FOURTH QUARTER
Some new remembrance of the ghostly figures in the
Bell; some faint impression of the ringing of the
Chimes; some giddy consciousness of having seen
the swarm of phantoms reproduced and reproduced
until the recollection of them lost itself in the con-
fusion of their numbers; some hurried knowledge,
how conveyed to him he knew not, that more years
had passed; and Trotty, with the Spirit of the child
attending him, stood looking on at mortal company.
Fat company, rosy-cheeked company, comfortable
company. They were but two, but they were red
enough for ten. They sat before a bright fire, with
a small low table between them; and unless the fra-
grance of hot tea and muffins lingered longer in that
room than in most others, the table had seen service
very lately. But all the cups and saucers being clean,
and in their proper places in the corner-cupboard; and
the brass toasting-fork hanging in its usual nook and
spreading its four idle fingers out as if it wanted to
be measured for a glove; there remained no other
visible tokens of the meal just finished, than such as
purred and washed their whiskers in the person of
the basking cat, and glistened in the gracious, not to
say the greasy, faces of her patrons.
This cosy couple (married, evidently) had made a
fair division of the fire between them, and sat looking
at the glowing sparks that dropped into the grate;
now nodding off into a doze; now waking up again
when some hot fragment, larger than the rest, came
rattling down, as if the fire were coming with it.
It was in no danger of sudden extinction, however;
for it gleamed not only in the little room, and on the
panes of window-glass in the door, and on the cur-
tain half drawn across them, but in the little shop
beyond. A little shop, quite crammed and choked
with the abundance of its stock; a perfectly voracious
little shop, with a maw as accommodating and full aa
any shark’s. Cheese, butter, firewood, soap, pickles
matches, bacon, table-beer, peg-tops, sweetmeats
boys’ kites, bird-seed, cold ham, birch brooms, hearth_
stones, salt, vinegar, blacking, red-herrings, station-
ery, lard, mushroom-ketchup, staylaces, loaves of
bread, shuttlecocks, eggs, and slate pencil; everything
was fish that came to the net of this greedy little
shop, and all articles were in its net. How many
other kinds of petty merchandise were there, it would
be difficult to say; but balls of packthread, ropes of
onions, pounds of candles, cabbage-nets, and brushes,
hung in bunches from the ceiling, like extraordinary
fruit; while various odd canisters emitting aromatic
smells, established the veracity of the inscription over
the outer door, which informed the public that the
keeper of this little shop was a licensed dealer in
tea, coffee, tobacco, pepper, and snuff.
Glancing at such of these articles as were visible
in the shining of the blaze, and the less cheerful
radiance of two smoky lamps which burnt but dimly
in the shop itself, as though its plethora sat heavy on
their lungs; and glancing, then, at one of the two
faces by the parlour-fire; Trotty had small difficulty
in recognising in the stout old lady, Mrs. Chicken-
stalker: always inclined to corpulency, even in the
days when he had known her as established in the
general line, and having a small balance against him
in her books.
The features of her companion were less easy to
him. The great broad chin, with creases in it large
enough to hide a finger in; the astonished eyes, that –
seemed to expostulate with themselves for sinking
deeper and deeper into the yielding fat of the soft
face; the nose afflicted with that disordered action of
its functions which is generally termed The Snuffles;
the short thick throat and labouring chest, with other
beauties of the like description; though calculated to
impress the memory, Trotty could at first allot to
nobody he had ever known: and yet he had some
recollection of them too. At length, in Mrs. Chicken-
stalker’s partner in the general line, and in the crooked
and eccentric line of life, he recognised the former
porter of Sir Joseph Bowley; an apoplectic innocent,
who had connected himself in Trotty’s mind with
Mrs. Chickenstalker years ago, by giving him admis-
sion to the mansion where he had confessed his obli-
gations to that lady, and drawn on his unlucky head
such grave reproach.
Trotty had little interest in a change like this, after
the changes he had seen; but association is very
strong sometimes; and he looked involuntarily be-
hind the parlour-door, where the accounts of credit
customers were usually kept in chalk. There was no
record of his name. Some names were there, but they
were strange to him, and infinitely fewer than of old;
from which he argued that the porter was an advo-
cate of ready money transactions, and on coming into
the business had looked pretty sharp after the Chick-
enstalker defaulters.
So desolate was Trotty, and so mournful for the
youth and promise of his blighted child, that it was
a sorrow to him, even to have no place in Mrs.
Chickenstalker’s ledger.
‘What sort of a night is it, Anne?’ inquired the
former porter of Sir Joseph Bowley, stretching out
his legs before the fire, and rubbing as much of them
as his short arms could reach; with an air that added,
‘Here I am if it’s bad, and I don’t want to go out
if it’s good.’
