Dickens at Christmas (Vintage Classics)

by Charles Dickens

  ‘Not to me, I acknowledge,’ replied the lady. ‘It bores one. Besides, one can’t oblige one’s acquaintance. But you are the Poor Man’s Friend, you know, Sir Joseph. You think otherwise.’

  ‘I am the Poor Man’s Friend,’ observed Sir Joseph, glancing at the poor man present. ‘As such I may be taunted. As such I have been taunted. But I ask no other title.’

  ‘Bless him for a noble gentleman!’ thought Trotty.

  ‘I don’t agree with Cute here, for instance,’ said Sir Joseph, holding out the letter. ‘I don’t agree with the Filer party. I don’t agree with any party. My friend the Poor Man, has no business with anything of that sort, and nothing of that sort has any business with him. My friend the Poor Man, in my district, is my business. No man or body of men has any right to interfere between my friend and me. That is the ground I take. I assume a – a paternal character towards my friend. I say, “My good fellow, I will treat you paternally.”’

  Toby listened with great gravity, and began to feel more comfortable.

  ‘Your only business, my good fellow,’ pursued Sir Joseph, looking abstractedly at Toby; ‘your only business in life is with me. You needn’t trouble yourself to think about anything. I will think for you; I know what is good for you; I am your perpetual parent. Such is the dispensation of an all-wise Providence! Now, the design of your creation is: not that you should swill, and guzzle, and associate your enjoyments, brutally, with food’ – Toby thought remorsefully of the tripe – ‘but that you should feel the Dignity of Labour; go forth erect into the cheerful morning air, and – and stop there. Live hard and temperately, be respectful, exercise your self-denial, bring up your family on next to nothing, pay your rent as regularly as the clock strikes, be punctual in your dealings (I set you a good example; you will find Mr Fish, my confidential secretary, with a cashbox before him at all times); and you may trust to me to be your Friend and Father.’

  ‘Nice children, indeed, Sir Joseph!’ said the lady, with a shudder. ‘Rheumatisms, and fevers, and crooked legs, and asthmas, and all kinds of horrors!’

  ‘My lady,’ returned Sir Joseph, with solemnity, ‘not the less am I the Poor Man’s Friend and Father. Not the less shall he receive encouragement at my hands. Every quarter-day he will be put in communication with Mr Fish. Every New-Year’s Day, myself and friends will drink his health. Once every year, myself and friends will address him with the deepest feeling. Once in his life, he may even perhaps receive; in public, in the presence of the gentry; a Trifle from a Friend. And when, upheld no more by these stimulants, and the Dignity of Labour, he sinks into his comfortable grave, then my lady’ – here Sir Joseph blew his nose – ‘I will be a Friend and a Father – on the same terms – to his children.’

  Toby was greatly moved.

  ‘Oh! You have a thankful family, Sir Joseph!’ cried his wife.

  ‘My lady,’ said Sir Joseph, quite majestically, ‘Ingratitude is known to be the sin of that class. I expect no other return.’

  ‘Ah! Born bad!’ thought Toby. ‘Nothing melts us!’

  ‘What man can do, I do,’ pursued Sir Joseph. ‘I do my duty as the Poor Man’s Friend and Father; and I endeavour to educate his mind, by inculcating on all occasions the one great moral lesson which that class requires. That is, entire Dependence on myself. They have no business whatever with – with themselves. If wicked and designing persons tell them otherwise, and they become impatient and discontented, and are guilty of insubordinate conduct and black-hearted ingratitude; which is undoubtedly the case; I am their Friend and Father still. It is so Ordained. It is in the nature of things.’

  With that great sentiment, he opened the Alderman’s letter; and read it.

  ‘Very polite and attentive, I am sure!’ exclaimed Sir Joseph. ‘My lady, the Alderman is so obliging as to remind me that he has had “the distinguished honour” – he is very good – of meeting me at the house of our mutual friend Deedles, the banker; and he does me the favor to inquire whether it will be agreeable to me to have Will Fern put down.’

  ‘Most agreeable!’ replied my Lady Bowley. ‘The worst man among them! He has been committing a robbery, I hope?’

