Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850

“Ah,” said one of the sifters, “poor Jem’s always a-fancying something or other good – but it never comes.”

“Didn’t I find three cats this morning!” cried Jem; “two on ’em white ’uns! How you go on!”

“I meant something quite different from the like o’ that,” said the other; “I was a-thinking of the rare sights all you three there have had, one time and another.”

The wind having changed and the day become bright, the party at work all seemed disposed to be more merry than usual. The foregoing remark excited the curiosity of several of the sifters, who had recently joined the “company,” the parties alluded to were requested to favor them with the recital; and though the request was made with only a half-concealed irony, still it was all in good-natured pleasantry, and was immediately complied with. Old Doubleyear spoke first.

“I had a bad night of it with the rats some years ago – they run’d all over the floor, and over the bed, and one on ’em come’d and guv a squeak close into my ear – so I couldn’t sleep comfortable. I wouldn’t ha’ minded a trifle of at; but this was too much of a good thing. So, I got up before sun-rise, and went out for a walk; and thinking I might as well be near our work-place, I slowly come’d down this way. I worked in a brick-field at that time, near the canal yonder. The sun was just a-rising up behind the dust-heap as I got in sight of it; and soon it rose above, and was very bright; and though I had two eyes then, I was obligated to shut them both. When I opened them again, the sun was higher up; but in his haste to get over the dust-heap, he had dropped something. You may laugh. I say he had dropped something. Well – I can’t say what it was, in course – a bit of his-self, I suppose. It was just like him – a bit on him, I mean – quite as bright – just the same – only not so big. And not up in the sky, but a-lying and sparkling all on fire upon the dust-heap. Thinks I – I was a younger man then by some years than I am now – I’ll go and have a nearer look. Though you be a bit o’ the sun, maybe you won’t hurt a poor man. So, I walked toward the dust-heap, and up I went, keeping the piece of sparkling fire in sight all the while. But before I got up to it, the sun went behind a cloud – and as he went out-like, so the young ’un he had dropped, went out after him. And I had my climb up the heap for nothing, though I had marked the place were it lay very percizely. But there was no signs at all on him, and no morsel left of the light as had been there. I searched all about; but found nothing ’cept a bit o’ broken glass as had got stuck in the heel of an old shoe. And that’s my story. But if ever a man saw any thing at all, I saw a bit o’ the sun; and I thank God for it. It was a blessed sight for a poor ragged old man of three score and ten, which was my age at that time.”

“Now, Peggy!” cried several voices, “tell us what you saw. Peg saw a bit o’ the moon.”

“No,” said Mrs. Dotting, rather indignantly; “I’m no moon-raker. Not a sign of the moon was there, nor a spark of a star – the time I speak on.”

“Well – go on, Peggy – go on.”

“I don’t know as I will,” said Peggy.

But being pacified by a few good-tempered, though somewhat humorous compliments, she thus favored them with her little adventure:

“There was no moon, nor stars, nor comet, in the ’versal heavens, nor lamp nor lantern along the road, when I walked home one winter’s night from the cottage of Widow Pin, where I had been to tea, with her and Mrs. Dry, as lived in the almshouses. They wanted Davy, the son of Bill Davy the milkman, to see me home with the lantern, but I wouldn’t let him ’cause of his sore throat. Throat! – no, it wasn’t his throat as was rare sore – it was – no, it wasn’t – yes, it was – it was his toe as was sore. His big toe. A nail out of his boot had got into it. I told him he’d be sure to have a bad toe, if he didn’t go to church more regular, but he wouldn’t listen; and so my words come’d true. But, as I was a-saying, I wouldn’t let him light me with the lantern by reason of his sore throat —toe, I mean – and as I went along, the night seemed to grow darker and darker. A straight road, though, and I was so used to it by day-time, it didn’t matter for the darkness. Hows’ever, when I come’d near the bottom of the dust-heap as I had to pass, the great dark heap was so zackly the same as the night, you couldn’t tell one from t’other. So, thinks I to myself —what was I thinking of at this moment? – for the life o’ me I can’t call it to mind; but that’s neither here nor there, only for this – it was a something that led me to remember the story of how the devil goes about like a roaring lion. And while I was a-hoping he might not be out a-roaring that night, what should I see rise out of one side of the dust-heap, but a beautiful shining star of a violet color. I stood as still – as stock-still as any I don’t-know-what! There it lay, as beautiful as a new-born babe, all a-shining in the dust! By degrees I got courage to go a little nearer – and then a little nearer still – for, says I to myself, I’m a sinful woman, I know, but I have repented, and do repent constantly of all the sins of my youth, and the backslidings of my age – which have been numerous; and once I had a very heavy backsliding – but that’s neither here nor there. So, as I was a-saying, having collected all my sinfulness of life, and humbleness before heaven, into a goodish bit of courage, forward I steps – little furder – and a leetle furder more —un-til I come’d just up to the beautiful shining star lying upon the dust. Well, it was a long time I stood a-looking down at it, before I ventured to do, what I arterwards did. But at last I did stoop down with both hands slowly – in case it might burn, or bite – and gathering up a good scoop of ashes as my hands went along, I took it up, and began a-carrying it home, all shining before me, and with a soft, blue mist rising up round about it. Heaven forgive me! – I was punished for meddling with what Providence had sent for some better purpose than to be carried home by an old woman like me, whom it has pleased heaven to afflict with the loss of one leg, and the pain, ixpinse, and inconvenience of a wooden one. Well – I was punished; covetousness had its reward; for, presently, the violet light got very pale, and then went out; and when I reached home, still holding in both hands all I had gathered up, and when I took it to the candle, it had turned into the red shell of a lobsky’s head, and its two black eyes poked up at me with a long stare – and I may say, a strong smell too – enough to knock a poor body down.”

