Part 14
With added trepidation I stole softly back to the magic-lantern platform; and revived myself a little by peeping through the scratch, upon the unstained light of open day. But what is to be done, thought I again.
I descended to the door; listened there; heard nothing. A third time climbing the stone steps, once more I stood in the magic-lantern, while the full nature of the more than awkwardness of my position came over me.
The first persons who will re-enter the temple, mused I, will doubtless be the beadle-faced man and the bell-ringer. And the first man to come up here, where I am, will be the latter. Now what will be his natural impressions upon first descrying an unknown prowler here? Rather disadvantageous to said prowler’s moral character. Explanations will be vain. Circumstances are against me. True, I may hide, till he retires again. But how do I know that he will then leave the door unlocked? Besides, in a position of affairs like this, it is generally best, I think, to anticipate discovery, and by magnanimously announcing yourself, forestall an inglorious detection. But how announce myself? Already have I knocked, and no response. That moment my eye, impatiently ranging round about, fell upon the bell-ropes. They suggested the usual signal made at dwelling-houses to convey tidings of a stranger’s presence. But I was not an outside caller; alas, I was an inside prowler. But one little touch of that bell-rope would be sure to bring relief. I have an appointment at three o’clock. The beadle-faced man must naturally reside very close by the church. He well knows the peculiar ring of his own bell. The slightest possible hum would bring him flying to the rescue. Shall I, or shall I not? But I may alarm the neighbourhood. Ah, no; the merest tingle, not by any means a loud, vociferous peal. Shall I? Better voluntarily bring the beadle-faced man to me, than be involuntarily dragged out from this most suspicious hiding-place. I have to face him, first or last. Better now than later. Shall I?
No more. Creeping to the rope, I gave it a cautious twitch. No sound. A little less warily. All was dumb. Still more strongly. Horrors! My hands, instinctively clapped to my ears, only served to condense the appalling din. Some undreamed-of mechanism seemed to have been touched. The bell must have thrice revolved on its thunderous axis, multiplying the astounding reverberation.
My business is effectually done this time, thought I, all in a tremble. Nothing will serve me now but the reckless confidence of innocence reduced to desperation.
In less than five minutes I heard a running noise beneath me; the lock of the door clicked, and up rushed the beadle-faced man, the perspiration starting from his cheeks.
‘You! Is it _you_? The man I turned away this very morning, skulking here? You dare to touch that bell? Scoundrel!’
And ere I could defend myself, seizing me irresistibly in his powerful grasp, he tore me along by the collar, and dragging me down the stairs, thrust me into the arms of three policemen, who, attracted by the sudden toll of the bell, had gathered curiously about the porch.
All remonstrances were vain. The beadle-faced man was bigoted against me. Represented as a lawless violator, and a remorseless disturber of the Sunday peace, I was conducted to the Halls of Justice. Next morning, my rather gentlemanly appearance procured me a private hearing from the judge. But the beadle-faced man must have made a Sunday night call on him. In spite of my coolest explanations, the circumstances of the case were deemed so exceedingly suspicious, that only after paying a round fine, and receiving a stinging reprimand, was I permitted to go at large, and pardoned for having humbly indulged myself in the luxury of public worship.
TEMPLE SECOND
A stranger in London on Saturday night and without a copper! What hospitalities may such an one expect? What shall I do with myself this weary night? My landlady won’t receive me in her parlour. I owe her money. She looks like flint on me. So in this monstrous rabblement must I crawl about till, say, ten o’clock, and then slink home to my unlighted bed.
The case was this: The week following my inglorious expulsion from the transatlantic temple, I had packed up my trunks and damaged character, and repaired to the paternal, loving town of Philadelphia. There chance threw into my way an interesting young orphan lady and her aunt-duenna; the lady rich as Cleopatra, but not as beautiful; the duenna lovely as Charmian, but not so young. For the lady’s health, prolonged travel had been prescribed. Maternally connected in old England, the lady chose London for her primal port. But ere securing their passage, the two were looking around for some young physician, whose disengagement from pressing business might induce him to accept, on a moderate salary, the post of private Esculapius and knightly companion to the otherwise unprotected pair. The more necessary was this, as not only the voyage to England was intended, but an extensive European tour to follow.
