"Then, in that case, he's broken it on Wednesday. Come, let's get inside the station; we can't stop here; people will wonder who we are."
"Thomas, we will wait here for Matthew Holman. I am responsible for that man."
"Certainly, my dear aunt; but if we remain on the precise spot on which we are at present planted, we shall be prosecuted for obstruction. If you will go into the station, I will bring him to you there."
"Where are you going to take us now?"
"To the Crystal Palace."
"But—we have seen nothing of London."
"You'll see more of it when we get to the Palace. It's a wonderful place, full of the most stupendous sights; their due examination will more than occupy all the time you have to spare."
Having hustled them into the station, I went in search of Mr. Holman. "The converted drunkard" was really enjoying himself for the first time. He had already disposed of four threepennyworths of rum, and was draining the last as I came in.
"Now, sir, if you was so good as to loan me another shilling, I shouldn't wonder if I was to have a nice day, after all."
"I dare say. We'll talk about that later on. If you don't want to be lost in London, you'll come with me at once."
I scrambled them all into a train; I do not know how. It was a case of cram. Selecting an open carriage, I divided the party among the different compartments. My aunt objected; but it had to be. By the time that they were all in, my brow was damp with perspiration. I looked around. Some of our fellow-passengers wore ribbons, about eighteen inches wide, and other mysterious things; already, at that hour of the day, they were lively. The crowd was not what I expected.
"Is there anything on at the Palace?" I inquired of my neighbour. He laughed, in a manner which was suggestive.
"Anything on? What ho! Where are you come from? Why, it's the Foresters' Day. It's plain that you're not one of us. More shame to you, sonny! Here's a chance for you to join."
Foresters' Day! I gasped. I saw trouble ahead. I began to think that I had made a mistake in tearing off to the Crystal Palace in search of solitude. I had expected a desert, in which my aunt's friends would have plenty of room to knock their heads against anything they pleased. But Foresters' Day! Was it eighty or a hundred thousand people who were wont to assemble on that occasion? I remembered to have seen the figures somewhere. The ladies and gentlemen about us wore an air of such conviviality that one wondered to what heights they would attain as the day wore on.
We had a delightful journey. It occupied between two and three hours—or so it seemed to me. When we were not hanging on to platforms we were being shunted, or giving the engine a rest, or something of the kind. I know we were stopping most of the time. But the Foresters, male and female, kept things moving, if the train stood still. They sang songs, comic and sentimental; played on various musical instruments, principally concertinas; whistled; paid each other compliments; and so on. Jane and Ellen were in the next compartment to mine—as usual, glued together; how those two girls managed to keep stuck to each other was a marvel. Next to them was the persevering Daniel Dyer. In front was a red-faced gentleman, with a bright blue tie and an eighteen-inch-wide green ribbon. He addressed himself to Mr. Dyer.
"Two nice young ladies you've got there, sir."
Judging from what he looked like at the back, I should say that Mr. Dyer grinned. Obviously Jane and Ellen tittered: they put their heads together in charming confusion. The red-faced gentleman continued—
"One more than your share, haven't you, sir? You couldn't spare one of them for another gentleman? meaning me."
"You might have Jane," replied the affable Mr. Dyer.
"And which might happen to be Jane?"
Mr. Dyer supplied the information. The red-faced gentleman raised his hat. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, miss; hope we shall be better friends before the day is over."
My aunt, in the compartment behind, rose in her wrath.
"Daniel Dyer! Jane! How dare you behave in such a manner!"
The red-faced gentleman twisted himself round in his seat.
"Beg pardon, miss—was you speaking to me? If you're alone, I dare say there's another gentleman present who'll be willing to oblige. Every young lady ought to have a gent to herself on a day like this. Do me the favour of putting this to your lips; you'll find it's the right stuff."
Taking out a flat bottle, wiping it upon the sleeve of his coat, he offered it to my aunt. She succumbed.