‘Blowing and sleeting hard,’ returned his wife; ‘and
threatening snow. Dark. And very cold.’
‘I’m glad to think we had muffins,’ said the former
porter, in the tone of one who had set his conscience
at rest. ‘It’s a sort of night that’s meant for muf-
fins. Likewise crumpets. Also Sally Lunns.’
The former porter mentioned each successive kind
of eatable, as if he were musingly summing up his
good actions. After which he rubbed his fat legs as
before, and jerking them at the knees to get the fire
upon the yet unroasted parts, laughed as if some-
body had tickled him.
‘You’re in spirits, Tugby, my dear,’ observed his
wife.
The firm was Tugby, late Chickenstalker.
‘No,’ said Tugby. ‘No. Not particular. I’m a
little elewated. The muffins came so pat!’
With that he chuckled until he was black in the
face; and had so much ado to become any other
colour, that his fat legs took the strangest excursions
into the air. Nor were they reduced to anything like
decorum until Mrs. Tugby had thumped him vio-
lently on the back, and shaken him as if he were
a great bottle.
‘Good gracious, goodness, lord-a-mercy bless and
save the man!’ cried Mrs. Tugby, in great terror.
‘What’s he doing?’
Mr. Tugby wiped his eyes, and faintly repeated,
that he found himself a little elewated.
‘Then don’t be so again, that’s a dear good soul,’
said Mrs. Tugby, ‘if you don’t want to frighten me
to death, with your struggling and fighting!’
Mr. Tugby said he wouldn’t; but his whole exist-
ence was a fight, in which, if any judgment might be
founded on the constantly-increasing shortness of his
breath, and the deepening purple of his face, he was
always getting the worst of it.
‘So it’s blowing, and sleeting, and threatening
snow; and it’s dark, and very cold, is it, my dear?
said Mr. Tugby, looking at the fire, and reverting
to the cream and marrow of his temporary elevation.
‘Hard weather indeed,’ returned his wife, shaking
her head.
‘Aye, aye! Years,’ said Mr. Tugby, ‘are like Chris-
tians in that respect. Some of ’em die hard; some
of ’em die easy. This one hasn’t many days to run,
and is making a fight for it. I like him all the better.
There’s a customer, my love!’
Attentive to the rattling door, Mrs. Tugby had
already risen.
‘Now then!’ said that lady, passing out into the
little shop. ‘What’s wanted? Oh! I beg your pardon,
sir, I’m sure. I didn’t think it was you.’
She made this apology to a gentleman in black,
who with his wristbands tucked up, and his hat
cocked loungingly on one side, and his hands in his
pockets, sat down astride on the table-beer barrel,
and nodded in return.
‘This is a bad business upstairs, Mrs. Tugby,’ said
the gentleman. ‘The man can’t live.’
‘Not the back-attic can’t!’ cried Tugby, coming
out into the shop to join the conference.
‘The back-attic, Mr. Tugby,’ said the gentleman,
‘is coming downstairs fast, and will be below the
basement very soon.’
Looking by turns at Tugby and his wife, he
sounded the barrel with his knuckles for the depth
of beer, and having found it, played a tune upon
the empty part.
‘The back-attic, Mr. Tugby,’ said the gentleman:
Tugby having stood in silent consternation for some
time: ‘is Going.’
‘Then,’ said Tugby, turning to his wife, ‘he must
Go, you know, before he’s Gone.’
‘I don’t think you can move him,’ said the gentle-
man, shaking his head. ‘I wouldn’t take the respon-
sibility of saying it could be done, myself. You had
better leave him where he is. He can’t live long.’
‘It’s the only subject,’ said Tugby, bringing the
butter-scale down upon the counter with a crash, by
weighing his fist on it, ‘that we’ve ever had a word
upon; she and me; and look what it comes to! He’s
going to die here, after all. Going to die upon the
premises. Going to die in our house!’
‘And where should he have died, Tugby?’ cried
his wife.
‘In the workhouse,’ he returned. ‘What are work-
houses made for?’
‘Not for that,’ said Mrs. Tugby, with great energy.
