CHAPTER XVII.

the worst thinks Death, when so very near, a nuisance: it is made by familiarity a nasty, vulgar, unhealthy thing; it is too close a neighbor to become a solemnity.

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WITH many words did Tom Blast strive to assure St. Giles that the orphan boy had found a watchful parent in his mother's friend; and St. Giles was fain to look believingly. He saw his own doomed childhood in the miserable, mistaught creature he saw the wretch prepared to sell him, in due season, to Newgate shambles; and yet the passion, the agony that tugged at the transport's heart must be subdued: he must mask his hate with a calm look, must utter friendly words. "'T was kind of you, mate-very kind," said St. Giles, to take such care of the young cretur. Well, good day," and St. Giles colored and stammered as he felt the eye of Blast was upon him-ing. For, apart from association, the expression 'we shall meet again."

"You never said a truer word," cried Blast, and he held forth his hand. St. Giles breathed heavily; he would rather have grasped a wolf by the throat; and then he took the hand that had all but fitted the halter to his own neck. "We shall meet again," said Blast; and the words, like bodiless furies, seemed to St. Giles to fill the air around him. He passed from the lane into the open street, and still they followed him; still each syllable seemed a devil threatening him. "We shall meet again," rang in his ears, torturing his brain; and again he saw the ghastly horror of the morning; again beheld those fifteen corded wretches; again beheld the shadow of himself. He passed on, crossed the road; the street was thronged; the hubbub of the day was at its height; yet St. Giles saw nothing but those pinioned men, and the preacher of Christ's word, in the name of his merciful Master, solacing sinners to be in a moment strangled by the warrant of a Christian king. He paused, and with his hand before his eyes, leant against a wall; and piercing words in terrible distinctness fell upon him-"I am the resurrection and the life." He started, and a few paces from him, in St. Giles' churchyard, he beheld the parish priest. The holy man was reading the burial service over pauper clay; was sanctifying ashes to ashes, dust to dust, amid the whirl of life-the struggle and the roar of money-clawing London.

It has been held to be a wise, deep-thoughted ordinance of the Egyptians that at their banquets was served a skeleton, that, in its grim nakedness, it might preach their coming nakedness to all the revellers that it might show their future outline of bone, when called to lay aside the fleshly garment, laced and interlaced with so divine a mystery of nerves that, subtle as light, conveys the bliss of being. And so was a skull made a moralist; and solemn were the mute exhortations falling from its grinning jaws; profound its comic teachof a bare skull has, to ourselves at least, nothing in it serious: nay, there has always seemed to us a quaint cheerfulness in it. The cheek-bones look still puckered with a smile, as though contracted when it flung aside the mask of life, and caught a glimpse of the on-coming glory.

And the Egyptians are lauded for their dinner skeleton. Indeed, at the first thought, it seems a notable way of teaching sobriety and good manners. Yet, could we come at the truth-could we know the very heart of the banquet, throbbing after an hour or so, with hot wine-we should know, past dispute, how grievously the great Preacher Bone had failed in his purpose. We should hear of quick-witted Egyptians making unseemly jokes at his gaunt nakedness; we should see one reprobate idolater of leeks capping death'shead with an empty bowl, even as a boy ventures a joke upon his sleeping schoolmaster. We should see another-a fine young Theban-spirting wine in the cavernous eye-holes of Death, bidding him look double for the libation. But of these jests we hear nothing; we only hear of the wisdom of the whereabout of the skeleton, and nothing of the affronts that-we would almost swear to the fact its familiarity with the living drew upon it. And therefore-oh, legislators!-remove city church-yards from the shop-doors of citizens. Your goodly purpose has altogether failed. By huddling the dead with the living, it was doubtless The ceremony went on, the solemn sentences your benign intention to place a lesson continually tuned with the music of eternal hopes, fitfully in the eyes of trading men-to show them how heard through cries of "chairs to mend," and vain and fleeting was even a cent. per cent. profit live mackerel." The awful voice of Death to prove that however thumping the balance on seemed scoffed, derided, by the reckless bully, Life. The prayer that embalmed poor human dust for the judgment, seemed as measured gibgerish that could never have a meaning for those who hurried to and fro, as though immortality dwelt in their sinews. And that staid and seriouslooking man, with upturned eyes and sonorous voice, clad in a robe of white, and holding an opened book-why, what was he? Surely, he was playing some strange part in a piece of business in which business men could have no interest. The ceremony is not concluded, and now comes an adventurous trader with a dromedary and a monkey on its back, the well-taught pug, with doffed feathered cap, sagaciously soliciting halfpence. And there, opposite the church-yard, the prayer of the priest coming brokenly to his ears, is a tradesman smiling at his counter, ringing the coin, and hardly snuffing the Golgotha at his door, asking what article he next shall have the happiness to show. And thus in London higi ways do Death and Life shoulder each other. And Life heeds not the foul, impertinent warning; but at

