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

"To rub that stuff upon the walls," said the ready Alec.

"Yes, but what was it to kill?" continued the instructress.

"The fleas," said Bob.

"Worse than that, my dear."

"Oh, I know now," shrieked Alec, for the third time. "Petersbug's the capital of Russia."

Mrs Thompson looked at me with pardonable vanity and triumph, and I bestowed upon the successful students a few comfits which I had purchased on my road for my numerous and comfit-loving friends. The mere sight of this sweet "reward of merit" immediately inspired the two boys at work upon the boats with a desire for knowledge, and especially for learning the capitals of countries, that was most agreeable to contemplate. The lesson was continued, more to my amusement, I fear, than the edification of the pupils. The boys were unable to answer a single question until they had had so many chances, and had become so very hot, that not to have answered at length would have bordered on the miraculous. The persevering governess was not displeased at this, for she would not have lost the opportunity of displaying her own skill in metaphorical illustration, for a great deal, I am very sure. The clock struck eight; there was a general movement. The three sisters folded their work, and lodged it carefully in separate drawers. The eldest then produced the table-cloth, knives, forks, and spoons. The second exhibited bibs and pinafores; and the third brought from their hiding-places a dozen modest chairs, and placed them round the table. Bob assured the company "he was so hungry;" Alec said, "so was he;" and the boatmen, in an under tone, settled what should be done with the great cod's eyes, which, they contended, were the best parts of the fish, and "shouldn't they be glad if father would give 'em one a-piece." The good woman must enquire, of course, how nearly the much-relished dainty had reached the critical and interesting state when it became most palatable to John Thompson; for John Thompson was an epicure, "and must have his little bits of things done to a charm, or not at all." Half-past eight had struck. The family were bibbed and pinafored; the easy coat and slippers were at the fire, and warmed through and through—it was a season of intenseness. "Here's father!" shouted Alec, and all the bibs and pinafores rushed like a torrent to the door. Which shall the father catch into his ready arms, which kiss, which hug, which answer?—all are upon him; they know their playmate, their companion, and best friend; they have hoarded up, since the preceding night, a hundred things to say, and now they have got their loving and attentive listener. "Look what I have done, father," says the chief boatman, "Tom and I together." "Well done, boys!" says the father—and Tom and he are kissed. "I have been locking baby," lisps little Billy, who, in return, gets rocked himself. "Father, what's the capital of Russia?" shrieks Alec, tugging at his coat. "What do you mean, you dog?" is the reply, accompanied by a hearty shake of his long flaxen hair. "Petersburg," cry Tom and Alec both, following him to the hearth, each one endeavouring to relieve him of his boots as soon as he is seated there. The family circle is completed. The flaky fish is ready, and presented for inspection. The father has served them all, even to little Billy—their plates are full and smoking. "Mother" is called upon to ask a blessing. She rises, and assumes the looks of Jabez Buster—twenty blessings might be asked and granted in half the time she takes—so think and look Bob, Alec, and the boatmen; but at length she pauses—the word is given, and further ceremony is dispensed with. In childhood, supper is a thing to look forward to, and to last when it arrives; but not in childhood, any more than in old age, can sublunary joys endure for ever. The meal is finished. A short half-hour flies, like lightning, by. The children gather round their father; and in the name of all, upon his knees, he thanks his God for all the mercies of the day. Thompson is no orator. His heart is warm; his words are few and simple. The three attendant graces take charge of their brethren, detach them from their father's side, and conduct them to their beds. Happy father! happy children! May Providence be merciful, and keep the grim enemy away from your fireside! Let him not come now in the blooming beauty and the freshness of your loves! Let him not darken and embitter for ever the life that is still bright, beautiful, and glorious in the power of elevating and sustaining thought that leads beyond it. Let him wait the matured and not unexpected hour, when the shock comes, not to crush, to overwhelm, and to annihilate, but to warn, to teach, and to encourage; not to alarm and stagger the untaught spirit, but to bring to the subdued and long-tried soul its last lesson on the vanity and evanescence of its early dreams!

It is half-past nine o'clock. Thompson, his wife, and two eldest boys are present, and, for the first time, I have an opportunity to make known the object of my visit.

"And so they have turned you off," said Thompson, when I had finished. "And who's surprised at that? Not I, for one. Missus," continued he, turning to his wife, "why haven't you got a curtain yet for that ere pictur? I can't abear the sight of it."

Mrs Thompson looked plaintively towards the painting, and heaved a sigh.

"Ah, dear good man! He has got his enemies," said she.

"Mrs Thompson!" exclaimed her husband, "I have done with that good man from this day for'ards; and I do hope, old 'ooman, that you'll go next Sunday to church with me, as we used to do afore you got that pictur painted."

"It's no good talking, Thompson," answered the lady, positively and firmly. "I can't sit under a cold man, and there's an end of it."