‘Not for that! Neither did I marry you for that,
Don’t think it, Tugby. I won’t have it. I won’t.
allow it. I’d be separated first, and never see your
face again. When my widow’s name stood over that
door, as it did for many years: this house being
known as Mrs. Chickenstalker’s far and wide, and
never known but to its honest credit and its good
report: when my widow’s name stood over that door,
Tugby, I knew him as a handsome, steady, manly,
independent youth; I knew her as the sweetest-look-
ing, sweetest-tempered girl, eyes ever saw; I knew
her father (poor old creetur, he fell down from the
steeple walking in his sleep, and killed himself), for
the simplest, hardest-working, childest-hearted man,
that ever drew the breath of life; and when I turn
them out of house and home, may angels turn me out
of Heaven. As they would! And serve me rightl’
Her old face, which had been a plump and dimpled
one before the changes which had come to pass,
seemed to shine out of her as she said these words;
and when she dried her eyes, and shook her head and
her handkerchief at Tugby, with an expression of
firmness which it was quite clear was not to be easily
resisted, Trotty said ‘Bless her! Bless her!’
Then he listened, with a panting heart, for what
should follow. Knowing nothing yet, but that they
spoke of Meg.
If Tugby had been a little elevated in the parlour,
he more than balanced that account by being not a
little depressed in the shop, where he now stood star-
ing at his wife, without attempting a reply; secretly
conveying, however — either in a fit of abstraction or
as a precautionary measure — all the money from the
till into his own pockets, as he looked at her.
The gentleman upon the table-beer cask, who ap-
peared to be some authorised medical attendant upon
the poor, was far too well accustomed, evidently, to
little differences of opinion between man and wife,
to interpose any remark in this instance. He sat
softly whistling, and turning little drops of beer out
of the tap upon the ground, until there was a perfect
calm: when he raised his head, and said to Mrs.
Tugby, late Chickenstalker:
‘There’s something interesting about the woman,
even now. How did she come to marry him?’
‘Why that,’ said Mrs. Tugby, taking a seat near
him, ‘is not the least cruel part of her story, sir. You
see they kept company, she and Richard, many years
ago. When they were a young and beautiful couple,
everything was settled, and they were to have been
married on a New Year’s Day. But, somehow, Rich-
ard got it into his head, through what the gentlemen
told him, that he might do better, and that he’d soon
repent it, and that she wasn’t good enough for him,
and that a young man of spirit had no business to
be married. And the gentlemen frightened her, and
made her melancholy, and timid of his deserting her,
and of her children coming to the gallows, and of
its being wicked to be man and wife, and a good deal
more of it. And in short, they lingered and lingered,
and their trust in one another was broken, and so
at last was the match. But the fault was his. She
would have married him, sir, joyfully. I’ve seen her
heart swell, many times afterwards, when he passed
her in a proud and careless way; and never did a
woman grieve more truly for a man, that she for
Richard when he first went wrong.’
‘Oh! he went wrong, did he?’ said the gentleman
pulling out the vent-peg of the table-beer, and trying
to peep down into the barrel through the hole.
‘Well, sir, I don’t know that he rightly understood
himself, you see. I think his mind was troubled by
their having broke with one another; and that but
for being ashamed before the gentlemen, and perhaps
for being uncertain too, how she might take it, he’d
have gone through any suffering or trial to have had
Meg’s promise and Meg’s hand again. That’s my
belief. He never said so; more’s the pity! He took
to drinking, idling, bad companions: all the fine re-
sources that were to be so much better for him than
the Home he might have had. He lost his looks, his
character, his health, his strength, his friends, his
work: everything!’
‘He didn’t lose everything, Mrs. Tugby,’ returned
the gentleman, ‘because he gained a wife; and I want
to know how he gained her.’
‘I’m coming to it, sir, in a moment. This went
on for years and years; he sinking lower and lower;
she enduring, poor thing, miseries enough to wear
her life away. At last, he was so cast down, and
cast out, that no one would employ or notice him; and
doors were shut upon him, go where he would. Ap-
plying from place to place, and door to door; and
coming for the hundredth time to one gentleman who
had often and often tried him (he was a good work-
man to the very end); that gentleman, who knew his
history, said, “I believe you are incorrigible; there is
only one person in the world who has a chance of re-
claiming you; ask me to trust you no more, until she
tries to do it.” Something like that, in his anger
and vexation.’
‘Ah!’ said the gentleman. ‘Well?’
‘Well, sir, he went to her, and kneeled to her; said
it was so: said it ever had been so; and made a
prayer to her to save him.’
‘And she? — Don’t distress yourself, Mrs. Tugby.’
‘She came to me that night to ask me about living
here. “What he was once to me,” she said, “is buried
in a grave, side by side, with what I was to him. But
I have thought of this; and I will make the trial in
the hope of saving him; for the love of the light-
hearted girl (you remember her) who was to have
been married on a New Year’s Day; and for the
love of her Richard.” And she said he had come to
her from Lilian, and Lilian had trusted to him, and
she never could forget that. So they were married;
and when they came home here, and I saw them, I
hoped that such prophecies as parted them when they
were young, may not often fulfil themselves as they
did in this case, or I wouldn’t be the makers of them
for a Mine of Gold.’