the books, Death, with his dirty, grave-yard fingers, might any minute come and wipe it out. The thing has not succeeded. How many hackneycoach stands have with the best intention been established near churchyards! For hours and hours the drivers sit and sit, with one eye upon the grave, and another on the pavement. And yet these men, so open to daily meditation-so appealed to by tomb-stone eloquence—these men are scarcely to be trusted with unweighed bullion. We speak within measure when we say that not above a hundred times have we heard of a hackneycoachman returning sovereigns which-in a moment of vinous enthusiasm-had been unguardedly tendered for shillings. No: we could swear it. Not above a hundred times.

And still St. Giles stood, listening the burial service, when he felt something pulling at his coat-skirt. He looked round, and saw his halfbrother the precocious Jingo, lauded by Tom Blast, at his side. "I say," cried the urchin with a wink, and pointing towards a spot in the churchyard, "that's where we put the old 'oman."

"What-mother? Where?" cried St. Giles. Jingo picked up a piece of broken 'bacco-pipe from the pavement. "Bet you a pound," said the boy, "I'll hit the place. Why, jist there;" and unerringly he pitched the fragment on a distant grave. This done, Jingo nodded in selfapproval.

Without a word, St. Giles entered the churchyard, and approached the grave; Jingo running like a dog at his side. "Poor soul! poor soul!" cried St. Giles; and then, looking earnestly down upon the clay, he added, "after all, it's a better place than the Lane-a better place."

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"Bless your 'art," said the boy, that's what mother said afore she come here. She called me to her, and said she was a goin' to be appy at last -and then there was a man as read to her two or three times out of a book, and would read for all Tom Blast said he 'd get him pumped on for coming to the lane-well, when she talked o' being appy, the man said she was a wicked cretur to think o' sich a thing. And then did n't the old 'oman wring her hands, and call Tom Blast sich names—and didn't she hug me like nothin', and scream out, and ask who'd take care o' me?"

"I'll take care of you," cried St. Giles, and he placed an arm about the boy's neck. "Be a good child, and I'll take care of you: I promise it-here I promise it; here, where poor mother lies. And you will be a good boy, won't you?" asked St. Giles affectionately, and tears came into his eyes.

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“Oh, won't I though!" cried Jingo, plainly expecting some reward for his ready promise.

Indian image into the lanky, loose-jointed youth. Could he have remained all his life under four feet, he would have continued a treasure; but he grew, and growing, was lowered from the eminence of his childhood to the flat walk of the servants' hall. It was so pretty to see him-like an elfin dwarf from some Indian mine-tripping with prayer-book at his young lady's heels: but nature, with her old vulgarity, would have her way, and so, Ralph, the son of Cæsar Gum, who was duly married to Kitty Muggs, who in good time duly buried her African lord-Ralph, we say, was fast spindling into the mere footman. And he had ever had a quick sense of the rights of livery. It was a garb that, placing him in near and dear communication with the noble, by consequence elevated him to a height, not measurable by any moral barometer, above common people. He looked, as from a ladder, down upon the vulgar. His mother, the widowed Gum, would in her mild, maternal way remonstrate with her beloved child, on his unchristian pride; and when in turn rebuked, as she never failed to be, with exorbitant interest, she would comfort herself by declaring to herself, “that it was just so with his blessed father, who was gone to a better place. He, too, had such a spirit." Little thought St. Giles, as he stood confronted with that young mulatto-at the time with all his thoughts half-buried in a pottle, from which he fished up strawberry after strawberry, conveying the fruit with a judicial smack to his mouth-little thought St. Giles that he stood before the only child of the negro Cesar, who, in Covent-garden watch-house, had borne witness against him. As yet St. Giles had ventured no syllable of inquiry, when young Ralph, in his own masterly manner, began the dialogue.

