Christmas Penny Readings: Original Sketches for the Season

It was growing very dark in the little parlour, and Mary was getting very impatient to bring in the tea-things; but her patience was tried for some time longer, and when at last, unsummoned, she took them in, and lit the candles, the children had fallen asleep upon the sofa, and “missus’s” eyes looked very red.

Five – What Followed

Hez had found the long lane had a turning in it at last, and the roadway of that turning was smooth and easy to travel upon – so easy that he soon left all the frost and thaw far behind, and got well on in his journey of life. He used to say that a blessing went with old nurse Cripps’s money, for success attended his every venture with it. He is now a man of some note in his little country-town; and it is a fact patent to all that a helping hand can always be found with Hezekiah Thornypath by those who merit it.

I spent a few days with him at Christmas-time, some three or four years since, and there, in the snuggest corner of the room, sat a very old, white-haired dame, pretending to be very busy knitting, propped up in her easy-chair, with one or another of Hez’s numerous youngsters on the watch to pick up the constantly-straying worsted and needles. There was always a smile upon the old lady’s face when any such act was performed for her – a smile that grew brighter still when Hez approached to say a few words.

Christmas-night had come, and a merry day had been spent. The old lady had smiled and looked pleased when Hez talked of never having been able to get such another goose as nurse Cripps gave them that day, years ago, for dinner; and that, for all his money, he had never seen such a pudding upon his table as the one he partook of at Kensington. She had sat in state, too, while having her health drunk by all the family; and feebly she bent forward to “wish Master Hez a merry Christmas.” At last the party was collected round the fire, the evening was fast giving way to night, and quiet conversation was taking the place of the merry laughter and games of the afternoon. Hez and his wife sat on either side of Mrs Cripps, and had risen to once more wish the dame “a merry Christmas” before she left them for her early-sought couch. They had been talking of bygones; and, sitting with a hand grasped by those she had loved so long, the poor old lady suddenly lifted herself up, but only to fall back again in her chair as though asleep.

In the midst of the excitement, I aided Hez to carry her to her room, where she lay for days just gently breathing, but never again conscious. Watched night and day by loving friends, she passed away without a sigh during the still hours of the old year’s death, with only a growing chill to show that her sleep had deepened in intensity, and that here she would wake no more.

Chapter Two

Corns

“Diet, sir; Diet, decidedly. Now you’ll take this to John Bell’s, in Oxford Street, and they’ll make up the prescription; then you’ll go on to Gilbey’s – crooked-looking place, you know; just as if they’d built the house somewhere else, and then when they wanted to put it in its place found it too big, and had to squeeze it in. Well, there you’ll order a few dozens of their light dinner claret. No more ’20 port or fiery sherry. Taboo, sir, taboo. Light wine in moderation. Diet, sir, diet. Good morning.”

I looked at the bristly-headed physician, who handed me a sheet of note paper with a big capital B, two long blurs, a rough blotch, a few spidery ink splays, and an ugly MD at the end of a few inky hooks-and-eyes, which I received in return for the twenty-one shillings I left upon the table; and then muttering the one word “diet,” I stood in the hall upon a horrible stony-looking piece of floorcloth that quite struck cold up my legs. Here I was confronted by the footman who ushered me into his master’s presence – a blue-coated, crestless-buttoned wretch with two round grey eyes that said “shillings” as plainly as any mute thing could; but I was angry, and determined to come no more: so giving the fellow only a sixpence, I hobbled away and stood in Saville Row.

Diet, indeed; why no man could be more moderate. And what’s half a bottle of port for one’s dinner? Why, my grandfather, sir, took his two bottles regularly, and, beyond an occasional fit of the gout, was as hale a man as ever lived. Why, he’d have lived till fourscore safe if bad management and country doctors had not drawn the regal complaint into his stomach, where it would stop. This was coming to a physician for advice. And then what did he do when I told him of the agonies I suffered? – smiled pleasantly, and said it was my liver; while when I hinted at my corns, what did he do then but metaphorically tread upon them, for he laughed.

Now, putting dyspepsia on one side, I appeal to my fellow-sufferers, and ask them, Is there any torture to be compared with the infliction of corns? Headache? – take a little medicine and lie down. Toothache? – have it out. Earache? – try hot onion. Opodeldoc for rheumatism; chlorodyne for tic; colchicum for gout. There’s a remedy for nearly every pain and ache; but what will you do for your corns? Ordinary sufferings come only now and then, but corns shoot, stab, twitch, and agonise continually. What is the remedy? Plasters are puffs; bandages empty promises; the knife threatens tetanus; caustic only makes them black and smarting; while chiropodists – . Mention them not in my hearing, lest my vengeance fall upon your devoted head. Where can you put your feet to be safe – at home or abroad? Why, your very boots are sworn enemies, and the battle at putting on or pulling off makes the thought of the operation produce beads of cold perspiration upon one’s ample brow. Who can be surprised at one’s lying long in bed of a morning when tortures await, and you know that just outside the door, by the side of the large white jug whose water grows less and less steamy, there stand two hollow leather cylinders loaded with fearful pains to be discharged at your devoted feet.