  ‘Why, no,’ said Sir Joseph, referring to the letter. ‘Not quite. Very near. Not quite. He came up to London, it seems, to look for employment (trying to better himself – that’s his story), and being found at night asleep in a shed, was taken into custody, and carried next morning before the Alderman. The Alderman observes (very properly) that he is determined to put this sort of thing down; and that if it will be agreeable to me to have Will Fern put down, he will be happy to begin with him.’

  ‘Let him be made an example of, by all means,’ returned the lady. ‘Last winter, when I introduced pinking and eyeletholeing among the men and boys in the village, as a nice evening employment, and had the lines,

  Oh let us love our occupations,

  Bless the squire and his relations,

  Live upon our daily rations,

  And always know our proper stations,

  set to music on the new system, for them to sing the while; this very Fern – I see him now – touched that hat of his, and said, “I humbly ask your pardon my lady, but an’t I something different from a great girl?” I expected it, of course; who can expect anything but insolence and ingratitude from that class of people? That is not to the purpose, however. Sir Joseph! Make an example of him!’

  ‘Hem!’ coughed Sir Joseph. ‘Mr Fish, if you’ll have the goodness to attend –’

  Mr Fish immediately seized his pen, and wrote from Sir Joseph’s dictation.

  ‘Private. My dear Sir. I am very much indebted to you for your courtesy in the matter of the man William Fern, of whom, I regret to add, I can say nothing favorable. I have uniformly considered myself in the light of his Friend and Father, but have been repaid (a common case, I grieve to say) with ingratitude, and constant opposition to my plans. He is a turbulent and rebellious spirit. His character will not bear investigation. Nothing will persuade him to be happy when he might. Under these circumstances, it appears to me, I own, that when he comes before you again (as you informed me he promised to do tomorrow, pending your inquiries, and I think he may be so far relied upon), his committal for some short term as a Vagabond, would be a service to society, and would be a salutary example in a country where – for the sake of those who are, through good and evil report, the Friends and Fathers of the Poor, as well as with a view to that, generally speaking, misguided class themselves – examples are greatly needed. And I am,’ and so forth.

  ‘It appears,’ remarked Sir Joseph when he had signed this letter, and Mr Fish was sealing it, ‘as if this were Ordained: really. At the close of the year, I wind up my account and strike my balance, even with William Fern!’

  Trotty, who had long ago relapsed, and was very low-spirited, stepped forward with a rueful face to take the letter.

  ‘With my compliments and thanks,’ said Sir Joseph. ‘Stop!’

  ‘Stop!’ echoed Mr Fish.

  ‘You have heard, perhaps,’ said Sir Joseph, oracularly, ‘certain remarks into which I have been led respecting the solemn period of time at which we have arrived, and the duty imposed upon us of settling our affairs, and being prepared. You have observed that I don’t shelter myself behind my superior standing in society, but that Mr Fish – that gentleman – has a cheque-book at his elbow, and is in fact here, to enable me to turn over a perfectly new leaf, and enter on the epoch before us with a clean account. Now, my friend, can you lay your hand upon your heart, and say, that you also have made preparations for a New Year?’

  ‘I am afraid Sir,’ stammered Trotty, looking meekly at him, ‘that I am a – a – little behind-hand with the world.’

  ‘Behind-hand with the world!’ repeated Sir Joseph Bowley, in a tone of terrible distinctness.

  ‘I am afraid Sir,’ faltered Trotty, ‘that there’s a matter of ten or twelve shillings owing to Mrs Chickenstalker.’

  ‘T
o Mrs Chickenstalker!’ repeated Sir Joseph, in the same tone as before.

  ‘A shop Sir,’ exclaimed Toby, ‘in the general line. Also a – a little money on account of rent. A very little Sir. It oughtn’t to be owing, I know, but we have been hard put to it, indeed!’

  Sir Joseph looked at his lady, and at Mr Fish, and at Trotty, one after another, twice all round. He then made a despondent gesture with both hands at once, as if he gave the thing up altogether.

  ‘How a man, even among this improvident and impracticable race; an old man; a man grown grey; can look a New Year in the face, with his affairs in this condition; how he can lie down on his bed at night, and get up again in the morning, and – There!’ he said, turning his back on Trotty. ‘Take the letter. Take the letter!’