marquess for this house? You could n't tell us.
nohow, could you?" and master Ralph sucked a
strawberry between his white, paternal teeth.
"What do you mean, mate?" asked St. Giles,
with a stare.

Ralph returned an astonished look at the familiarity, and then spat a strawberry-stalk on St. Giles' foot. He then continued. " Why, in course you 've bought the house, else you'd never have made such a hullabaloo with the knocker. As] said afore, how much might you have give for it?"

"I know you will-I'm sure you will," said St. Giles, patting the boy's head; "and now go home, and you and I'll meet again afore long. Here's a shilling for you; and mind you take no "I say, if it isn't an uncivil thing to put to a more handkerchers." Jingo seized the money-gentleman-how much might you have given the ducked his head up and down-and in a moment disappeared in Hog-lane. "I'll save him from that devil-as God 's in heaven I will," cried St. Giles, and as though nerved with a good purpose, he walked sharply on. He had suddenly found in life a new responsibility, and with it new determination. With this thought he pursued his rapid way towards the mansion of St. James. With trembling hand he struck the knocker: again and again, harder and harder. Still the door remained closed and then, to the fancy of St. Giles, the lion's head looked sneeringly at him, mocking his errand. "There's nobody at home," said St. "I ask your pardon, I'm sure," said St. Giles, Giles despondingly, and at the same moment the" I thought at last everybody was out." door was opened by a footboy, a most bright mulatto of about fifteen. There was an ease, a self-assurance in the youth, that proved him to have been born for the brilliant livery that adorned him. He seemed to have come into the world, like a parroquet, to disport in gaudy covering And thus, a very nestling, he had been fledged with the St. James' livery; for when scarcely six years old, he had been presented as a sort of doll footboy to one of the marquess' daughters: like her pet pug, he was such a curious little wretchsuch a pretty little monster. His color was so bright-his nose so flat-his eyes so sharp-and he had this advantage of the pug, his hair was so woolly. Had he been made of the best Nankin china-and not compounded of Saxon and negro "Ha! if only your dear father could hear you, blood-he had scarcely been more precious. Still, would n't it break his heart! For the seven years numan toy as he was, he had this drawback from we lived together he never said a crooked word to his humanity: Ralph-such was his name-grew me, and Ralph, you know it. He was a man,' out of the curious; he shot up from the squab said the widow in that earnest tone with which

"Everybody but me-for kitchen-maids go for nothing-is. But what did you give for the house, I say?" again repeated the witty Ralph; laughing at his own indomitable humor.

"Lor, Ralph," cried a female head, hanging over the banister, "lor, Ralph, why don't you answer the poor man?" Saying this, the head for a moment disappeared, and then again showed itself on the shoulders of a fat little woman, who bustled down into the hall.

"Now I tell you what it is," said the youthful footman, glowing very yellow, and holding up his fore-finger at the intruder, "if you don't let me mind my business, you shan't come here, when they're out, at all-now mind that."

widows would sometimes fain convey a sense of dress of course-with those dreadful silk stockvalue of the past invaluable. “He was a man!"ings. All the other servants put on their gaiters; "I s'pose he was"-replied the filial Ralph- but he would n't-he was so particlar to orders. "you've said so such a many times; all I know Well, the cold flew to the calves of his legs, and is, I know nothing about him—and I don't want to then up into his stomach, and then-oh, young know nothing." man! Î've never looked at silk stockings that I hav'n't shivered again. That's the way to the Cocoa-Tree:" and with this, Mrs. Gum, possibly to hide her emotion, suddenly turned a corner, and left St. Giles alone.