There isn’t a sensible shoemaker on the face of the earth. I’ve tried them one after the other until I’m tired of them. One recommends calf, another kid, another dog-skin, and another “pannus corium,” and my feet are worse than ever. I won’t believe in them any more, though they do show me lasts made to my feet, and insult me with hideous nubbly, bunkly abortions carved in wood, which they say represent my feet – my feet, those suffering locomotives. I’ll take to sandals, or else follow the advice of the Countess de Noailles, and go barefoot like the old hen in the nursery rhyme.

I could suffer the bodily pain if it were not for the mental accompaniment, and the total want of pity and compassion shown by people. Only the other day, going down one of those quiet cab-stand streets, one of the idle wretches that I intended to engage shouted out to his companions, —

“I say, old ’uns, here’s Peter Pindar a-coming.”

“Who?” shouted another.

“Cove as turned pilgrim, and went with peas in his shoes,” cried Number One; while, writhing with agony, and gnashing my teeth, I shook my stick at the rascal.

“You scoundrel,” I cried, “it’s my corn, – it’s not peas.”

“Then get it ground, sir,” groaned the fellow; when I was so vexed that I took the omnibus instead, or rather the omnibus took me, and as soon as I had entered, I was shot into the lap of a stout elderly lady who looked daggers at me, and revenged herself by putting her fat umbrella ferrule on my corn at every opportunity. I believe it was Mrs Saunders herself, the friend of Mrs Bardell, of Goswell Street. And oh! what I suffered in that vehicle! Would that I could have performed the operation recommended by the conductor – a man with a gash across his face when he laughed – to put my toes in my pocket, or go and dispose of my troubles at Mark Lane.

It was of no use to try: every one who came in or went out of that ’bus, either trod upon or poked my worst corn with stick or umbrella, and then in the height of my anguish, when my countenance was distorted with pain, a stout, wheezing old lady opposite must “Drat my imperance,” and want to know whether I meant to insult her.

I hobbled out of the place of torture as quickly as I could, and stepped into one of those mud trimmings the scavengers delight in leaving by our pavements, covering the glossy leather with the foul refuse, so that, naturally particular about my boots, I was reduced to the extremity of having a polish laid on by one of those young scarlet rascals, who kneel at the corners of the streets.

“Black yer boots, sir,” cried first one and then another, but I could not trust to the first I met with, for he looked too eager, the next too slow, while the third seemed a doubtful character, so I waited till I reached a fourth.

“Do you see that slight eminence, you dog?”

“Wot that knobble, sir,” said the boy.

“That eminence, boy,” I said, fiercely. “That covers a corn.”

“All right, sir,” said the boy, “I won’t hurt it. I’ll go a tip-toe over him, you see if I don’t. I often cleans boots for gents as has corns, and I’m used to ’em, and – ”

“Yah-h-h-h,” I shrieked, for it was impossible to help it, and at the same moment brought down my umbrella fiercely on the little scoundrel’s head. Fancy my feelings all you who suffer, for it must have been done purposely; just as the young ruffian was grinding away with an abomination of a hard brush – a very hard brush, so hard that there was more wood than bristles – he looked up at me and grinned while I was perspiring with fear and pain, and then with one furious stroke he caught the edge of his brush right upon the apex of Mount Agony, causing me to shriek, seize my half-cleaned boot with both hands, and dance round upon one leg regardless of appearances, and to the extreme delight of the collecting crowd.

“Don’t you do that agen, now come,” whimpered the boy, guarding his head with both arms, and smearing his black countenance where a few tears trickled down.

“You dog!” I shouted; “I’ll – I’ll – I’ll – ”

“Oh, ah! I dessay you will,” whined the boy; “I never said nothin’ to you. Why don’t you pull off your boots then, and not go a-knockin’ me about?”

Of course I hurried away with my boots half-cleaned, and so I have to hurry through life – a miserable man, suffering unheard-of torment, but with no one to pity me. Time back, people would ask what ailed me, but now they “pooh, pooh” my troubles, since it is only my corns. I would not care if people would tread upon me anywhere else, but they won’t, and I feel now reduced to my last hope.

Did not somebody once say, “Great oaks from little acorns grow – great aches from little toe-corns grow”? How true – how telling! But there, I give up, with the determination to bear my pains as I can, for I feel assured that no one will sympathise with me who does not suffer from corns.

Chapter Three

A Ghastly Deed

In Portsmouth harbour the good ship lay,
Her cruising ended for many a day,
And gathered on deck while receiving their pay,
The sailors most thickly were mustered.
The Jews on the wharves were all eagerly bent
On supplying poor Jack, while most likely by scent,
There were sharks by the score
On all parts of the shore.
Both he sharks and she sharks enough, ay and more,
To devour poor Jack,
When they made their attack,
And there on the land they all clustered.

Only think; from a cruise of four years returned,
And paid in clean money! No wonder it burned,
And Jack’s canvass pockets were ready to give.
But, there: not so ready as Jack who would live
To the top of his income – the very main truck,
And when to the bottom of pocket, why luck,
Would never turn back
On poor happy-faced Jack,
Who never said die
In his life. And would try
To face any storm if his officers spoke,
Or the wildest of sights that the hurricane woke.

Now Dick Sprit was a sailor,
Tight and bold in a gale or
A storm. He would cheer in a fight,
’Mid the bullets’ flight,
And sooner than hear any praise or flattery,