Great applause, and no little laughter, followed the conclusion of old Peggy’s story, but she did not join in the merriment. She said it was all very well for young people to laugh, but at her age she had enough to do to pray; and she had never said so many prayers, nor with so much fervency, as she had done since she received the blessed sight of the blue star on the dust-heap, and the chastising rod of the lobster’s head at home.

Little Jem’s turn now came; the poor lad was, however, so excited by the recollection of what his companions called “Jem’s Ghost,” that he was unable to describe it in any coherent language. To his imagination it had been a lovely vision – the one “bright consummate flower” of his life, which he treasured up as the most sacred image in his heart. He endeavored, in wild and hasty words, to set forth, how that he had been bred a chimney-sweep; that one Sunday afternoon he had left a set of companions, most on ’em sweeps, who were all playing at marbles in the church-yard, and he had wandered to the dust-heap, where he had fallen asleep; that he was awoke by a sweet voice in the air, which said something about some one having lost her way! – that he, being now wide awake, looked up, and saw with his own eyes a young angel, with fair hair and rosy cheeks, and large white wings at her shoulders, floating about like bright clouds, rise out of the dust! She had on a garment of shining crimson, which changed as he looked upon her to shining gold, then to purple and gold. She then exclaimed, with a joyful smile, “I see the right way!” and the next moment the angel was gone.

As the sun was just now very bright and warm for the time of the year, and shining full upon the dust-heap in its setting, one of the men endeavored to raise a laugh at the deformed lad, by asking him if he didn’t expect to see just such another angel at this minute, who had lost her way in the field on the other side of the heap; but his jest failed. The earnestness and devout emotion of the boy to the vision of reality which his imagination, aided by the hues of sunset, had thus exalted, were too much for the gross spirit of banter, and the speaker shrank back into his dust-hovel, and affected to be very assiduous in his work as the day was drawing to a close.

Before the day’s work was ended, however, little Jem again had a glimpse of the prize which had escaped him on the previous occasion. He instantly darted, hands and head foremost, into the mass of cinders and rubbish, and brought up a black mass of half-burnt parchment, entwined with vegetable refuse, from which he speedily disengaged an oval frame of gold, containing a miniature, still protected by its glass, but half covered with mildew from the damp. He was in ecstasies at the prize. Even the white cat-skins paled before it. In all probability some of the men would have taken it from, him “to try and find the owner,” but for the presence and interference of his friends Peg Dotting and old Doubleyear, whose great age, even among the present company, gave them a certain position of respect and consideration. So all the rest now went their way, leaving the three to examine and speculate on the prize.