When I found myself a struggling unit in the struggling mass on the Crystal Palace platform, my aunt caught me by the arm.
"Thomas, where have you brought us to?"
"This is the Crystal Palace, aunt."
"The Crystal Palace! It's pandemonium! Where are the members of our party?"
That was the question. My aunt collared such of them as she could lay her hands on. Matthew Holman was missing. Personally, I was not sorry. He had been "putting his lips" to more than one friendly bottle in the compartment behind mine, and was on a fair way to having a "nice day" on lines of his own. I was quite willing that he should have it by himself. But my aunt was not. She was for going at once for the police and commissioning them to hunt for and produce him then and there.
"I'm responsible for the man," she kept repeating. "I have his ticket."
"Very well, aunt—that's all right. You'll find him, or he'll find you; don't you trouble."
But she did trouble. She kept on troubling. And her cause for troubling grew more and more as the day went on. Before we were in the main building—it's a journey from the low level station through endless passages, and up countless stairs, placed at the most inconvenient intervals—Mrs. Penna was hors de combat. As no seat was handy she insisted on sitting down upon the floor. Passers-by made the most disagreeable comments, but she either could not or would not move. My aunt seemed half beside herself. She said to me most unfairly,
"You ought not to have brought us here on a day like this. It is evident that there are some most dissipated creatures here. I have a horror of a crowd—and with all the members of our party on my hands—and such a crowd!"
"How was I to know? I had not the faintest notion that anything particular was on till we were in the train."
"But you ought to have known. You live in London."
"It is true that I live in London. But I do not, on that account, keep an eye on what is going on at the Palace. I have something else to occupy my time. Besides, there is an easy remedy—let us leave the place at once. We might find fewer people in the Tower of London—I was never there, so I can't say—or on the top of the Monument."
"Without Matthew Holman?"
"Personally, I should say 'Yes.' He, at any rate, is in congenial company."
"Thomas!"
I wish I could reproduce the tone in which my aunt uttered my name! it would cause the edges of the sheet of paper on which I am writing to curl.
Another source of annoyance was the manner in which the red-faced gentleman persisted in sticking to us, like a limpet—as if he were a member of the party. Jane and Ellen kept themselves glued together. On Ellen's right was Daniel Dyer, and on Jane's left was the red-faced gentleman. This was a condition of affairs of which my aunt strongly disapproved. She remonstrated with the stranger, but without the least effect. I tried my hand on him, and failed. He was the best-tempered and thickest-skinned individual I ever remember to have met.
"It's this way," I explained—he needed a deal of explanation. "This lady has brought these people for a little pleasure excursion to town, for the day only; and, as these young ladies are in her sole charge, she feels herself responsible for them. So would you just mind leaving us?"
It seemed that he did mind; though he showed no signs of having his feelings hurt by the suggestion, as some persons might have done.
"Don't you worry, governor; I'll help her look after 'em. I've looked after a few people in my time, so the young lady can trust me—can't you, miss?"
; Jane giggled. My impression is that my aunt felt like shaking her. But just then I made a discovery.
"Hallo! Where's the youngster?"
My aunt twirled herself round.
"Stephen! Goodness! where has that boy gone to?"
Jane looked through the glass which ran all along one side of the corridor.
"Why, miss, there's Stephen Treen over in that crowd there."
"Go and fetch him back this instant."
I believe that my aunt spoke without thinking. It did seem to me that Jane showed an almost criminal eagerness to obey her. Off she flew into the grounds, through the great door which was wide open close at hand, with Ellen still glued to her arm, and Daniel Dyer at her heels, and the red-faced gentleman after him. Almost in a moment they became melted, as it were, into the crowd and were lost to view. My aunt peered after them through her glasses.
"I can't see Stephen Treen—can you?"
"No, aunt, I can't. I doubt if Jane could, either."
"Thomas! What do you mean? She said she did."
