Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 328, February, 1843

Sir Oliver (aloud.)—Ho, there! (To a servant.)—Let dinner be prepared in the great diningroom; let every servant be in waiting, each in full livery; let every delicacy the house affords be placed upon the table in due courses; arrange all the plate upon the side-board: a gentleman by descent—a stranger, has claimed my hospitality. (Servant goes.)

Sir! you are now master. Grant me dispensation, I entreat you, from a further attendance on you.

CALEB STUKELY

PART XI

SAINTS AND SINNERS

The history of my youth is the history of my life. My contemporaries were setting out on their journey when my pilgrimage was at an end. I had drained the cup of experience before other men had placed it to their lips. The vicissitudes of all seasons occurred in one, and, before my spring had closed, I had felt the winter's gloominess and cold. The scattered and separated experiences that diversify and mark the passage of the "threescore years and ten," were collected and thrust into the narrow period of my nonage. Within that boundary, existence was condensed. It was the time of action and of suffering. I have passed from youth to maturity and decline gently and passively; and now, in the cool and quiet sunset, I repose, connected with the past only by the adhering memories that will not be excluded from my solitude. I have gathered upon my head the enduring snow of age; but it has settled there in its natural course, with no accompaniment of storm and tempest. I look back to the land over which I have journeyed, and through which I have been conveyed to my present humble resting-place, and I behold a broad extent of plain, spreading from my very feet, into the hazy distance, where all is cloud, mountain, tumult, and agitation. Heaven be praised, I can look back with gratitude, chastened and informed!

Amongst all the startling and stirring events that crowded into the small division of time to which I refer, none had so confounded, perplexed, alarmed, and grieved me, as the discovery of Mr Clayton's criminality and falsehood. There are mental and moral concussions, which, like physical shocks, stun and stupify with their suddenness and violence. This was one of them. Months after I had been satisfied of his obliquity, it was difficult to realize the conviction that truth and justice authoritatively demanded. When I thought of the minister—when his form presented itself to my mind's eye, as it did, day after day, and hour after hour, it was impossible to contemplate it with the aversion and distaste which were the natural productions of his own base conduct. I could see nothing but the figure and the lineaments of him, whose eloquence had charmed, whose benevolent hand had nourished and maintained me. There are likewise, in this mysterious state of life, paroxysms and intervals of disordered consciousness, which memory refuses to acknowledge or record; the epileptic's waking dream is one—an unreal reality. And similar to this was my impression of the late events. They lacked substantiality. Memory took no account of them, discarded them, and would connect the present only with the bright experience she had treasured up, prior to the dark distempered season. I could not hate my benefactor. I could not efface the image, which months of apparent love had engraven on my heart.

Thrust from Mr Clayton's chapel, and unable to obtain admission elsewhere, I felt how insecure was my tenure of office. I prepared myself for dismissal, and hoped that, when the hour arrived, I should submit without repining. In the meanwhile, I was careful in the performance of every duty, and studious to give no cause, not the remotest, for complaint or dissatisfaction. It was not long, however, before signs of an altered state of things presented themselves to view. A straw tells which way the wind blows, and wisps began to fly in all directions. I found at length that I could do nothing right. To-day I was too indolent; to-morrow, too officious:—now I was too much of a gentlemen; and now not half gentlemanly enough. The hardest infliction to bear was the treatment of my new friend and colleague—of him who had given me kind warning and advice, when mischief was only threatening, but who, on the first appearance of trouble, took alarm, and deserted my side. The moment that he perceived my inevitable fate, he decided upon leaving me alone to fight my hard battle. At first he spoke to me with shyness and reserve; afterwards coolly, and soon, he said nothing at all. Sometimes, perhaps, if we were quite alone, and there was no chance whatever of discovery, he would venture half a word or so upon the convenient subject of the weather; but these occasions were very rare. If a superior were present, hurricanes would not draw a syllable from his careful lips; and, under the eye of the stout and influential Mr Bombasty, it was well for me if frowns and sneers were the only exhibitions of rudeness on the part of my worldly and far-seeing friend. Ah, Jacob Whining! With all your policy and sagacious selfishness, you found it difficult to protract your own official existence a few months longer. He had hardly congratulated himself upon the dexterity which had kept him from being involved in my misfortunes, before he fell under the ban of his church, like me was persecuted, and driven into the world a branded and excommunicated outcast. Mr Whining, however, who had learnt much in the world, and more in his connexion, was a cleverer and more fortunate man than this friend and coadjutor. He retired with his experience into Yorkshire, drew a small brotherhood about him, and in a short time became the revered and beloved founder of the numerous and far-spread sect of Whiningtonians!