The gentleman got off the cask, and stretched him-
self, observing:
‘I suppose he used her ill, as soon as they were
married?’
‘I don’t think he ever did that,’ said Mrs. Tugby,
shaking her head, and wiping her eyes. ‘He went
on better for a short time; but, his habits were too
old and strong to be got rid of; he soon fell back a
little; and was falling fast back, when his illness
came so strong upon him. I think he has always
felt for her. I am sure he has. I have seen him, in
his crying fits and tremblings, try to kiss her hand;
and I have heard him call her “Meg,” and say it
was her nineteenth birthday. There he has been
lying, now, these weeks and months. Between him
and her baby, she had not been able to do her own
work; and by not being able to be regular, she has
lost it, even if she could have done it. How they
have lived. I hardly know!’
‘I know,’ muttered Mr. Tugby; looking at the till,
and round the shop, and at his wife; and rolling
his head with immense intelligence. ‘Like Fighting
Cocks!’
He was interrupted by a cry — a sound of lamenta-
tion — from the upper story of the house. The gentle-
man moved hurriedly to the door.
‘My friend,’ he said, looking back, ‘you needn’t
discuss whether he shall be removed or not. He has
spared you that trouble, I believe.’
Saying so, he ran upstairs, followed by Mrs. Tugby;
while Mr. Tugby panted and grumbled after them
at leisure: being rendered more than commonly short-
winded by the weight of the till, in which there had
been an inconvenient quantity of copper. Trotty
with the child beside him, floated up the staircase
like mere air.
‘Follow her! Follow her! Follow her! ‘ He heard
the ghostly voices in the Bells repeat their words
as he ascended. ‘Learn it, from the creature dearest
to your heart!’
It was over. It was over. And this was she, her
fathers pride and joy! This haggard, wretched
woman, weeping by the bed, if it deserved that name,
and pressing to her breast, and hanging down her
head upon, an infant. Who can tell how spare,
how sickly, and how poor an infant! Who can tell
how dear!
‘Thank God!’ cried Trotty, holding up his folded
hands. ‘0, God be thanked! She loves her child!’
The gentleman, not otherwise hard-hearted or in-
different to such scenes, than that he saw them every
day, and knew that they were figures of no moment
in the Filer sums — mere scratches in the working of
these calculations — laid his hand upon the heart that
beat no more, and listened for the breath, and said,
‘His pain is over. It’s better as it is!’ Mrs. Tugby
tried to comfort her with kindness. Mr. Tugby tried
philosophy.
‘Come, come!’ he said, with his hands in his pockets,
You mustn’t give way, you know. That won’t do.
You must fight up. What would have become of me
if I had given way when I was porter, and we had as
many as six runaway carriage-doubles at our door
in one night! But, I fell back upon my strength
of mind, and didn’t open it!’
Again Trotty heard the voices, saying, ‘Follow
her!’ He turned towards his guide, and saw it rising
from him, passing through the air. ‘Follow her!’ it
said. And vanished.
He hovered round her; sat down at her feet; looked
up into her face for one trace of her old self; listened
for one note of her old pleasant voice. He flitted
round the child: so wan, so prematurely old, so
dreadful in its gravity, so plaintive in its feeble,
mournful, miserable wail. He almost worshipped it.
He clung to it as her only safeguard; as the last
unbroken link that bound her to endurance. He set
his father’s hope and trust on the frail baby; watched
her every look upon it as she held it in her arms;
and cried a thousand times, ‘She loves it! God be
thanked, she loves it!’
He saw the woman tend her in the night; return
to her when her grudging husband was asleep, and all
was still; encourage her, shed tears with her, set
nourishment before her. He saw the day come, and
the night again; the day, the night; the time go by;
the house of death relieved of death; the room left
to herself and to the child; he heard it moan and cry;
he saw it harass her, and tire her out, and when she
slumbered in exhaustion, drag her back to conscious-
ness, and hold her with its little hands upon the rack;
but she was constant to it, gentle with it, patient
with it. Patient! Was its loving mother in her in-
most heart and soul, and had its Being knitted up
with hers as when she carried it unborn.
All this time she was in want: languishing away,
in dire and pining want. With the baby in her arms
she wandered here and there, in quest of occupation;
and with its thin face lying in her lap, and looking up
in hers, did any work for any wretched sum; a day
and night of labour for as many farthings as there
were figures on the dial. If she had quarrelled with
it, if she had neglected it; if she had looked upon it
with a moment’s hate; if, in the frenzy of an in-
stant, she had struck it! No. His comfort was, She
loved it always.