"Well, if ever I thought to hear such words come out of that livery! Don't you expect that something will happen to you? Know nothing about your own father! When-only you 're a shade or two lighter, for your dear father wasn't ashamed of what God give him to cover him with -only a shade or two, and you 're as like him as one crow's like another." And this Mrs. Gum further clenched with-" And you know you are." Master Ralph Gum turned a deeper and deeper yellow, as his mother spoke. His indignation, however, at his avowed similitude to his departed sire, was too large to be voluble through a human mouth. He therefore turned abruptly from his widowed parent, and angrily shouted at St. Giles What do you want?"

"I want his young lordship," answered St. Giles. "He told me to bring this," and St. Giles presented the card.

Well, I can read this plain enough," said

Ralph.

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And if you can," cried Mrs. Gum, "who have you to thank for the blessing but your dear father? Till his dying day, he couldn't read, sweet fellow; but he made you a gentleman, and yet you know nothing of him."

"You shan't come here at all, if you can't behave yourself," cried Master Ralph to his mother, evidently meaning to keep his word. Then turning to St. Giles, he said "You'd better take this to Mr. Tangle."

"Tangle-a-lawyer?" cried St. Giles, with a quick recollection of that wise man of Newgate. "He's at the committee at the Cocoa-Tree: I dare say it's election business, and he 'll send you down-if you 're worth the money-with the other chaps. I don't know nothing more about it,' cried Master Ralph, perceiving that St. Giles was about to make further inquiry-" all I can say to you is, the Cocoa-Tree."

“I'm a going a little that way, young man," said Mrs. Gum, and I'll show you."

"And mind what I say," cried Ralph to his mother, closing the door, and speaking with his face almost jammed between it and the postern, "mind what I say: if you can't behave yourself, you don't come no more here." And then he shut the door.

"Ha! he doesn't mean it-not a bit of it," said Mrs. Gum. "He's such a good cretur; so like his father-only a little more lively."

"And he's dead?" said St. Giles, not knowing well what to say.

"And I'm alone," sighed Mrs. Gum. "His father was a flower, that cretur was: he'd a kissed the stones I walk upon. He was too honest for this world. He caught his death-nothing shall ever persuade me out of it-upon principle. "After what fashion?" asked St. Giles.

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But he needed no pilotage: the Cocoa-Tree was well known to him; and with his best haste he made his way to its hospitality. Arrived there, he inquired for Mr. Tangle, and was immediately shown into the presence of that very active legalist, who sat at the head of a table with a heap of papers before him. On each side of the table sat a row of thoughtful men, each with a glass at his hand, all convoked to protect the British constitution, menaced as it was in its most vital part-a part, by the way, seldom agreed upon by those who talk most about it-by a candidate for the representation of the borough of Liquorish; an intruder upon the property of the Marquess of St. James. The borough, time out of mind, had been the property of the family; to attempt to wrest it from the family grasp was little less felonious than an attack upon the family plate-chest. Twice or thrice there had been murmurs of a threatened contest; but now, on the retirement of Sir George Warmington from the seat, that his young lordship might gracefully drop himself into it, a plebeian candidate, with an alarming amount of money, had absolutely declared himself. Such audacity had stirred from its depths the very purest patriotism of Mr. Tangle, who lost no time in waiting upon Mr. Folder-with whom since the first Sabbath interview in Red Lion Square, he had kept up a running acquaintanceship-and immediately offering himself, body and the precious soul the body contained, at the service of the Marquess. Mr. Folder had just the order of mind to perceive and value the merits of Tangle; and the lawyer was instantly appointed as the head and heart of the committee sitting at the Cocoa-Tree, for his young lordship's return for-in the words of Tangle-his own sacred property of Liquorish.

"Well, my good young man," said Tangle to St. Giles, "you of course are one of the right sort. You come to give us a vote? To be sure you do. Well, there's a post chaise for you, dinners on the road-hot suppers, and a bottle of generous wine to send you happy to bed. His lordship scorns to give a bribe; but every honest voter has a right to expect the common necessaries of life."

