect, and he sought none.

  There was over-much drumming, trumpeting, and speech-making, in the neighbourhood where he dwelt; but he had nothing to do with that. Such clash and uproar came from the Bigwig family, at the unaccountable proceedings of which race, he marvelled much. They set up the strangest statues, in iron, marble, bronze, and brass, before his door; and darkened h
is house with the legs and tails of uncouth images of horses. He wondered what it all meant, smiled in a rough good-humoured way he had, and kept at his hard work.

  The Bigwig family (composed of all the stateliest people thereabouts, and all the noisiest) had undertaken to save him the trouble of thinking for himself, and to manage him and his affairs. ‘Why truly,’ said he. ‘I have little time upon my hands; and if you will be so good as to take care of me, in return for the money I pay over’ – for the Bigwig family were not above his money – ‘I shall be relieved and much obliged, considering that you know best.’ Hence the drumming, trumpeting, and speechmaking, and the ugly images of horses which he was expected to fall down and worship.

  ‘I don’t understand all this,’ said he, rubbing his furrowed brow confusedly. ‘But it has a meaning, maybe, if I could find it out.’

  ‘It means,’ returned the Bigwig family, suspecting something of what he said, ‘honour and glory in the highest, to the highest merit.’

  ‘Oh!’ said he. And he was glad to hear that.

  But, when he looked among the images in iron, marble, bronze, and brass, he failed to find a rather meritorious countryman of his, once the son of a Warwickshire wooldealer, or any single countryman whomsoever of that kind. He could find none of the men whose knowledge had rescued him and his children from terrific and disfiguring disease, whose boldness had raised his forefathers from the condition of serfs, whose wise fancy had opened a new and high existence to the humblest, whose skill had filled the working man’s world with accumulated wonders. Whereas, he did find others whom he knew no good of, and even others whom he knew much ill of.