She told no one of her extremity, and wandered
abroad in the day lest she should be questioned by
her only friend: for any help she received from her
hands, occasioned fresh disputes between the good
woman and her husband; and it was new bitterness
to be the daily cause of strife and discord where
she owed so much.
She loved it still. She loved it more and more
But a change fell on the aspect of her love. One
night.
She was singing faintly to it in its sleep, and walk-
ing to and fro to hush it, when her door was softly
opened, and a man looked in.
‘For the last time,’ he said
‘William Fern!’
‘For the last time.’
He listened like a man pursued: and spoke in
whispers.
‘Margaret, my race is nearly run. I couldn’t finish
it, without a parting word with you. Without one
grateful word.’
‘What have you done?’ she asked: regarding him
with terror.
He looked at her, but gave no answer.
After a short silence, he made a gesture with his
hand, as if he set her question by; as if he brushed
it aside; and said:
‘It’s long ago, Margaret, now; but that night is
as fresh in my memory as ever ’twas. We little
thought then,’ he added, looking round, ‘that we
should ever meet like this. Your child, Margaret?
Let me have it in my arms. Let me hold your child.’
He put his hat upon the floor, and took it. And
he trembled as he took it, from head to foot.
‘Is it a girl?’
‘Yes.’
He put his hand before its little face.
‘See how weak I’m grown, Margaret, when I want
the courage to look at it! Let her be, a moment.
I won’t hurt her. It’s long ago, but — What’s her
name?’
‘Margaret,’ she answered, quickly.
‘I’m glad of that,’ he said. ‘I’m glad of that!’
He seemed to breathe more freely; and after paus-
ing for an instant, took away his hand, and looked
upon the infant’s face. But covered it again,
immediatiely.
‘Margaret!’ he said; and gave her back the child.
‘It’s Lilian’s.’
‘Lilian’s!’
‘I held the same face in my arms when Lilian’s
mother died and left her.’
‘When Lilian’s mother died and left her!’ she re-
peated, wildly.
‘How, shrill you speak! Why do you fix your eyes
upon me so? Margaret!’
She sunk down in a chair, and pressed the infant
to her breast, and wept over it. Sometimes, she re-
leased it from her embrace, to look anxiously in its
face: then strained it to her bosom again. At those
times, when she gazed upon it, then it was that some-
thing fierce and terrible began to mingle with her
love. Then it was that her old father quailed.
‘Follow her! ‘ was sounded through the house.
‘Learn it, from the creature dearest to your heart!’
‘Margaret,’ said Fern, bending over her, and kiss-
ing her upon the brow: ‘I thank you for the last time.
Good-night. Good-bye! Put your hand in mine;
and tell me you’ll forget me from this hour, and try
to think the end of me was here.’
‘What have you done?’ she asked again
‘There’ll be a Fire to-night,’ he said, removing
from her. There’ll be Fires this winter-time, to light
the dark nights, East, West, North, and South. When
you see the distant sky red, they’ll be blazing. When
you see the distant sky red, think of me no more;
or, if you do, remember what a Hell was lighted
up inside of me, and think you see its flames reflected
in the clouds. Good-night. Good-bye!’
She called to him; but he was gone. She sat down
stupefied, until her infant roused her to a sense of
hunger, cold, and darkness. She paced the room with
it the livelong night, hushing it and soothing it. She
said at intervals, ‘Like Lilian, when her mother died
and left her!’ Why was her step so quick, her eye
so wild, her love so fierce and terrible, whenever she
repeated those words?
‘But, it is Love,’ said Trotty. ‘It is Love. She’ll
never cease to love it. My poor Meg!’
She dressed the child next morning with unusual
care — ah, vain expenditure of care upon such squalid
robes! — and once more tried to find some means of
life. It was the last day of the Old Year. She tried
till night, and never broke her fast. She tried in
vain.
She mingled with an abject crowd, who tarried in
the snow, until it pleased some officer appointed to
dispense the public charity (the lawful charity; not
that once preached upon a Mount), to call them in,
and question them, and say to this one, ‘Go to such
a place,’ to that one, ‘Come next week’; to make a
football of another wretch, and pass him here and
there, from hand to hand, from house to house, until
he wearied and lay down to die; or started up and
robbed, and so became a higher sort of criminal,
whose claims allowed of no delay. Here, too, she
failed.
She loved her child, and wished to have it lying on
her breast. And that was quite enough.