Enough. I came; I saw; I was made the happy man. We sailed. We landed on the other side; when, after two weeks of agonised attendance on the vacillations of the lady, I was very cavalierly dismissed, on the score that the lady’s maternal relations had persuaded her to try, through the winter, the salubrious climate of the foggy Isle of Wight, in preference to the fabulous blue atmosphere of the Ionian Isles. So much for national prejudice. _Nota Bene._--The lady was in a sad decline.
Having ere sailing been obliged to anticipate nearly a quarter’s pay to foot my outfit bills, I was dismally cut adrift in Fleet Street without a solitary shilling. By disposing, at certain pawnbrokers, of some of my less indispensable apparel, I had managed to stave off the more slaughterous onsets of my landlady, while diligently looking about for any business that might providentially appear.
So on I drifted amid those indescribable crowds which every seventh night pour and roar through each main artery, and block the by-veins of great London, the Leviathan. Saturday night it was; and the markets and the shops, and every stall and counter were crushed with the one unceasing tide. A whole Sunday’s victualling for three millions of human bodies, was going on. Few of them equally hungry with my own, as through my spent lassitude, the unscrupulous human whirlpools eddied me aside at corners, as any straw is eddied in the Norway Maelstrom. What dire suckings into oblivion must such swirling billows know! Better perish ’mid myriad sharks in mid Atlantic, than die a penniless stranger in Babylonian London. Forlorn, outcast, without a friend, I staggered on through three millions of my own human kind. The fiendish gas-lights shooting their Tartarean rays across the muddy, sticky streets, lit up the pitiless and pitiable scene.
Well, well, if this were but Sunday now, I might conciliate some kind female pew-opener, and rest me in some inn-like chapel upon some stranger’s outside bench. But it is Saturday night. The end of the weary week, and all but the end of weary me.
Disentangling myself at last from those skeins of Pandemonian lanes which snarl one part of the metropolis between Fleet Street and Holborn, I found myself at last in a wide and far less noisy street, a short and shopless one, leading up from the Strand, and terminating at its junction with a crosswise avenue. The comparative quietude of the place was inexpressively soothing. It was like emerging upon the green enclosure surrounding some cathedral church, where sanctity makes all things still. Two lofty brilliant lights attracted me in this tranquil street. Thinking it might prove some moral or religious meeting, I hurried toward the spot; but was surprised to see two tall placards announcing the appearance that night, of the stately Macready in the part of Cardinal Richelieu. Very few loiterers hung about the place, the hour being rather late, and the play-bill hawkers mostly departed, or keeping entirely quiet. This theatre indeed, as I afterwards discovered, was not only one of the best in point of acting, but likewise one of the most decorous in its general management, inside and out. In truth, the whole neighbourhood, as it seemed to me--issuing from the jam and uproar of those turbulent tides against which, or borne on irresistibly by which, I had so long been swimming--the whole neighbourhood, I say, of this pleasing street seemed in good keeping with the character imputed to its theatre.
Glad to find one blessed oasis of tranquillity, I stood leaning against a column of the porch, and striving to lose my sadness in running over one of the huge placards. No one molested me. A tattered little girl, to be sure, approached with a hand-bill extended, but marking me more narrowly, retreated; her strange skill in physiognomy at once enabling her to determine that I was penniless. As I read, and read--for the placard, of enormous dimensions, contained minute particulars of each successive scene in the enacted play--gradually a strong desire to witness this celebrated Macready in this his celebrated part stole over me. By one act, I might rest my jaded limbs, and more than jaded spirits. Where else could I go for rest, unless I crawled into my cold and lonely bed far up in an attic of Craven Street, looking down upon the muddy Phlegethon of the Thames. Besides, what I wanted was not merely rest, but cheer; the making one of many pleased and pleasing human faces; the getting into a genial humane assembly of my kind; such as, at its best and highest, is to be found in the unified multitude of a devout congregation. But no such assemblies were accessible that night, even if my unbefriended and rather shabby air would overcome the scruples of those fastidious gentry with red gowns and long gilded staves, who guard the portals of the first-class London tabernacles from all profanation of a poor, forlorn, and fainting wanderer like me. Not inns, but ecclesiastical hotels, where the pews are the rented chambers.
