Christmas Penny Readings: Original Sketches for the Season

Still the self-same burden dinning,
Spite of all my writhing, tearing,
Onward still my spirit bearing
Far away in booming sallies,
Rushing thro’ the crowded alleys,
Where grim Want his wings was quiv’ring
O’er the pinched forms, half clad, shiv’ring;
Where disease and death were hov’ring;
Where deep sorrow earth was cov’ring.

Away, again, where life was failing;
Away, again, by orphans wailing;
Thro’ the prison bars now darting,
Where the fettered wretch lay smarting,
Wakened from his sleep, and starting,
He too shrieked in bitter parting
Curses on my aid withholden,
In the glorious hours golden,
Wasted, thrown away in madness —
Hours that might deep sorrow, sadness.
Misery, have chased from numbers, —
Chased the want the earth that cumbers.

Away, away, and faster speeding,
Away, the tones seemed round me pleading
Lessons to my madness reading,
From the scenes I’d lived unheeding.
Still the unseen fetters bound me;
Still the burden floated round me:
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”

But the words came softer, lower,
Calmer still, and sweeter, slower,
Till they murmured off in silence on the wintry air;
Save returning, booming, rolling,
Came that one vast warning, tolling
“Soul!” as when at first it called me, sitting in my chair.

Now again from earth rebounding,
Quick and fast, the bells were sounding,
And I sprang from out my seat, with wild and startled look.
’Twas the blest Redeemer’s morning! —
Sunshine brightly Earth adorning, —
And the Christmas jocund peal my brightened casement shook.

Hope has risen clearer, purer,
O’er my life-course firmer, surer,
Since that eve, when gloomily I pondered on my life;
When I heard, as from doom’s portal,
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
Booming on my aching brain, with murmurs thickly rife.

Chapter Twenty

A Rogue and a Vagabond

“You must fetch the doctor,” says Dick, as I stood over him looking at his poor worn face, all drawed with pain and hollow-looking, although he’d got his paint on and the band and spangles were round his head, though his black hair was all rough with him a-tossing about.

There was the bit of candle flaring away and guttering down, the wind flapping the canvas backwards and forwards and coming in fierce through the holes, while the rain was dripping from the top because the canvas hadn’t got well soaked and tight, and I couldn’t help thinking about what a miserable place it was for a sick man. There was the drum a-going and the clarinet squeaking, while another of the company was rattling away at a pair o’ pot-lid cymbals; the grease-pots were flaring in front of the stage, and them all a dancing and one thing and another over and over again, while Balchin’s voice, husky and bad with his cold, could be heard telling people to walk up for the last time that night; but they wouldn’t, for it was wet and miserable and spiritless as could be.

Poor Dick had been out ever so long in his tights and fleshings doing his summersets and bits o’ posturing, till his thin things were wet through, when he comes in at last to me, where I was nursing little Totty, hard at work to keep her quiet, and he says with a bit of a groan —

“I’m knocked over, lass. It’s like a knife in my chest,” and I could hear his breath rattling hard, as he looked that ill I couldn’t keep the tears back. You see he’d been bad for days and taking medicine for his cough; but then what good was that with us, going from place to place in wet weather and him obliged to take his turn with the rest, and we always sleeping under the canvas. Why, he ought to have been in a house and with a doctor to him, though he wouldn’t hear of it when I talked about it.

“Can’t afford it, Sally,” he’d say, and then, poor fellow, he’d sit up in bed and cough till he’d fall back worn out, when as soon as he was laid down, back came the cough again worse than ever, and I’ve lain quiet and still, crying because I couldn’t help him. Don’t know anything more sad and wearying than to hear some one cough – cough – cough the whole long night through, with it resting a little when sitting up, and then coming on again worse and worse as soon as you lie down.