"I've never a vote," said St. Giles, "nothing of the sort. I wish I had."

"You wish you had, indeed!" cried Tangle. "None of your impudence, fellow. What brings you here, then?"

"I've been to his lordship's house, and they sent me here. His lordship told me to come to him in London, and give me this card. He told me as how he'd take me into his service," added Why you see it was in a hard frost-and poor St. Giles with a slight shudder, for as Tangle soul! if there was a thing he could n't 'bide in looked full upon him, he remembered all the horthe world, it was frost. He hated it worser than rors of Newgate-all brought to his memory by any snake; and it was nat'ral, for he was born in that legal stare. Years had passed over Tangle, a hot place, where monkeys and cocoa-nuts come and save that the lines in his face were cut a little from-this is the way to the Cocoa-Tree. Well, deeper, and marked a little blacker, his were the it was a hard frost, and he was out with the car- same features-the very same that frowned on the riage at a state-ball at the palace. He was in full-boy horse-stealer in the condemned cell.

"Well, his lordship 's not here," said Tangle; | human nature; and that was one of the reasons "and he's too busy now to attend to such raff as you. Away with you."

'Stop, stop," cried a low whistling voice; and a gentleman with a very white, thistledown kind of hair, a small withered face, and remarkably little eyes, called back St. Giles. "I suppose, my man," said the aged gentleman, putting on his best possible look of vigor, and endeavoring to make the most of his shrunk anatomy, "I sup--London. All the minstrels-Apollo is so often pose, my fine fellow, you can fight? Eh? You look as if you could fight." And then the querist chuckled, as though he talked of an enjoyment peculiarly adapted to man.

Mr. Tangle nodded sagaciously at this, and again addressed St. Giles. "Well, then, fellow, if you 're not above earning an honest bit of bread, we'll find employment for you. Besides, youtures, prematurely removed from a carriage, to may then see his lordship, and he may have an opportunity of knowing what you 're worth." "I'll do anything for his lordship, bless him!" cried St. Giles.

"There, now, none of your blessings. We're too old birds to be caught with such chaff as that. Your duty as an honest man will be to knock down everybody that wears a yellow riband, and to ask no questions." Such were the instructions of Tangle; and St. Giles, who had no other hope than to see his lordship, bowed a seeming acqui-man nature will sometimes laugh at its prophecy

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man, with the tip of his nose like an old pen dyed | bottle; you've only to empty it, and the angel with red ink-"it is odd to consider what ignora- takes care of you directly sees you home, if it's muses they are that think to go into Parliament. ever so dark, and finds the key-hole for you, if Why, you can no more make a member without your hand is ever so unsteady. No: it's only music than bricks without straw; it isn't to be your sneak-up chaps, that are afraid of the glass, done. Speechifying 's very well; but there's that get into trouble, break their bones, and catch nothing that stirs the hearts of the people, and rheumatiz, and all that. Whereas, if your skin 's makes 'em think o' their rights, like a jolly as full of liquor as a grape 's full of juice, you band!"' may lay yourself down in a ditch like a little baby in his mother's lap, and wake in the morning for all the world like a opening lily."

"One bang of my drum," observed the humble advocate of that instrument, "sometimes goes more to make a Member of Parliament than all his fine sayings. Bless your souls! if we could only come to the bottom of the matter, we should find that it was in fact our instruments that very often made the law-makers, and not the folks as vote for 'em my big drum 's represented in Parliament, though I dare be sworn there 's not a member that will own to it."

"And my clarionet's represented, too," cried the leader, advocating his claim.

"Yes, and my triangle," exclaimed the player of that three-sided instrument, wholly unconscious of the satiric truth that fell from him.

loudly vaunted, had forsaken him at his worst need; and that prime Cremona was rescued from water, mud, and duckweed with a broken arm. He was, however, unconscious of the injury; and before he was well out of the pond, assured St. Giles that if he would only have the kindness and good-fellowship to let him alone, he could sleep where he was like any angel.