It was night: a bleak, dark, cutting night: when,
pressing the child close to her for warmth, she arrived
outside the house she called her home. She was so
faint and giddy, that she saw no one standing in the
doorway until she was close upon it, and about to
enter. Then she recognised the master of the house,
who had so disposed himself — with his person it was
not difficult — as to fill up the whole entry.
‘O!’ he said softly. ‘You have come back.
She looked at the child, and shook her head.
‘Don’t you think you have lived here long enough
without paying any rent? Don’t you think that,
without any money, you’ve been a pretty constant
customer at this shop, now?’ said Mr. Tugby.
She repeated the same mute appeal.
‘Suppose you try and deal somewhere else, he sald.
‘And suppose you provide yourself with another lodg-
ing. Come! Don’t you think you could manage it?’
She said in a low voice, that it was very late.
To-morrow.
‘Now I see what you want,’ said Tugby; ‘and what
you mean. You know there are two parties in this
house about you, and you delight in setting ’em by
the ears. I don’t want any quarrels; I’m speaking
softly to avoid a quarrel; but if you dont go away,
I’ll speak out loud, and you shall cause words high
enough to please you. But you shan’t come in. That
I am determined.’
She put her hair back with her hand, and looked
in a sudden manner at the sky, and the dark lower-
ing distance.
‘This is the last night of an Old Year, and I won’t
carry ill-blood and quarrellings and disturbances into
a New One, to please you nor anybody else,’ said
Tugby, who was quite a retail Friend and Father. .
‘I wonder you an’t ashamed of yourself, to carry such
practices into a New Year. If you haven’t any busi-
ness in the world, but to be always giving way, and
always making disturbances between man and wife,
you’d be better out of it. Go along with you.’
‘Follow ner! To desperation!’
Again the old man heard the voices. Looking up,
he saw the figures hovering in the air, and pointing
where she went, down the dark street.
‘She loves it!’ he exclaimed, in agonised entreaty
for her. ‘Chimes! she loves it still!’
‘Follow her!’ The shadows swept upon the track
she had taken, like a cloud.
He joined in the pursuit; he kept close to her; he
looked into her face. He saw the same fierce and
terrible expression mingling with her love, and kin-
dling in her eyes. He heard her say, ‘Like Lilian! To
be changed like Lilian!’ and her speed redoubled.
0, for something to awaken her! For any sight,
or sound, or scent, to call up tender recollections in
a brain on fire! For any gentle image of the Past,
to rise before her!
‘I was her father! I was her father!’ cried the old
man, stretching out his hands to the dark shadows
flying on above. ‘Have mercy on her, and on me!
Where does she go? Turn her back! I was her
father!’
But they only pointed to her, as she hurried on;
and said, ‘To desperation! Learn it from the crea-
ture dearest to your heart!’
A hundred voices echoed it. The air was made of
breath expended in those words. He seemed to take
them in, at every gasp he drew. They were every-
where, and not to be escaped. And still she hurried
on; the same light in her eyes, the same words in her
mouth, ‘Like Lilian! To be changed like Lilian!’
All at once she stopped.
‘Now, turn her back!’ exclaimed the old man, tear-
ing his white hair. ‘My child! Meg! Turn her
back! Great Father, turn her back!’
In her own scanty shawl, she wrapped the baby
warm. With her fevered hands, she smoothed its
limbs, composed its face, arranged its mean attire.
In her wasted arms she folded it, as though she never
would resign it more. And with her dry lips, kissed
it in a final pang, and last long agony of Love.
Putting its tiny hand up to her neck, and holding
it there, within her dress, next to her distracted heart,
she set its sleeping face against her: closely, steadily,
against her: and sped onward to the River.
To the rolling River, swift and dim, where Winter
Night sat brooding like the last dark thoughts of
many who had sought a refuge there before her.
Where scattered lights upon the banks gleamed sul-
len, red, and dull, as torches that were burning there,
to show the way to Death. Where no abode of living
people casts its shadow, on the deep, impenetrable,
melancholy shade.
To the River! To that portal of Eternity, her
desperate footsteps tended with the swiftness of its
rapid waters running to the sea. He tried to touch
her as she passed him, going down to its dark level;
but, the wild distempered form, the fierce and terrible
love, the desperation that had left all human check
or hold behind, swept by him like the wind.
He followed her. She paused a moment on the
brink, before the dreadful plunge. He fell down on
his knees, and in a shriek addressed the figures in the
Bells now hovering above them.
‘I have learnt it!’ cried the old man. ‘From the
creature dearest to my heart! 0, save her, save her!’
He could wind his fingers in her dress; could hold
it! As the words escaped his lips, he felt his sense
of touch return, and knew that he had detained her.