And that’s how it was with poor Dick, but he had a heart like a lion and would never give up. All the others used to lodge about at the public-houses, ’cept Balchin, who lived in the van, but Dick said he liked being under the canvas best, for you were like in your own place, and there was no noise and bother with the landlords, besides sleeping in all sorts of dirty places after other people, so we always kept to the corner of the tent and under the stage, making use of a bit of charcoal fire in a stand.

And Dick wouldn’t have the doctor till that night, when he says at last, “you must fetch him.” I’d been watching him lying there hardly able to breathe, and sometimes, when his eyes were nearly shut, you could only see the whites, while his hands tore like at the covering, he seemed in such pain.

Just then in came Balchin, looking very cross and out of humour, for there was the ground to pay for, and he’d taken next to nothing that night.

“What did you sneak off like that for, Dick Parker?” he says, and then Dick started up, but he fell back with a bit of a groan, when Balchin grumbled out something, and turned round and went off.

“Could you mind little Totty?” I says to Dick, for I didn’t like to take the child out in the wet.

He didn’t speak, but made a place aside him for the little thing, and the next minute the poor little mite had nestled up close to him, and I turned to put on my shawl, when who should lift up the canvas and come in but Balchin, with a steaming hot glass of whisky and water in his hand?

“Here we are, my boy,” he says, in his rough cheery way, that he could put on when he liked. “Now is the sun of summer turned to glorious winter, so away with discontent and a merry Christmas and a happy noo year to you, my boy. You’re a bit outer sorts you are, and so was I just now, but I’m what you’re going to be directly, so tip some of this up.”

But Dick only shook his head and smiled, and then whispering him to please stop till I got back, I slipped out to fetch the doctor.

It isn’t hard to find the doctor’s place in a town, and I was soon there standing, ring, ring, ring, while the rain, now half sleet and snow, began to come down so, that I shivered again. But I hardly thought about it, for my mind was all upon poor Dick, for a terrible thought had come into my head, and that was, that my poor boy was going to leave me. Everything now seemed to tell me of it: the cold howling wind seemed to shriek as it tore away through the long street, the clock at the big church seemed to be tolling instead of striking twelve, while the very air seemed alive with terrible whispers of something dreadful going to happen.

At last a window upstairs was opened, and I asked if the doctor was at home.

“Who wants him?” said a voice.

“I want him to come to my poor husband, for he’s – ” I couldn’t finish the word for a sob that seemed to choke me.

“Where do you live?” said the same voice.

“At the show in the market-place,” I said, feeling all the while half ashamed.

“You’d better go to Mr Smith, he’s the parish doctor,” said the voice, and then the window was shut. And I stood half blind with the tears that would come, as I dragged my shawl closer round me, and stood shivering and wondering which way to turn so as to find the parish doctor. The wind was sweeping and howling along; the snow came in heavy squalls which whitened me in a few moments, while the cold seemed to chill one’s very marrow; but I hardly thought of it, for I was all the time seeing poor Dick lying in our miserable bit of a bed by the light of the flaring candle, while above the howling of the wind I seemed to be hearing his low hacking cough.

Oh! it was pitiful, pitiful, standing out there on that bitter night, close to Christmas-time, when people’s hearts are said to be more charitably disposed; but now, though bright lights shone in windows here and there, I was alone, alone, in the bitter storm, without a soul to direct me or teach me where to go for a doctor. I hurried to the end of the street – then back along the other side, up one street and down another, eagerly looking for a lighted lamp over a door, or for some one to tell me; but not a soul was to be seen, and every public-house was shut.

On I went again, growing almost frantic, for the howling wind seemed to form itself into cries – wild, appealing cries to me for help for my boy, who lay suffering in our wretched wandering home; and at last I ran up to a door and rang the bell, but no one answered. Then I heard the muffled sound of wheels, and stood listening. Yes, they were coming nearer and nearer – they were in the street, and I ran into the road to try and stay the driver, as I shrieked for help, for I was most mad with anxiety; but there was the sharp stinging cut of a whip across my cheek, and half-blinded and smarting, I started back, and the next minute the round of the wheels had died away.