It was just a fortnight after my expulsion from the Church, that matters were brought to a crisis as far as I was concerned, by the determined tone and conduct of the gentleman at the head of our society. Mr Bombasty arrived one morning at the office, in a perturbed and anxious state, and requested my attendance in his private room. I waited upon him. Perspiration hung about his fleshy face—he wiped it off, and then began:

"Young man," said he, "this won't do at all."

"What, sir?" I asked.

"Come, don't be impudent. You are done for, I can tell you."

"How, sir?" I enquired. "What have I done?"

"Where are the subscriptions that were due last Saturday?"

"Not yet collected, sir."

"What money have you belonging to the society?"

"Not a sixpence, sir."

"Young man," continued the lusty president in a solemn voice, "you are in a woeful state; you are living in the world without a security."

"What is the matter, sir."

"Matter!" echoed the gentleman.—"Matter with a man that has lost his security! Are you positive you have got no funds about you? Just look into your pocket, my friend, and make sure."

"I have nothing, sir. Pray, tell me what I have done?"

"Young man, holding the office that I hold, feeling as I feel, and knowing what I know, it would be perfect madness in me to have any thing to do with a man who has been given over by his security. Don't you understand me? Isn't that very good English? Mr Clayton will have nothing more to say to you. The society gives you warning."

"May I not be informed, sir, why I am so summarily dismissed?"

"Why, my good fellow, what is the matter with you? You seem remarkably stupid this morning. I can't beat about the bush with you. You must go."

"Without having committed a fault?" I added, mournfully.

"Sir," said the distinguished president, looking libraries at me, "when one mortal has become security for another mortal, and suddenly annuls and stultifies his bond, to say that the other mortal has committed a fault is just to call brandy—water. Sir," continued Mr Bombasty, adjusting his India cravat, "that man has perpetrated a crime—a crime primy facey—exy fishio."

I saw that my time was come, and I said nothing.

"If," said Mr Bombasty, "you had lost your intellect, I am a voluntary contributor, and could have got you chains and a keeper in Bedlam. If you had broken a limb, I am a life-governor, and it would have been a pleasure to me to send you to the hospital. But you may as well ask me to put life into a dead man, as to be of service to a creature who has lost his security. You had better die at once. It would be a happy release. I speak as a friend."

"Thank you, sir," said I.

"I hear complaints against you, but I don't listen to them. Every thing is swallowed up in one remarkable fact. Your security has let you down. You must go about your business. I speak as the president of this Christian society, and not, I hope, without the feelings of a man. The treasurer will pay your salary immediately, and we dispense with your services."

"What am I to do?" I asked, half aloud.

"Just the best you can," answered the gentleman. "The audience is at an end."

Mr Bombasty said no more, but drew from his coat pocket a snuff-box of enormous dimensions. From it he grasped between his thumb and finger a moderate handful of stable-smelling dust. His nose and India handkerchief partook of it in equal shares, and then he rang his bell with presidential dignity, and ordered up his customary lunch of chops and porter. A few hours afterwards I was again upon the world, ready to begin the fight of life anew, and armed with fifteen guineas for the coming struggle. Mr Clayton had kept his word with me, and did not desert me until I was once more fairly on the road to ruin.