The latter part of this sentence was scarcely heard by St. Giles, for the horses had suddenly burst into a gallop; the vehicle swayed to and fro, flew round a turning of the road, and striking against the projecting roots of a huge tree, threw all its human contents into a green-mantled pond on the other side of the narrow highway, one wheel rolling independently off. St. Giles, unhurt, but drenched to the skin, immediately set about rescuing his all but helpless companions. He tugged and tugged at the inert mass, the driver, and at length succeeded in dragging him from the pond, and setting him against a bank. "Capital ale here!" cried the driver, with in- He groaned, and his lips moved, and then he creasing thickness of speech, as he drew up at an grunted-" Capital ale here." The first clarionet inn-door. It was plain that the county of Essex scrambled from the pool, and seizing his instru—or at least that part of it that led from Londonment, that had rolled into the mud, immediately to Liquorish-was peculiarly blessed with good struck up "See the conquering hero comes!" ale for at every inn, the driver pulled up short, The first drum, inspired by the melodious courage and proclaimed the heart-cheering news-"Capi- of his companion, banged away at the parchment, tal ale here!" They were the only words he ut- but alas! for the first fiddle the bacchanal good tered from the time he had passed Shoreditch-angel, of which he had but a moment since so church. Indeed, he seemed incapable of any other speech; he seemed a sort of human parrot, reared and taught in a brewery-endowed with no other syllables than "Capital ale here!" And still, as we have hinted, the words grew thicker and thicker in his mouth; too thick to drop from his lips, and so they rumbled in his jaws, whilst he cast a hopeless look about him, despairing to get them out; yet at every new hostelry making a sound, It was about ten o'clock at night, but for the that plainly meant-" Capital ale here." Hap-season very dark. St. Giles, from the time that pily for him, according to his dim idea of felicity, he could see the milestones knew that he must be he mumbled to quick interpreters. Hence, ere near the wished-for borough. It was in vain to half the journey was accomplished, the driver talk to his companions. Some were senseless and seemed possessed of no more intelligence than a stupid; some roaring bravado, and some trying to lump of reeking clay. He twiddled the reins be- give vent to the most horrid music. Again and tween his fingers, and sometimes opened his eyes, again he hallooed, but the louder he cried, the that saw not the backs of the horses he seemed to stronger the big drum beat-the more demonialook down upon. But the brutes were intelligent:cally the clarionet screamed. There was no other they, it appeared, knew the road; knew, it almost way he would seek the first habitation, that he seemed so, the filthy imbecility of the driver; and might return with succor to the wet, the drunk, so, with either a pity or contempt for the infirmity and the wounded. of human nature, they took care of their charioteer and his besotted passengers. True it is, St. Giles at times cast anxious looks about him; at times, St. Giles had run pretty briskly for some quarter ventured to hint a doubt of the sobriety of the of an hour, when he discovered in the distancedriver; whereupon, he was called a fool, a cow-glowing amid trees-a speck of light. It was ard, and a nincompoop, by his companions, who considered his anxiety for the safety of his bones as an extreme piece of conceit, very offensive to the rest of the company. "You won't break sooner than any of us, will you!" asked the first fiddle. "Besides, you're too drunk for any harm to come to you." St. Giles was as sober as a water-god. 'A good deal too drunk; for if you knew anything-I say, that was a jolt, was n't it?"-(for the vehicle had bounced so violently against a mile-stone, that the shock half-opened the eyes of the driver)" you 'd know that a man who's properly drunk never comes to no sort of harm. There's a good angel always living in a

CHAPTER XVIII.

plain, there was a human habitation, though away from the main road. He paused for a moment: should he follow the highway, or strike off in the direction of that taper? Another moment, and he had leapt the hedge, and was making fast for the beacon. He crossed two or three fields, and then found himself in a winding green lane: now, as he ran on, he lost the light; and now again, like hope renewed, it beamed upon him. At length he came full upon the homestead. It was an old circular dwelling; so thronged about by tree and' bush, that it seemed impossible that any light within could manifest itself to the distant wayfarer. A type this, as it will appear, of the heart of the