"There, that's the way you talk, missus."

"Why, you know, Thompson, every thing in the church is cold."

"No, not now, my dear—they've put up a large stove. You'll recollect you haven't been lately."

"Besides, do you think I can sit in a place of worship, and hear a man say, 'Let us pray,' in the middle of the service, making a fool of one, as if we hadn't been praying all the time? As that dear and persecuted saint says, (turning to the picture,) it's a common assault to our understandings."

"Now, Polly, that's just always how you go off. If you'd only listen to reason, that could all be made out right in no time. The clergyman doesn't mean to say, let us pray, because he hasn't been praying afore;—what he means is—we have been praying all this time, and so we'll go on praying again—no, not again exactly—but don't leave off. That isn't what I mean either. Let me see, let us pray. Oh, yes! Why—stay. Where is it he does say, let us pray? There, I say, Stukely, you know it all much better than I do. Just make it right to the missus."

"It is not difficult," said I.

"Oh no, Mr Stukely, I daresay not!" added Mrs Thompson, interrupting me. "Mr Clayton says, Satan has got his janysarries abroad, and has a reason for every thing. It is very proper to say, too, I suppose, that it is an imposition when the bishops ordain the ministers? What a word to make use of. It's truly frightful!"

"Well, I'm blessed," exclaimed Thompson, "if I don't think you had better hold your tongue, old girl, about impositions; for sich oudacious robbers as your precious brothers is, I never come across, since I was stopped that ere night, as we were courting, on Shooter's Hill. It's a system of imposition from beginning to end."

"Look to your Bible, Thompson; what does that say? Does that tell ministers to read their sermons? There can't be no truth and right feeling when a man puts down what he's going to say; the vital warmth is wanting, I'm sure. And then to read the same prayers Sunday after Sunday, till a body gets quite tired at hearing them over and over again, and finding nothing new! How can you improve an occasion if you are tied down in this sort of way."

"Did you ever see one of the brothers eat, Stukely?" asked Thompson, avoiding the main subject. "Don't you ask one of them to dinner—that's all. That nice boy Buster ought to eat for a wager. I had the pleasure of his company to dinner one fine afternoon. I don't mean to send him another invitation just yet, at all events."

"Yes," proceeded the fair, but stanch nonconformist; "what does the Bible say, indeed! 'Take no thought of what you should say.' Why, in the church, I am told they are doing nothing else from Monday morning to Saturday night but writing the sermon they are going to read on the Sabbath. To read a sermon! What would the apostles say to that?"

"Why, didn't you tell me, my dear, that the gentleman as set for that pictur got all his sermons by heart before he preached 'em?"

"Of course I did—but that's a very different thing. Doesn't it all pour from him as natural as if it had come to him that minute? He doesn't fumble over a book like a schoolboy. His beautiful eyes, I warrant you, ain't looking down all the time, as if he was ashamed to hold 'em up. Isn't it a privilege to see his blessed eyes rolling all sorts of ways; and don't they speak wolumes to the poor benighted sinner? Besides, don't tell me, Thompson; we had better turn Catholics at once, if we are to have the minister dressing up like the Pope of Rome, and all the rest of it."

"You are the gal of my heart," exclaimed the uxorious Thompson; "but I must say you have got some of the disgracefulest notions out of that ere chapel as ever I heard on. Why, it's only common decency to wear a dress in the pulpit; and I believe in my mind, that that's come down to us from time immemorable, like every thing else in human natur. What's your opinion, Stukely?"

"Yes; and what's your opinion, Mr Stukely," added the lady immediately, "about calling a minister of the gospel—a priest? Is that Paperistical or not?"

"That isn't the pint, Polly," proceeded John. "We are talking about the silk dress now. Let's have that out first."

"And then the absolution"——

"No, Poll. Stick to the silk dress."

"Ah, Thompson, it's always the way!" continued the mistress of the house, growing red and wroth, and heedless of the presence of the eager-listening children; "it's always the way. Satan is ruining of you. You'll laugh at the elect, and you'll not find your mistake out till it's too late to alter. Mr Clayton says, that the Establishment is the hothouse of devils; and the more I see of its ways, the more I feel he is right. Thompson, you are in the sink of iniquity."

"Come, I can't stand no more of this!" exclaimed Thompson, growing uneasy in his chair, but without a spark of ill-humour. "Let's change the topic, old 'ooman; I'm sure it can't do the young un's any good to hear this idle talk. Let's teach 'em nothing at all, if we can't larn 'em something better than wrangling about religion. Now, Jack," he continued, turning to his eldest boy, "what is the matter with you? What are you sitting there for with your mouth wide open?"

"What's the meaning of Paperist, father?" asked the boy, who had been long waiting to propose the question.