The dust-heaps are a wonderful compound of things. A banker’s check for a considerable sum was found in one of them. It was on Herries and Farquhar, in 1847. But bankers’ checks, or gold and silver articles, are the least valuable of their ingredients. Among other things, a variety of useful chemicals are extracted. Their chief value, however, is for the making of bricks. The fine cinder-dust and ashes are used in the clay of the bricks, both for the red and gray stacks. Ashes are also used as fuel between the layers of the clump of bricks, which could not be burned in that position without them. The ashes burn away, and keep the bricks open. Enormous quantities are used. In the brick-fields at Uxbridge, near the Drayton Station, one of the brickmakers alone will frequently contract for fifteen or sixteen thousand chaldron of this cinder-dust, in one order. Fine coke or coke-dust, affects the market at times as a rival; but fine coal, or coal-dust, never, because it would spoil the bricks.

As one of the heroes of our tale had been originally – before his promotion – a chimney-sweeper, it may be only appropriate to offer a passing word on the genial subject of soot. Without speculating on its origin and parentage, whether derived from the cooking of a Christmas dinner, or the production of the beautiful colors and odors of exotic plants in a conservatory, it can briefly be shown to possess many qualities both useful and ornamental. When soot is first collected, it is called “rough soot,” which, being sifted, is then called “fine soot,” and is sold to farmers for manuring and preserving wheat and turnips. This is more especially used in Herefordshire, Bedfordshire, Essex, &c. It is rather a costly article, being fivepence per bushel. One contractor sells annually as much as three thousand bushels; and he gives it as his opinion, that there must be at least one hundred and fifty times this quantity (four hundred and fifty thousand bushels per annum) sold in London. Farmer Smutwise of Bradford, distinctly asserts that the price of the soot he uses on his land is returned to him in the straw, with improvement also to the grain. And we believe him. Lime is used to dilute soot when employed as a manure. Using it pure will keep off snails, slugs, and caterpillars, from peas and various other vegetables, as also from dahlias just shooting up, and other flowers; but we regret to add that we have sometimes known it kill, or burn up the things it was intended to preserve from unlawful eating. In short, it is by no means so safe to use for any purpose of garden manure, as fine cinders, and wood-ashes, which are good for almost any kind of produce, whether turnips or roses. Indeed, we should like to have one fourth or fifth part of our garden-beds composed of excellent stuff of this kind. From all that has been said, it will have become very intelligible why these dust-heaps are so valuable. Their worth, however, varies not only with their magnitude (the quality of all of them is much the same), but with the demand. About the year 1820, the Marylebone dust-heap produced between four thousand and five thousand pounds. In 1832, St. George’s paid Mr. Stapleton five hundred pounds a year, not to leave the heap standing, but to carry it away. Of course he was only too glad to be paid highly for selling his dust.

But to return. The three friends having settled to their satisfaction the amount of money they should probably obtain by the sale of the golden miniature-frame, and finished the castles which they had built with it in the air, the frame was again enfolded in the sound part of the parchment, the rags and rottenness of the law were cast away, and up they rose to bend their steps homeward to the little hovel where Peggy lived, she having invited the others to tea that they might talk yet more fully over the wonderful good luck that had befallen them.

“Why, if there isn’t a man’s head in the canal!” suddenly cried little Jem. “Looky there! – isn’t that a man’s head? – Yes; it’s a drowndedd man?”

“A drowndedd man, as I live!” ejaculated old Doubleyear.

“Let’s get him out, and see!” cried Peggy. “Perhaps the poor soul’s not quite gone.”

Little Jem scuttled off to the edge of the canal, followed by the two old people. As soon as the body had floated nearer, Jem got down into the water, and stood breast-high, vainly measuring his distance with one arm out, to see if he could reach some part of the body as it was passing. As the attempt was evidently without a chance, old Doubleyear managed to get down into the water behind him, and holding him by one hand, the boy was thus enabled to make a plunge forward as the body was floating by. He succeeded in reaching it; but the jerk was too much for the weakness of his aged companion, who was pulled forward into the canal. A loud cry burst from both of them, which was yet more loudly echoed by Peggy on the bank. Doubleyear and the boy were now struggling almost in the middle of the canal with the body of the man swirling about between them. They would inevitably have been drowned, had not old Peggy caught up a long dust-rake that was close at hand – scrambled down up to her knees in the canal – clawed hold of the struggling group with the teeth of the rake, and fairly brought the whole to land. Jem was first up the bank, and helped up his two heroic companions; after which with no small difficulty, they contrived to haul the body of the stranger out of the water. Jem at once recognized in him the forlorn figure of the man who had passed by in the morning, looking so sadly into the canal, as he walked along.