One of the first consequences of my unlooked-for meeting with the faithful Thompson, was the repayment of the five shillings which he had so generously spared me when I was about to leave him for Birmingham, without as many pence in my scrip. During my absence, however, fortune had placed my honest friend in a new relation to a sum of this value. Five shillings were not to him, as before, sixty pence. The proprietor of the house in which he lived, and which he had found it so difficult to let out to his satisfaction, had died suddenly, and had thought proper to bequeath to his tenant the bulk of his property, amounting, perhaps, to five thousand pounds. Thompson, who was an upholsterer by trade, left the workshop in which he was employed as journeyman immediately, and began to work upon his own account. He was a prosperous and a thriving man when I rejoined him. His manner was, as the reader has seen, kind and straightforward as ever, and the only change that his wealth had wrought in him, was that which gold may be supposed to work a heart alive to its duties, simple and honest in its intentions, and lacking only the means to make known its strong desire of usefulness. His generosity had kept pace with his success, his good wishes outstripped both. His home was finer, yet scarcely more sightly and happier than the one large room, which, with its complement of ten children, sire and dame, had still a nook for the needy and friendless stranger. The old house had been made over for a twelvemonth to the various tenants, free of all charge. At the end of that period it was the intention of Thompson to pull it down, and build a better in its place. A young widow, with her three orphans, lodged on the attic floor, and the grateful prayers of the four went far to establish the buoyancy of the landlord's spirit, and to maintain the smile that seldom departed from his manly cheek. Well might the poor creature, whom I once visited in her happy lodging, talk of the sin of destroying so comfortable a residence, and feel assured, that "let them build a palace, they would never equal the present house, or make a sleeping-room where a body might rest so peacefully and well." Thompson's mode of life had scarcely varied. He was not idle amongst his men. When labour was suspended, he was with his children; another had been added to the number, and there were now eleven to relieve him of the superabundant profits created in the manufactory. Mrs Thompson was still a noble housewife, worthy of her husband. All was care, cleanliness, and economy at home. Griping stint would never have been tolerated by the hospitable master, and virtuous plenty only was admitted by the prudent wife. Had there been a oneness in the religious views of this good couple, Paradise would have been a word fit to write beneath the board that made known to men John Thompson's occupation; but this, alas! was wanting to complete a scene that otherwise looked rather like perfection. The great enemy of man seeks in many ways to defeat the benevolent aims of Providence. Thompson had remained at home one Sunday afternoon to smoke a friendly pipe with an old acquaintance, when he should have gone to church. His wife set out alone. Satan took advantage of her husband's absence, drew her to chapel, and made her—a dissenter. This was Thompson's statement of the case, and severer punishment, he insisted, had never been inflicted on a man for Sabbath-breaking.