The figures looked down steadfastly upon him
‘I have learnt it!’ cried the old man. ‘O, have
mercy on me in this hour, if, in my love for her, so
young and good, I slandered Nature in the breasts
of mothers rendered desperate! Pity my presump-
tion, wickedness, and ignorance, and save her.’
He felt his hold relaxing. They were silent still.
‘Have mercy on her!’ he exclaimed, ‘as one in whom
this dreadful crime has sprung from Love perverted;
from the strongest, deepest Love we fallen creatures
know! Think what her misery must have been, when
such seed bears such fruit! Heaven meant her to be
good. There is no loving mother on the earth who
might not come to this, if such a life had gone before.
0, have mercy on my child, who, even at this pass
means mercy to her own, and dies herself, and perils
her immortal soul, to save it!’
She was in his arms. He held her now. His
strength was like a giant’s.
‘I see the Spirit of the Chimes among you!’ cried
the old man, singling out the child, and speaking in
some inspiration, which their looks conveyed to him.
‘I know that our inheritance is held in store for us by
Time. I know there is a sea of Time to rise one day,
before which all who wrong us or oppress us will be
swept away like leaves. I see it, on the flow! I
know that we must trust and hope, and neither doubt
ourselves, nor doubt the good in one another. I have
learnt it from the creature dearest to my heart. I
clasp her in my arms again. O Spirits, merciful and
good, I take your lesson to my breast along with her!
O Spirits, merciful and good, I am grateful!’
He might have said more; but, the Bells, the old
familiar Bells, his own dear, constant, steady friends,
the Chimes, began to ring the joy-peals for a New
Year: so lustily, so merrily, so harppily, so gaily, that
he leapt to his feet, and broke the spell that bound
him.
‘And whatever you do, father,’ said Meg, ‘don’t
eat tripe again, without asking some doctor whether
it’s likely to agree with you; for how you have been
going on, Good gracious!’
She was working with her needle, at the little table
by the fire: dressing her simple gown with ribbons for
her wedding. So quietly happy, so blooming and
youthful, so full of beautiful promise, that he uttered
a great cry as if it were an Angel in his house; then
flew to clasp her in his arms.
But, he caught his feet in the newspaper, which
had fallen on the hearth; and somebody came rushing
in between them.
‘No!’ cried the voice of this same somebody; a
generous and jolly voice it was! ‘Not even you.
Not even you. The first kiss of Meg in the New
Year is mine. Mine! I have been waiting outside
the house, this hour, to hear the Bells and claim it.
Meg, my precious prize, a happy year! A life of
happy years, my darling wife!’
And Richard smothered her with kisses.
You never in all your life saw anything like Trotty
after this. I don’t care where you have lived or what
you have seen; you never in all your life saw any-
thing at all approaching him! He sat down in his
chair and beat his knees and cried; he sat down in
his chair and beat his knees and laughed; he sat down
in his chair and beat his knees and laughed and cried
together; he got out of his chair and hugged Meg;
he got out of his chair and hugged Richard; he got
out of his chair and hugged them both at once; he
kept running up to Meg, and squeezing her fresh face
between his hands and kissing it, going from her
backwards not to lose sight of it, and running up
again like a figure in a magic lantern; and whatever
he did, he was constantly sitting himself down in this
chair, and never stopping in it for one single moment;
being — that’s the truth — beside himself with joy.
‘And to-morrow’s your your wedding-day, my pet!’
cried Trotty ‘Your real, happy wedding-day!’
‘To-day!’ cried Richard, shaking hands with him
‘To-day. The Chimes are ringing in the New Year.
Hear them!’
They WERE ringing! Bless their sturdy hearts
they WERE ringing! Great Bells as they were; melo-
dious, deep-mouthed, noble Bells; cast in no common
metal; made by no common founder; when had they
ever chimed like that before!
‘But, to-day, my pet,’ said Trotty. ‘You and Rich-
ard had some words to-day.’
‘Because he’s such a bad fellow, father,’ said Meg
An’t you, Richard! Such a headstrong, violent
man! He’d have made no more of speaking his mind
to that great Alderman, and putting him down I
don t know where, than he would of –‘
‘– Kissing Meg,’ suggested Richard. Doing it too!
‘No. Not a bit more,’ said Meg. ‘But I wouldn’t
let him, father. Where would have been the use!’
‘Richard my boy!’ cried Trotty. ‘You was turned
up Trumps originally; and Trumps you must be, till
you die! But, you were crying by the fire to-night
my pet, when I came home! Why did you cry by
the fire?’