  ‘I heartily wish it was otherwise, Sir,’ said Trotty, anxious to excuse himself. ‘We have been tried very hard.’

  Sir Joseph still repeating ‘Take the letter, take the letter!’ and Mr Fish not only saying the same thing, but giving additional force to the request by motioning the bearer to the door, he had nothing for it but to make his bow and leave the house. And in the street, poor Trotty pulled his worn old hat down on his head, to hide the grief he felt at getting no hold on the New Year, anywhere.

  He didn’t even lift his hat to look up at the Bell tower when he came to the old church on his return. He halted there a moment, from habit: and knew that it was growing dark, and that the steeple rose above him, indistinct and faint, in the murky air. He knew, too, that the Chimes would ring immediately; and that they sounded to his fancy, at such a time, like voices in the clouds. But he only made the more haste to deliver the Alderman’s letter, and get out of the way before they began; for he dreaded to hear them tagging ‘Friends and Fathers, Friends and Fathers,’ to the burden they had rung out last.

  Toby discharged himself of his commission, therefore, with all possible speed, and set off trotting homeward. But what with his pace, which was at best an awkward one in the street; and what with his hat, which didn’t improve it; he trotted against somebody in less than no time, and was sent staggering out into the road.

  ‘I beg your pardon, I’m sure!’ said Trotty, pulling up his hat in great confusion, and between the hat and the torn lining, fixing his head into a kind of bee-hive. ‘I hope I haven’t hurt you.’

  As to hurting anybody, Toby was not such an absolute Samson, but that he was much more likely to be hurt himself: and indeed, he had flown out into the road, like a shuttlecock. He had such an opinion of his own strength, however, that he was in real concern for the other party: and said again,

  ‘I hope I haven’t hurt you?’

  The man against whom he had run; a sun-browned, sinewy, country-looking man, with grizzled hair, and a rough chin; stared at him for a moment, as if he suspected him to be in jest. But satisfied of his good faith, he answered:

  ‘No friend. You have not hurt me.’

  ‘Nor the child, I hope?’ said Trotty.

  ‘Nor the child,’ returned the man. ‘I thank you kindly.’

  As he said so, he glanced at a little girl he carried in his arms, asleep: and shading her face with the long end of the poor handkerchief he wore about his throat, went slowly on.

  The tone in which he said ‘I thank you kindly,’ penetrated Trotty’s heart. He was so jaded and foot-sore, and so soiled with travel, and looked about him so forlorn and strange, that it was a comfort to him to be able to thank any one: no matter for how little. Toby stood gazing after him as he plodded wearily away; with the child’s arm clinging round his neck.

  At the figure in the worn shoes – now the very shade and ghost of shoes – rough leather leggings, common frock, and broad slouched hat, Trotty stood gazing: blind to the whole street. And at the child’s arm, clinging round its neck.

  Before he merged into the darkness, the traveller stopped; and looking round, and seeing Trotty standing there yet, seemed undecided whether to return or go on. After doing first the one and then the other, he came back; and Trotty went half way to meet him.

  ‘You can tell me, perhaps,’ said the man with a faint smile, ‘and if you can I am sure you will, and I’d rather ask you than another – where Alderman Cute lives.’

  ‘Close at hand,’ replied Toby. ‘I’ll show you his house with pleasure.’

  ‘I was to have gone to him elsewhere tomorrow,’ said the man, accompanying Toby, ‘but I’m uneasy under suspicion, and want to clear myself, and to be free to go and seek my bread – I don’t know where. So, maybe he’ll forgive my going to his house tonight.’

  ‘It’s impossible,’ cried Toby with a start, ‘that your name’s Fern!’

  ‘Eh!’ cried the other, turning on him in astonishment.

  ‘Fern! Will Fern!’ said Trotty.

  ‘That’s my name,’ replied the other.

  ‘Why then,’ cried Trotty, seizing him by the arm, and looking cautiously round, ‘for Heaven’s sake don’t go to him! Don’t go to him! He’ll put you down as sure as ever you were born. Here! come up this alley, and I’ll tell you what I mean. Don’t go to him.’

  His new acquaintance looked as if he thought him mad; but he bore him company nevertheless. When they were shrouded from observation, Trotty told him what he knew, and what character he had received, and all about it.