It is a fact well known to those who work in the vicinity of these great dust-heaps, that when the ashes have been warmed by the sun, cats and kittens that have been taken out of the canal and buried a few inches beneath the surface, have usually revived; and the same has often occurred in the case of men. Accordingly the three, without a moment’s hesitation, dragged the body along to the dust-heap, where they made a deep trench, in which they placed it, covering it all over up to the neck.

“There now,” ejaculated Peggy, sitting down with a long puff to recover her breath, “he’ll lie very comfortable, whether or no.”

“Couldn’t lie better,” said old Doubleyear, “even if he knew it.”

The three now seated themselves close by, to await the result.

“I thought I’d a lost him,” said Jem, “and myself too; and when I pulled Daddy in arter me, I guv us all three up for this world.”

“Yes,” said Doubleyear, “it must have gone queer with us if Peggy had not come in with the rake. How d’yee feel, old girl; for you’ve had a narrow escape too. I wonder we were not too heavy for you, and so pulled you in to go with us.”

“The Lord be praised!” fervently ejaculated Peggy, pointing toward the pallid face that lay surrounded with ashes. A convulsive twitching passed over the features, the lips trembled, the ashes over the breast heaved, and a low moaning sound, which might have come from the bottom of the canal, was heard. Again the moaning sound, and then the eyes opened, but closed almost immediately. “Poor dear soul!” whispered Peggy, “how he suffers in surviving. Lift him up a little. Softly. Don’t be afeared. We’re only your good angels, like – only poor cinder-sifters – don’tee be afeared.”

By various kindly attentions and manœuvres such as these poor people had been accustomed to practice on those who were taken out of the canal, the unfortunate gentleman was gradually brought to his senses. He gazed about him, as well he might – now looking in the anxious, though begrimed, faces of the three strange objects, all in their “weeds” and dust – and then up at the huge dust-heap, over which the moon was now slowly rising.

“Land of quiet Death!” murmured he, faintly, “or land of Life, as dark and still – I have passed from one into the other; but which of ye I am now in, seems doubtful to my senses.”

“Here we are, poor gentleman,” cried Peggy, “here we are, all friends about you. How did ’ee tumble into the canal?”

“The Earth, then, once more!” said the stranger, with a deep sigh. “I know where I am, now. I remember this great dark hill of ashes – like Death’s kingdom, full of all sorts of strange things, and put to many uses.”

“Where do you live?” asked old Doubleyear; “shall we try and take you home, sir?”

The stranger shook his head mournfully. All this time, little Jem had been assiduously employed in rubbing his feet and then his hands; in doing which the piece of dirty parchment, with the miniature-frame, dropped out of his breast-pocket. A good thought instantly struck Peggy.

“Run, Jemmy dear – run with that golden thing to Mr. Spikechin, the pawnbroker’s – get something upon it directly, and buy some nice brandy – and some Godfrey’s cordial – and a blanket, Jemmy – and call a coach, and get up outside on it, and make the coachee drive back here as fast as you can.”

But before Jemmy could attend to this, Mr. Waterhouse, the stranger whose life they had preserved, raised himself on one elbow, and extended his hand to the miniature-frame. Directly he looked at it, he raised himself higher up – turned it about once or twice – then caught up the piece of parchment; and uttering an ejaculation, which no one could have distinguished either as of joy or of pain, sank back fainting.

In brief, this parchment was a portion of the title-deeds he had lost; and though it did not prove sufficient to enable him to recover his fortune, it brought his opponent to a composition, which gave him an annuity for life. Small as this was, he determined that these poor people, who had so generously saved his life at the risk of their own, should be sharers in it. Finding that what they most desired was to have a cottage in the neighborhood of the dust-heap, built large enough for all three to live together, and keep a cow, Mr. Waterhouse paid a visit to Manchester-square, where the owner of the property resided. He told his story, as far as was needful, and proposed to purchase the field in question.

The great dust-contractor was much amused, and his daughter – a very accomplished young lady – was extremely interested. So the matter was speedily arranged to the satisfaction and pleasure of all parties. The acquaintance, however, did not end here. Mr. Waterhouse renewed his visits very frequently, and finally made proposals for the young lady’s hand, she having already expressed her hopes of a propitious answer from her father.