No use to ponder, thought I, at last; it is Saturday night, not Sunday; and so, a theatre only can receive me. So powerfully in the end did the longing to get into the edifice come over me, that I almost began to think of pawning my overcoat for admittance. But from this last infatuation I was providentially withheld by a sudden cheery summons, in a voice unmistakably benevolent. I turned, and saw a man who seemed to be some sort of a working man.
‘Take it,’ said he, holding a plain red ticket toward me, full in the gas-light. ‘You want to go in; I know you do. Take it. I am suddenly called home. There--hope you’ll enjoy yourself. Good-bye.’
Blankly and mechanically I had suffered the ticket to be thrust into my hand, and now stood quite astonished, bewildered, and for the time, ashamed. The plain fact was, I had received charity; and for the first time in my life. Often in the course of my strange wanderings I had needed charity, but never had asked it, and certainly never, ere this blessed night, had been offered it. And a stranger, and in the very maw of the roaring London, too! Next moment my sense of foolish shame departed, and I felt a queer feeling in my left eye, which, as sometimes is the case with people, was the weaker one; probably from being on the same side with the heart.
I glanced round eagerly. But the kind giver was no longer in sight. I looked upon the ticket. I understood. It was one of those checks given to persons inside a theatre when for any cause they desire to step out a moment. Its presentation ensures unquestioned readmittance.
‘Shall I use it?’ mused I--‘what? It’s charity. But if it be gloriously right to do a charitable deed, can it be ingloriously wrong to receive its benefit? No one knows you; go boldly in. Charity. Why these unvanquishable scruples? All your life, naught but charity sustains you, and all others in the world. Maternal charity nursed you as a babe; paternal charity fed you as a child; friendly charity got you your profession; and to the charity of every man you meet this night in London, are you indebted for your unattempted life. Any knife, any hand of all the millions of knives and hands in London, has you this night at its mercy. You, and all mortals, live but by sufferance of your charitable kind; charitable by omission, not performance. Slush for your self-upbraidings, and pitiful, poor, shabby pride, you friendless man without a purse. Go in.’
Debate was over. Marking the direction from which the stranger had accosted me, I stepped that way; and soon saw a low-vaulted, inferior-looking door on one side of the edifice. Entering, I wandered on and up, and up and on again, through various doubling stairs and wedge-like, ill-lit passages, whose bare boards much reminded me of my ascent of the Gothic tower on the ocean’s far other side. At last I gained a lofty platform, and saw a fixed human countenance facing me from a mysterious window of a sort of sentry-box or closet. Like some saint in a shrine, the countenance was illuminated by two smoky candles. I divined the man. I exhibited my diploma, and he nodded me to a little door beyond; while a sudden burst of orchestral music admonished me. I was now very near my destination, and also revived the memory of the organ anthems I had heard while on the ladder of the tower at home.
Next moment, the wire-woven gauzy screen of the ventilating window in that same tower seemed enchantedly reproduced before me. The same hot blast of stifling air once more rushed into my lungs. From the same dizzy altitude, through the same fine-spun, vapoury, crapey air; far, far down upon just such a packed mass of silent human beings; listening to just such grand harmonies; I stood within the topmost gallery of the temple. But hardly alone and silently as before. This time I had company. Not of the first circles, and certainly not of the dress-circle; but most acceptable, right welcome, cheery company, to otherwise uncompanioned me. Quiet, well-pleased working men, and their glad wives and sisters, with here and there an aproned urchin, with all-absorbed, bright face, vermilioned by the excitement and the heated air, hovering like a painted cherub over the vast human firmament below. The height of the gallery was in truth appalling. The rail was low. I thought of deep-sea-leads, and the mariner in the vessel’s chains, drawing up the line, with his long-drawn musical accompaniment. And like beds of glittering coral, through the deep sea of azure smoke, there, far down, I saw the jewelled necks and white sparkling arms of crowds of ladies in the semicirque. But, in the interval of two acts, again the orchestra was heard; some inspiring anthem now was played. As the volumed sound came undulating up, and broke in showery spray and foam of melody against our gallery rail, my head involuntarily was bowed, my hand instinctively sought my pocket. Only by a second thought did I check my momentary lunacy, and remind myself that this time I had no small morocco book with me, and that this was not the house of prayer.