"What's that to you, you rascal?" was the reply; "mind your own business, my good fellow, and leave the Paperist to mind his'n; that's your father's maxim, who got it from his father before him. You'll learn to find fault with other people fast enough without my teaching you. I tell you what, Jack, if you look well after yourself, you'll find little time left to bother about others. If your hands are ever idle—recollect you have ten brothers and sisters about you. Look about you—you are the oldest boy—and see what you can do for them. Do you mind that?"

"Yes, father."

"Very well, old chap. Then just get out the bottle, and give your father something to coax the cod down. Poll, that fish won't settle."

The long hour was beginning. That bottle was the signal. A gin and water nightcap, on this occasion, officiated for the ale. Jack and his brother received a special invitation to a sip or two, which they at once unhesitatingly accepted. The sturdy fellows shook their father and fellow-labourer's hand, and were not loth to go to rest. Their mother was their attendant. The ruffle had departed from her face. It was as pleasant as before. She was but half a dissenter. So Thompson thought when he called her back again, and bade his "old 'ooman give her hobby one of her good old-fashioned busses, and think no more about it."

Thompson and I were left together.

"And what do you mean to do, sir, now?" was his first question.

"I hardly know." I answered.

"Of course, you'll cut the gang entirely—that's a nat'ral consequence."

"No, Thompson, not at present. I must not seem so fickle and inconstant. I must not seem so to myself. I joined this sect not altogether without deliberation. I must have further proof of the unsoundness of its principles. A few of its professors have been faithless even to their own position. Of what religious profession may not the same be said? I will be patient, and examine further."

"I was a-thinking," said Thompson, musingly, "I was a-thinking, 'till you've got something else to do——but no, never mind, you won't like that."

"What is it?"

"Why, I was thinking about the young un's. They're shocking back'ard in their eddication, and, between you and me, the missus makes them back'arder. I don't understand the way she has got of larning 'em at all. I don't want to make scholards of 'em. Nobody would but a fool. Bless 'em, they'll have enough to do to get their bread with sweating and toiling, without addling their brains about things they can't understand. But it is a cruelty, mind you, for a parent to hinder his child from reading his Bible on a Sunday afternoon, and to make him stand ashamed of himself before his fellow workman when he grows up, and finds that he can't put paid to a bill on a Saturday night. The boys should all know how to read and write, and keep accounts, and a little summut of human nature. This is what I wants to give 'em, and nobody should I like better to put it into 'em than you, my old friend, if you'd just take the trouble 'till you've got something better to do."

"Thompson," I answered instantly, "I will do it with pleasure. I ought to have made the offer. It did not occur to me. I shall rejoice to repay you, in this trifling way, for all your good feeling and kindness."

"Oh no!" answered my friend, "none of that. We must have an understanding. Don't you think I should have asked the question, if I meant to sneak out in that dirty sort of way. No, that won't do. It's very kind of you, but we must make all that right. We sha'n't quarrel, I dare say. If you mean you'll do it, I have only just a word or two to say before you begin."

"I shall be proud to serve you, Thompson, and on any terms you please."

"Well, it is a serving me—I don't deny it—but, mind you, only till you have dropped into something worth your while. What I wish to say is as this: As soon as ever my missus hears of what you are going to do, I know as well what she'll be at as I know what I am talking of now. She'll just be breaking my heart to have the boys larned French. Now, I'd just as soon bind 'em apprentice to that ere Clayton. I've seen too much of that ere sort of thing in my time. I'm as positive as I sit here, that when a chap begins to talk French he loses all his English spirit, and feels all over him as like a mounseer as possible. I'm sure he does. I've seen it a hundred times, and that I couldn't a-bear. Besides, I've been told that French is the language the thieves talk, and I solemnly believe it. That's one thing. Now, here's another. You'll excuse me, my dear fellow. In course you know more than I do, but I must say that you have got sometimes a very roundabout way of coming to the pint. I mean no offence, and I don't blame you. It's all along of the company you have kept. You are—it's the only fault you have got—you are oudaciously fond of hard words. Don't let the young uns larn 'em. That's all I have to say, and we'll talk of the pay some other time."

At this turn of the conversation, Thompson insisted upon my lighting a pipe and joining him in the gin and water. We smoked for many minutes in silence. My friend had unbuttoned his waistcoat, and had drawn the table nearer to his warm and hospitable fire. A log of wood was burning slowly and steadily away, and a small, bright—very bright—copper kettle overlooked it from the hob. My host had fixed his feet upon the fender—the unemployed hand was in his corduroys. His eyes were three parts closed, enjoying what from its origin may be called—a pure tobacco-born soliloquy. The smoke arose in thin white curls from the clay cup, and at regular periods stole blandly from the corner of his lips. The silent man was blessed. He had been happy at his work; he had grown happier as the sun went down; his happiness was ripening at the supper table; now, half-asleep and half-awake—half conscious and half dreaming—wholly free from care, and yet not free from pregnant thought—the labourer had reached the summit of felicity, and was at peace—intensely.