“Well, sir,” said the latter, “you wish to marry my daughter, and she wishes to marry you. You are a gentleman and a scholar, but you have no money. My daughter is what you see, and she has no money. But I have; and therefore, as she likes you, and I like you, I’ll make you both an offer. I will give my daughter twenty thousand pounds – or you shall have the dust-heap. Choose!”

Mr. Waterhouse was puzzled and amused, and referred the matter entirely to the young lady. But she was for having the money, and no trouble. She said the dust-heap might be worth much, but they did not understand the business. “Very well,” said her father, laughing, “then there’s the money.”

This was the identical dust-heap, as we know from authentic information, which was subsequently sold for forty thousand pounds, and was exported to Russia to rebuild Moscow.

SKETCHES OF ENGLISH CHARACTER

BY WILLIAM HOWITT

THE OLD SQUIRE

The old squire, or, in other words, the squire of the old school, is the eldest born of John Bull; he is the “very moral of him;” as like him as pea to pea. He has a tolerable share of his good qualities; and as for his prejudices – oh, they are his meat and drink, and the very clothes he wears. He is made up of prejudices – he is covered all over with them. They are the staple of his dreams; they garnish his dishes, they spice his cup, they enter into his very prayers, and they make his will altogether. His oaks and elms in his park, and in his woods – they are sturdy timbers, in troth, and gnarled and knotted to some purpose, for they have stood for centuries; but what are they to the towering upshoots of his prejudices? Oh, they are mere wands! If he has not stood for centuries, his prejudices have; for they have come down from generation to generation with the family and the estate. They have ridden, to use another figure, like the Old Man of the Sea, on the shoulders of his ancestors, and have skipped from those of one ancestor to those of the next; and there they sit on his own most venerable, well-fed, comfortable, ancient, and gray-eyed prejudices, as familiar to their seat as the collar of his coat. He would take cold without them; to part with them would be the death of him. So! don’t go too near – don’t let us alarm them; for, in truth, they have had insults, and met with impertinences of late years, and have grown fretful and cantankerous in their old age. Nay, horrid radicals have not hesitated, in this wicked generation, to aim sundry deadly blows at them; and it has been all that the old squire has been able to do to protect them. Then —

You need not rub them backwards like a cat,
If you would see them spirt and sparkle up.

You have only to give one look at them, and they will appear to all in bristles and fury, like a nest of porcupines.

The old squire, like his father, is a sincere lover and a most hearty hater. What does he love? Oh, he loves the country – ’tis the only country on the earth that is worth calling a country; and he loves the constitution. But don’t ask him what it is, unless you want to test the hardness of his walking-stick; it is the constitution, the finest thing in the world, and all the better for being, like the Athanasian creed, a mystery. Of what use is it that the mob should understand it? It is our glorious constitution – that is enough. Are you not contented to feel how good it is, without going to peer into its very entrails, and perhaps ruin it, like an ignorant fellow putting his hand into the works of a clock? Are you not contented to let the sun shine on you? Do you want to go up and see what it is made of? Well, then, it is the constitution – the finest thing in the world; and, good as the country is, it would be good for nothing without it, no more than a hare would without stuffing, or a lantern without a candle, or the church without the steeple or the ring of bells. Well, he loves the constitution, as he ought to do; for has it not done well for him and his forefathers? And has it not kept the mob in their places, spite of the French Revolution? And taken care of the National Debt? And has it not taught us all to “fear God and honor the king;” and given the family estate to him, the church to his brother Ned, and put Fred and George into the army and navy? Could there possibly be a better constitution, if the Whigs could but let it alone with their Reform Bills? And, therefore, as he most reasonably loves the dear, old, mysterious, and benevolent constitution to distraction, and places it in the region of his veneration somewhere in the seventh heaven itself, so he hates every body and thing that hates it.

He hates Frenchmen because he loves his country, and thinks we are dreadfully degenerated that we do not nowadays find some cause, as the wisdom of our ancestors did, to pick a quarrel with them, and give them a good drubbing. Is not all our glory made up of beating the French and the Dutch? And what is to become of history, and the army and the fleet, if we go on this way? He does not stop to consider that the army, at least, thrives as well with peace as war; that it continues to increase; that it eats, drinks, and sleeps as well, and dresses better, and lives a great deal more easily and comfortably in peace than in war. But, then, what is to become of history, and the drubbing of the French? Who may, however, possibly die of “envy and admiration of our glorious constitution.”