"Ah! there are people who'll say anything. I think you'll find that, for a time, at any rate, you've got three more members of the party off your hands."
"Thomas! How can you talk like that? After bringing us to this dreadful place! Go after those benighted girls at once, and bring them back, and that wretched Daniel Dyer, and that miserable child, and Matthew Holman, too."
It struck me, from her manner, that my aunt was hovering on the verge of hysterics. When I was endeavouring to explain how it was that I did not see my way to start off, then and there, in a sort of general hunt, an official, sauntering up, took a bird's-eye view of Mrs. Penna.
"Hallo, old lady what's the matter with you? Aren't you well?"
"No, I be not well—I be dying. Take me home and let me die upon my bed."
"So bad as that, is it? What's the trouble?"
"I've been up all night and all day, and little to eat and naught to drink, and I be lame."
"Lame, are you?" The official turned to my aunt. "You know you didn't ought to bring a lame old lady into a crowd like this."
"I didn't bring her. My nephew brought us all."
"Then the sooner, I should say, your nephew takes you all away again, the better."
The official took himself off. Mr. Poltifen made a remark. His tone was a trifle sour.
"I cannot say that I think we are spending a profitable and pleasurable day in London. I understood that the object which we had in view was to make researches into Dickens's London, or I should not have brought my books."
The "parish idiot" began to moan.
"I be that hungry—I be! I be!"
"Here," I cried: "here's half-a-crown for you. Go to that refreshment-stall and cram yourself with penny buns to bursting point."
Off started Sammy Trevenna; he had sense enough to catch my meaning. My aunt called after him.
"Sammy! You mustn't leave us. Wait until we come."
But Sammy declined. When, hurrying after him, catching him by the shoulder, she sought to detain him, he positively showed signs of fight.
Oh! it was a delightful day! Enjoyable from start to finish. Somehow I got Mrs. Penna, with my aunt and the remnant, into the main building and planted them on chairs, and provided them with buns and similar dainties, and instructed them not, on any pretext, to budge from where they were until I returned with the truants, of whom, straightway, I went in search. I do not mind admitting that I commenced by paying a visit to a refreshment-bar upon my own account—I needed something to support me. Nor, having comforted the inner man, did I press forward on my quest with undue haste. Exactly as I expected, I found Jane and Ellen in a sheltered alcove in the grounds, with Daniel Dyer on one side, the red-faced gentleman on the other, and Master Stephen Treen nowhere to be seen. The red-faced gentleman's friendship with Jane had advanced so rapidly that when I suggested her prompt return to my aunt, he considered himself entitled to object with such vehemence that he actually took his coat off and invited me to fight. But I was not to be browbeaten by him; and, having made it clear that if he attempted to follow I should call the police, I marched off in triumph with my prizes, only to discover that the young women had tongues of their own, with examples of whose capacity they favoured me as we proceeded. I believe that if I had been my aunt, I should, then and there, have boxed their ears.
My aunt received us with a countenance of such gloom that I immediately perceived that something frightful must have occurred.
"Thomas!" she exclaimed, "I have been robbed!"
"Robbed? My dear aunt! Of what—your umbrella?"
"Of everything!"
"Of everything? I hope it's not so bad as that."
"It is. I have been robbed of purse, money, tickets, everything, down to my pocket-handkerchief and bunch of keys."
It was the fact—she had. Her pocket, containing all she possessed—out of Cornwall—had been cut out of her dress and carried clean away. It was a very neat piece of work, as the police agreed when we laid the case before them. They observed that, of course, they would do their best, but they did not think there was much likelihood of any of the stolen property being regained; adding that, in a crowd like that, people ought to look after their pockets, which was cold comfort for my aunt, and rounded the day off nicely.