  The subject of his history listened to it with a calmness that surprised him. He did not contradict or interrupt it, once. He nodded his head now and then – more in corroboration of an old and worn-out story, it appeared, than in refutation of it; and once or twice threw back his hat, and passed his freckled hand over a brow, where every furrow he had ploughed seemed to have set its image in little. But he did no more.

  ‘It’s true enough in the main,’ he said, ‘master. I could sift grain from husk here and there, but let it be as ’tis. What odds? I have gone against his plans; to my misfortun’. I can’t help it; I should do the like tomorrow. As to character, them gentlefolks will search and search, and pry and pry, and have it as free from spot or speck in us, afore they’ll help us to a dry good word! Well! I hope they don’t lose good opinion as easy as we do, or their lives is strict indeed, and hardly worth the keeping. For myself, master, I never took with that hand’ – holding it before him – ‘what wasn’t my own; and never held it back from work, however hard, or poorly paid. Whoever can deny it, let him chop it off! But when work won’t maintain me like a human creetur; when my living is so bad, that I am Hungry, out of doors and in; when I see a whole working life begin that way, go on that way, and end that way, without a chance or change; then I say to the gentlefolks “Keep away from me! Let my cottage be. My doors is dark enough without your darkening of ’em more. Don’t look for me to come up into the Park to help the show when there’s a Birthday, or a fine Speechmaking, or what not. Act your Plays and Games without me, and be welcome to ’em and enjoy ’em. We’ve nought to do with one another. I’m best let alone!”’

  Seeing that the child in his arms had opened her eyes, and was looking about her in wonder, he checked himself to say a word or two of foolish prattle in her ear, and stand her on the ground beside him. Then slowly winding one of her long tresses round and round his rough forefinger like a ring, while she hung about his dusty leg, he said to Trotty,

  ‘I’m not a cross-grained man by natur’, I believe; and easy satisfied, I’m sure. I bear no ill-will against none of ’em. I only want to live like one of the Almighty’s creeturs. I can’t, I don’t; and so there’s a pit dug between me and them that can and do. There’s others like me. You might tell ’em off by hundreds and by thousands, sooner than by ones.’

  Trotty knew he spoke the Truth in this, and shook his head to signify as much.

  ‘I’ve got a bad name this way,’ said Fern; ‘and I’m not likely, I’m afeard, to get a better. ’Ta’n’t lawful to be out of sorts, and I AM out of sorts, though God knows I’d sooner bear a cheerful spirit if I could. Well! I don’t know as this Alderman could hurt
me much by sending me to jail; but without a friend to speak a word for me, he might do it; and you see –!’ pointing downward with his finger, at the child.

  ‘She has a beautiful face,’ said Trotty.

  ‘Why, yes!’ replied the other in a low voice, as he gently turned it up with both his hands towards his own, and looked upon it steadfastly. ‘I’ve thought so, many times. I’ve thought so, when my hearth was very cold, and cupboard very bare. I thought so t’other night, when we were taken like two thieves. But they – they shouldn’t try the little face too often, should they, Lilian? That’s hardly fair upon a man!’

  He sunk his voice so low, and gazed upon her with an air so stern and strange, that Toby, to divert the current of his thoughts, inquired if his wife were living.

  ‘I never had one,’ he returned, shaking his head. ‘She’s my brother’s child: an orphan. Nine year old, though you’d hardly think it; but she’s tired and worn out now. They’d have taken care on her, the Union; eight and twenty mile away from where we live; between four walls (as they took care of my old father when he couldn’t work no more, though he didn’t trouble ’em long); but I took her instead, and she’s lived with me ever since. Her mother had a friend once, in London here. We are trying to find her, and to find work too; but it’s a large place. Never mind. More room for us to walk about in, Lilly!’

  Meeting the child’s eyes with a smile which melted Toby more than tears, he shook him by the hand.

  ‘I don’t so much as know your name,’ he said, ‘but I’ve opened my heart free to you, for I’m thankful to you; with good reason. I’ll take your advice, and keep clear of this –’

  ‘Justice,’ suggested Toby.

  ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘If that’s the name they give him. This Justice. And tomorrow will try whether there’s better fortun’ to be met with, somewheres near London. Good night. A Happy New Year!’