Quickly was my wandering mind--preternaturally affected by the sudden translation from the desolate street to this bewildering and blazing spectacle--arrested in its wanderings, by feeling at my elbow a meaning nudge; when turning suddenly, I saw a sort of coffee-pot and pewter mug hospitably presented to me by a ragged, but good-natured-looking boy.
‘Thank you,’ said I, ‘I won’t take any coffee, I guess.’
‘Coffee?--I guess?--ain’t you a Yankee?’
‘Ay, boy; true blue.’
‘Well, dad’s gone to Yankee-land, a-seekin’ of his fortin; so take a penny mug of ale, do, Yankee, for poor dad’s sake.’
Out from the tilted coffee-pot-looking can came a coffee-coloured stream, and a small mug of humming ale was in my hand.
‘I don’t want it, boy. The fact is, my boy, I have no penny by me. I happened to leave my purse at my lodgings.’
‘Never do you mind, Yankee; drink to honest dad.’
‘With all my heart, you generous boy; here’s immortal life to him!’
He stared at my strange burst, smiled merrily, and left me, offering his coffee-pot in all directions, and not in vain.
’Tis not always poverty to be poor, mused I; one may fare well without a penny. A ragged boy may be a prince-like benefactor.
That unpurchased pennyworth of ale revived my drooping spirits strangely. Stuff was in that barley malt; a most sweet bitterness in those blessed hops. God bless the glorious boy!
The more I looked about me in this lofty gallery, the more was I delighted with its occupants. It was not spacious. It was, if anything, rather contracted, being the very cheapest portion of the house, where very limited attendance was expected; embracing merely the very crown of the topmost semicircle; and so commanding, with a sovereign outlook, and imperial downlook, the whole theatre, with the expanded stage directly opposite, though some hundred feet below. As at the tower, peeping into the transatlantic temple, so stood I here, at the very mainmast-head of all the interior edifice.
Such was the decorum of this special theatre, that nothing objectionable was admitted within its walls. With an unhurt eye of perfect love, I sat serenely in the gallery, gazing upon the pleasing scene, around me and below. Neither did it abate from my satisfaction to remember that Mr. Macready, the chief actor of the night, was an amiable gentleman, combining the finest qualities of social and Christian respectability with the highest excellence in his particular profession; for which last he had conscientiously done much, in many ways, to refine, elevate, and chasten.
But now the curtain rises, and the robed Cardinal advances. How marvellous this personal resemblance! He looks every inch to be the self-same stately priest I saw irradiated by the glow-worm dyes of the pictured windows from my high tower-pew. And shining as he does, in the rosy reflexes of these stained walls and gorgeous galleries, the mimic priest down there; he, too, seems lit by Gothic blazonings.--Hark! The same measured, courtly, noble tone. See! the same imposing attitude. Excellent actor is this Richelieu!
He disappears behind the scenes. He slips, no doubt, into the Green Room. He reappears somewhat changed in his habiliments. Do I dream, or is it genuine memory that recalls some similar thing seen through the woven wires?
The curtain falls. Starting to their feet, the enraptured thousands sound their responses deafeningly, unmistakably sincere. Right from the undoubted heart. I have no duplicate in my memory of this. In earnestness of response, this second temple stands unmatched. And hath mere mimicry done this? What is it then to act a part?
But now the music surges up again, and borne by that rolling billow, I, and all the gladdened crowd, are harmoniously attended to the street.
I went home to my lonely lodging and slept not much that night, for thinking of the First Temple and the Second Temple; and how that, at home in my own land, I was thrust out from the one, and, a stranger in a strange land, found sterling charity in the other.