Ticketless, moneyless, returning to Cornwall that night was out of the question. I put "the party" up. My aunt had my bed, Mrs. Penna was accommodated in the same room, the others somewhere and somehow. I camped out. In the morning, the telegraph being put in motion, funds were forthcoming, and "the party" started on its homeward way. The railway authorities would listen to nothing about lost excursion tickets. My aunt had to pay full fare—twenty-one and twopence halfpenny—for each. I can still see her face as she paid.
Two days afterwards Master Stephen Treen and Mr. Matthew Holman were reported found by the police, Mr. Holman showing marked signs of a distinct relapse from grace. My aunt had to pay for their being sent home. The next day she received, through the post, in an unpaid envelope, the lost excursion tickets. No comment accompanied them. Her visiting-card was in the purse; evidently the thief, having no use for old excursion tickets, had availed himself of it to send them back to her. She has them to this day, and never looks at them without a qualm. That was her first excursion; she tells me that never, under any circumstances, will she try another.
The Irregularity of the Juryman
*
Chapter I - The Juryman is Startled
His first feeling was one of annoyance. All-round annoyance. Comprehensive disgust. He did not want to be a juryman. He flattered himself that he had something better to do with his time. Half-a-dozen matters required his attention. Instead of which, here he was obtruding himself into matters in which he did not take the faintest interest. Actually dragged into interference with other people's most intimate affairs. And in that stuffy court. And it had been a principle of his life never to concern himself with what was no business of his. Talk about the system of trial by jury being a bulwark of the Constitution! At that moment he had no opinion of the Constitution; or its bulwarks either.
Then there were his colleagues. He had never been associated with eleven persons with whom he felt himself to be less in sympathy. The fellow they had chosen to be foreman he felt convinced was a cheesemonger. He looked it. The others looked, if anything, worse. Not, he acknowledged, that there was anything inherently wrong in being a cheesemonger. Still, one did not want to sit cheek by jowl with persons of that sort for an indefinite length of time. And there were cases—particularly in the Probate Court—which lasted days; even weeks. If he were in for one of those! The perspiration nearly stood on his brow at the horror of the thought.
What was the case about? What was that inarticulate person saying? Philip Poland knew nothing about courts—and did not want to—but he took it for granted that the gentleman in a wig and gown, with his hands folded over his portly stomach, was counsel for
one side or the other—though he had not the slightest notion which. He had no idea how they managed things in places of this sort. As he eyed him he felt that he was against him anyhow. If he were paid to speak, why did not the man speak up?
By degrees, for sheer want of something else, Mr. Roland found that he was listening. After all, the man was audible. He seemed capable, also, of making his meaning understood. So it was about a will, was it? He might have taken that for granted. He always had had the impression that the Probate Court was the place for wills. It seemed that somebody had left a will; and this will was in favour of the portly gentleman's client; and was as sound, as equitable, as admirable a legal instrument as ever yet was executed; and how, therefore, anyone could have anything to say against it surprised the portly gentleman to such a degree that he had to stop to wipe his forehead with a red silk pocket-handkerchief.
The day was warm. Mr. Roland was not fond of listening to speeches. And this one was—well, weighty. And about something for which he did not care two pins. His attention wandered. It strayed perilously near the verge of a dose. In fact, it must have strayed right over the verge. Because the next thing he understood was that one of his colleagues was digging his elbow into his side, and proffering the information that they were going lunch. He felt a little bewildered. He could not think how it had happened. It was not his habit to go to sleep in the morning. As he trooped after his fellows he was visited by a hazy impression that that wretched jury system was at the bottom of it all.
They were shown into an ill-ventilated room. Someone asked him what he would have to eat. He told them to bring him what they had. They brought some hot boiled beef and carrots. The sight of it nearly made him ill. His was a dainty appetite. Hot boiled beef on such a day, in such a place, after such a morning, was almost the final straw. He could not touch it.
His companion attacked his plate with every appearance of relish. He made a hearty meal. Possibly he had kept awake. He commented on the fashion in which Mr. Roland had done his duty to his Queen and country.
Between the Dark and the Daylight Page 2