‘I was thinking of the years we’ve passed together
father. Only that. And thinking that you might
miss me, and be lonely.’
Trotty was backing off to that extraordinary chair
again, when the child who had been awakened by
the noise, came running in half-dressed.
‘Why, here she is!’ cried Trotty, actching her up.
‘Here’s little Lilian! Ha ha ha! Here we are and
here we go! O here we are and here we go again!
And here we are and here we go! and Uncle Will
too!’ Stopping in his trot to greet him heartily. ‘O,
Uncle Will, the vision that I’ve had to-nigilt, through
lodging you! 0, Uncle Will, the obligations that
you’ve laid me under, by your coming, my good
friend!’
Before Will Fern could make the least reply, a
band of music burst into the room attended by a lot
of neighbours, screaming ‘A Happy New Year, Meg!’
‘A Happy Wedding!’ ‘Many of ’em!’ and other frag-
mentary good wishes of that sort. The Drum (who
was a private friend of Trotty’s) then stepped for-
ward and said:
‘Trotty Veck, my boy! It’s got about, that your
daughter is going to be married to-morrow. There
an’t a soul that knows you that don’t wish you well,
or that knows her and don’t wish her well. Or that
knows you both, and don’t wish you both all the hap-
piness the New Year can bring. And here we are, to
play it in and dance it in, accordingly.’
Which was received with a general shout. The
Drum was rather drunk, by the bye; but, never mind.
‘What a happiness it is, I’m sure,’ said Trotty, ‘to
be so esteemed! How kind and neighbourly you are;
It’s all along of my dear daughter. She deserves it!’
They were ready for a dance in half a second (Meg
and Richard at the top); and the Drum was on the
very brink of leathering away with all his power;
when a combination of prodigious sounds was heard
outside, and a good-humoured comely woman of some
fifty years of age, or thereabouts, came running in,
attended by a man bearing a stone pitcher of terrific
size, and closely followed by the marrow-bones and
cleavers, and the bells; not the Bells, but a portable
collection on a frame.
Trotty said, ‘It’s Mrs. Chickenstalker!’ And sat
down and beat his knees again.
‘Married, and not tell me, Meg!’ cried the good
woman ‘Never! I couldn’t rest on the last night
of the Old Year without coming to wish you joy.
I couldn’t have done it, Meg. Not if I had been
bedridden. So here I am; and as it s New Year’s
Eve, and the Eve of your wedding too, my dear
I had a little flip made and brought it with me.’
‘Mrs. Chickenstalker’s notion of a little flip, did
honour to her character. The pitcher steamed and
smoked and reeked like a volcano; and the man who
had carried it, was faint.
‘Mrs. Tugby!’ said Trotty, who had been going
round and round her, in an ecstasy. — ‘I should say
Chickenstalker — Bless your heart and soul! A happy
New Year, and many of ’em! Mrs. Tugby,’ said
Trotty when he had saluted her; — ‘I should say
Chickenstalker — This is William Fern and Lilian.’
The worthy dame, to his surprise, turned very pale
and very red.
‘Not Lilian Fern whose mother died in Dorset-
shire!’ said she.
Her uncle answered ‘Yes,’ and meeting hastily
they exchanged some hurried words together; of
which the upshot was, that Mrs. Chickenstalker shook
him by both hands; saluted Trotty on his cheek again
of her own free will; and took the child to her capa-
cious breast.
‘Will Fern!’ said Trotty, pulling on his right-hand
muffler; ‘Not the friend you was hoping to find?’
‘Ay!’ returned Will, putting a hand on each of
Trotty’s shoulders. ‘And like to prove a’most as
good a friend, if that can be, as one I found.’
‘O!’ said Trotty. ‘Please to play up there. Will
you have the goodness!’
To the music of the band, the bells, the marrow-
bones and cleavers, all at once; and while the Chimes
were yet in lusty operation out of doors, Trotty
making Meg and Richard second couple, led off Mrs.
Chickenstalker down the dance, and danced it in a
step unknown before or since; founded on his own
peculiar trot.
Had Trotty dreamed? Or, are his joys and sor-
rows, and the actors in them, but a dream; himself
a dream; the teller of this tale a dreamer, waking
but now? If it be so, O listener, dear to him in all
his visions, try to bear in mind the stern realities
from which these shadows come; and in your sphere —
none is too wide, and none too limited for such an
end — endeavour to correct, improve, and soften them.
So may the New Year be a happy one to you, happy
to many more whose happiness depends on you! So
may each year be happier than the last, and not the
meanest of our brethren or sisterhood debarred their
rightful share, in what our Great Creator formed
them to enjoy.
.