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POOR MAN’S PUDDING AND RICH MAN’S CRUMBS
PICTURE FIRST
POOR MAN’S PUDDING
‘You see,’ said poet Blandmour enthusiastically--as some forty years ago we walked along the road in a soft, moist snowfall toward the end of March--‘you see, my friend, that the blessed almoner, Nature, is in all things beneficent; and not only so, but considerate in her charities, as any discreet human philanthropist might be. This snow, now, which seems so unseasonable, is in fact just what a poor husbandman needs. Rightly is this soft March snow, falling just before seed-time, rightly is it called “Poor Man’s Manure.” Distilling from kind heaven upon the soil, by a gentle penetration it nourishes every clod, ridge, and furrow. To the poor farmer it is as good as the rich farmer’s farm-yard enrichments. And the poor man has no trouble to spread it, while the rich man has to spread his.’
‘Perhaps so,’ said I, without equal enthusiasm, brushing some of the damp flakes from my chest. ‘It may be as you say, dear Blandmour. But tell me, how is it that the wind drives yonder drifts of “Poor Man’s Manure” off poor Coulter’s two-acre patch here, and piles it up yonder on rich Squire Teamster’s twenty-acre field?’
‘Ah! to be sure--yes--well; Coulter’s field, I suppose, is sufficiently moist without further moistenings. Enough is as good as a feast, you know.’
‘Yes,’ replied I, ‘of this sort of damp fare,’ shaking another shower of the damp flakes from my person. ‘But tell me, this warm spring snow may answer very well, as you say; but how is it with the cold snows of the long, long winters here?’
‘Why, do you not remember the words of the Psalmist?--“The Lord giveth snow like wool”; meaning not only that snow is white as wool, but warm, too, as wool. For the only reason, as I take it, that wool is comfortable, is because air is entangled, and therefore warmed among its fibres. Just so, then, take the temperature of a December field when covered with this snow-fleece, and you will no doubt find it several degrees above that of the air. So, you see, the winter’s snow _itself_ is beneficent; under the pretence of frost--a sort of gruff philanthropist--actually warming the earth, which afterward is to be fertilisingly moistened by these gentle flakes of March.’
‘I like to hear you talk, dear Blandmour; and, guided by your benevolent heart, can only wish to poor Coulter plenty of this “Poor Man’s Manure.”’
‘But that is not all,’ said Blandmour eagerly. ‘Did you never hear of the “Poor Man’s Eye-water”?’
‘Never.’
‘Take this soft March snow, melt it, and bottle it. It keeps pure as alcohol. The very best thing in the world for weak eyes. I have a whole demijohn of it myself. But the poorest man, afflicted in his eyes, can freely help himself to this same all-bountiful remedy. Now, what a kind provision is that!’
‘Then “Poor Man’s Manure” is “Poor Man’s Eye-water” too?’
‘Exactly. And what could be more economically contrived? One thing answering two ends--ends so very distinct.’
‘Very distinct, indeed.’
‘Ah! that is your way. Making sport of earnest. But never mind. We have been talking of snow; but common rain-water--such as falls all the year round--is still more kindly. Not to speak of its known fertilising quality as to fields, consider it in one of its minor lights. Pray, did you ever hear of a “Poor Man’s Egg”?’
‘Never. What is that, now?’
‘Why, in making some culinary preparations of meal and flour, where eggs are recommended in the receipt-book, a substitute for the eggs may be had in a cup of cold rain-water, which acts as leaven. And so a cup of cold rain-water thus used is called by housewives a “Poor Man’s Egg.” And many rich men’s housekeepers sometimes use it.’
‘But only when they are out of hen’s eggs, I presume, dear Blandmour. But your talk is--I sincerely say it--most agreeable to me. Talk on.’
‘Then there’s “Poor Man’s Plaster” for wounds and other bodily harms; an alleviative and curative, compounded of simple, natural things; and so, being very cheap, is accessible to the poorest of sufferers. Rich men often use “Poor Man’s Plaster.”’