When I was dismissed by Mr Bombasty, it was a natural step to walk towards the abode of the upholsterer. I knew his hour for supper, and his long hour after that for ale, and pipe, and recreation. I was not in doubt as to my welcome. Mrs Thompson had given me a general invitation to supper, "because," she said, "it did Thompson good to chat after a hard day's work;" and the respected Thompson himself had especially invited me to the long hour afterwards, "because," he added, "it did the ale and 'baccy good, who liked it so much better to go out of this here wicked world in company." About seven o'clock in the evening I found myself under their hospitable roof, seated in the room devoted to the general purposes of the house. It was large, and comfortably furnished. The walls were of wainscot, painted white, and were graced with two paintings. One, a family group, consisting of Thompson, wife, and eight children, most wretchedly executed, was the production of a slowly rising artist, a former lodger of my friend's, who had contrived to compound with his easy landlord for two years and three quarters' rent, with this striking display of his ability. Thompson was prouder of this picture than of the originals themselves, if that were possible. The design had been his own, and had cost him, as he was ready and even anxious to acknowledge, more time and trouble than he had ever given before, or meant to give again, to any luxury in life. The artist, as I was informed, had endeavoured to reduce to form some fifty different schemes that had arisen in poor Thompson's brain, but had failed in every one, so difficult he found it to introduce the thousand and one effects that the landlord deemed essential to the subject. His first idea had been to bring upon the canvass every feature of his life from boyhood upwards. This being impracticable, he wished to bargain for at least the workshop and the private residence. The lodgers, he thought, might come into the background well, and the tools, peeping from a basket in the corner, would look so much like life and nature. The upshot of his plans was the existing work of art, which Thompson considered matchless, and pronounced "dirt cheap, if he had even given the fellow a seven years' lease of the entire premises." The situations were striking certainly. In the centre of the picture were two high chairs, on which were seated, as grave as judges, the heads of the establishment. They sat there, drawn to their full height, too dignified to look at one another, and yet displaying a fond attachment, by a joining of the hands. The youngest child had clambered to the father's knee, and, with a chisel, was digging at his nose, wonderful to say, without disturbing the stoic equanimity that had settled on the father's face. This was the favourite son. Another, with a plane larger than himself, was menacing the mother's knee. The remaining six had each a tool, and served in various ways to effect most artfully the beloved purpose of the vain upholsterer's heart—viz. the introduction of the entire workshop. The second painting in the centre of the opposite wall, represented Mr Clayton. The likeness was a failure, and the colours were coarse and glaring; but there needed no instruction to know that the carefully framed production attempted to portray the unenviable man, who, in spite of his immorality and shameless life, was still revered and idolized by the blind disciples who had taken him for their guide. This portrait was Mrs Thompson's peculiar property. There were no other articles of virtu in the spacious apartment; but cleanliness and decorum bestowed upon it a grace, the absence of which no idle decoration could supply. Early as the hour was, a saucepan was on the fire, whose bubbling water was busy with the supper that at half-past eight must meet the assault of many knives and forks. John Thompson and two sons—the eldest—were working in the shop. They had been there with little intermission since six that morning. The honest man was fond of work; so was he of his children—yes, dearly fond of them, and they must share with him the evening meal; and he must have them all about him; and he must help them all, and see them eat, and look with manly joy and pride upon the noisy youngsters, for whom his lusty arm had earned the bread that came like manna to him—so wholesome and so sweet! Three girls, humbly but neatly dressed, the three first steps of this great human ladder, were seated at a table administering to the necessities of sundry shirts and stockings that had suffered sensibly in their last week's struggle through the world. They were indeed a picture worth the looking at. You grew a better man in gazing on their innocence and industry. What a lesson stole from their quiet and contented looks, their patient perseverance, their sweet unity! How shining smooth the faces, how healthy, and how round, and how impossible it seemed for wrinkles ever to disturb the fine and glossy surface! Modesty never should forsake the humble; the bosom of the lowly born should be her home. Here she had enshrined herself, and given to simplicity all her dignity and truth. They worked and worked on; who should tell which was the most assiduous—which the fairest—which the most eager and successful to increase the happiness of all! And turn to Billy there, that half-tamed urchin! that likeness in little of his sire, rocking not so much against his will, as against conviction, the last of all the Thompsons—a six months' infant in the wicker cradle. How, obedient to his mother's wish, like a little man at first, he rocks with all his might, and then irregularly, and at long intervals—by fits and starts—and ceases altogether very soon, bobbing his curly head, and falling gently into a deep mesmeric sleep. The older lads are making wooden boats, and two, still older, stand on either side their mother. A book is in the hands of each, full of instruction and fine learning. It was the source of all their knowledge, the cause of all their earliest woes. Good Mrs Thompson had been neglected as a child, and was enthusiastic in the cause of early education. Sometimes they looked into the book, but oftener still they cast attentive eyes upon the fire, as if "the book of knowledge fair" was there displayed, and not a noisy saucepan, almost unable to contain itself for joy of the cod's head and shoulders, that must be ready by John Thompson's supper time. The whole family were my friends—with the boys I was on terms of warmest intimacy, and smiles and nods, and shouts and cheers, welcomed me amongst them.

"Now, close your book, Bob," said the mother, soon after I was seated, "and, Alec, give me yours. Put your hands down, turn from the fire, and look up at me, dears. What is the capital of Russia?"

"The Birman empire," said Alec, with unhesitating confidence.

"The Baltic sea," cried Bob, emulous and ardent.

"Wait—not so fast; let me see, my dears, which of you is right."

Mrs Thompson appealed immediately to her book, after a long and private communication with which, she emphatically pronounced both wrong.

"Give us a chance, mother," said Bob in a wheedling tone, (Bob knew his mother's weaknesses.) "Them's such hard words. I don't know how it is, but I never can remember 'em. Just tell us the first syllable—oh, do now—please."

"Oh, I know now!" cried Alec. "It's something with a G in it."

"Think of the apostles, dears. What are the names of the apostles?"

"Why, there's Moses," began Bob, counting on his fingers, "and there's Sammywell, and there's Aaron, and Noah's ark"——

"Stop, my dear," said Mrs Thompson, who was very busy with her manual, and contriving a method of rendering a solution of her question easy. "Just begin again. I said—who was Peter—no, not that—who was an apostle?"

"Oh, I know now!" cried Alec again, (Alec was the sharp boy of the family.) "It's Peter. Peter's the capital of Russia."

"No, not quite my dear. You are very warm—very warm indeed, but not quite hot. Try again."

"Paul," half murmured Robert, with a reckless hope of proving right.

"No, Peter's right; but there's something else. What has your father been taking down the beds for?"

There was a solemn silence, and the three industrious sisters blushed the faintest blush that could be raised upon a maiden's cheek.