Master Humphrey's Clock

p. 302With these pathetic words, which were addressed to something outside the door about two feet six from the ground, Mr. Weller introduced a very small boy firmly set upon a couple of very sturdy legs, who looked as if nothing could ever knock him down. Besides having a very round face strongly resembling Mr. Weller’s, and a stout little body of exactly his build, this young gentleman, standing with his little legs very wide apart, as if the top-boots were familiar to them, actually winked upon the housekeeper with his infant eye, in imitation of his grandfather.

‘There’s a naughty boy, mum,’ said Mr. Weller, bursting with delight, ‘there’s a immoral Tony. Wos there ever a little chap o’ four year and eight months old as vinked his eye at a strange lady afore?’

As little affected by this observation as by the former appeal to his feelings, Master Weller elevated in the air a small model of a coach whip which he carried in his hand, and addressing the housekeeper with a shrill ‘ya—hip!’ inquired if she was ‘going down the road;’ at which happy adaptation of a lesson he had been taught from infancy, Mr. Weller could restrain his feelings no longer, but gave him twopence on the spot.

‘It’s in wain to deny it, mum,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘this here is a boy arter his grandfather’s own heart, and beats out all the boys as ever wos or will be. Though at the same time, mum,’ added Mr. Weller, trying to look gravely down upon his favourite, ‘it was wery wrong on him to want to—over all the posts as we come along, and wery cruel on him to force poor grandfather to lift him cross-legged over every vun of ’em. He wouldn’t pass vun single blessed post, mum, and at the top o’ the lane there’s seven-and-forty on ’em all in a row, and wery close together.’

Here Mr. Weller, whose feelings were in a perpetual conflict between pride in his grandson’s achievements and a sense of his own responsibility, and the importance of impressing him with moral truths, burst into a fit of laughter, and suddenly checking himself, remarked in a severe tone that little boys as made their grandfathers put ’em over posts never went to heaven at any price.

By this time the housekeeper had made tea, and little Tony, placed on a chair beside her, with his eyes nearly on a level with the top of the table, was provided with various delicacies which yielded him extreme contentment. The housekeeper (who seemed rather afraid of the child, notwithstanding her caresses) then patted him on the head, and declared that he was the finest boy she had ever seen.

‘Wy, mum,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘I don’t think you’ll see a many sich, and that’s the truth. But if my son Samivel vould give me my vay, mum, and only dis-pense vith his—might I wenter to say the vurd?’

‘What word, Mr. Weller?’ said the housekeeper, blushing slightly.

‘Petticuts, mum,’ returned that gentleman, laying his hand upon the garments of his grandson. ‘If my son Samivel, mum, vould only dis-pense vith these here, you’d see such a alteration in his appearance, as the imagination can’t depicter.’

‘But what would you have the child wear instead, Mr. Weller?’ said the housekeeper.

‘I’ve offered my son Samivel, mum, agen and agen,’ returned the old gentleman, ‘to purwide him at my own cost vith a suit o’ clothes as ’ud be the makin’ on him, and form his mind in infancy for those pursuits as I hope the family o’ the Vellers vill alvays dewote themselves to. Tony, my boy, tell the lady wot them clothes are, as grandfather says, father ought to let you vear.’

‘A little white hat and a little sprig weskut and little knee cords and little top-boots and a little green coat with little bright buttons and a little welwet collar,’ replied Tony, with great readiness and no stops.

‘That’s the cos-toom, mum,’ said Mr. Weller, looking proudly at the housekeeper. ‘Once make sich a model on him as that, and you’d say he wos an angel!’

Perhaps the housekeeper thought that in such a guise young Tony would look more like the angel at Islington than anything else of that name, or perhaps she was disconcerted to find her previously-conceived ideas disturbed, as angels are not commonly represented in top-boots and sprig waistcoats. She coughed doubtfully, but said nothing.

‘How many brothers and sisters have you, my dear?’ she asked, after a short silence.

‘One brother and no sister at all,’ replied Tony. ‘Sam his name is, and so’s my father’s. Do you know my father?’

‘O yes, I know him,’ said the housekeeper, graciously.

‘Is my father fond of you?’ pursued Tony.

‘I hope so,’ rejoined the smiling housekeeper.

Tony considered a moment, and then said, ‘Is my grandfather fond of you?’

This would seem a very easy question to answer, but instead of replying to it, the housekeeper smiled in great confusion, and said that really children did ask such extraordinary questions that it was the most difficult thing in the world to talk to them. Mr. Weller took upon himself to reply that he was very fond of the lady; but the housekeeper entreating that he would not put such things into the child’s head, Mr. Weller shook his own while she looked another way, and seemed to be troubled with a misgiving that captivation was in progress. It was, perhaps, on this account that he changed the subject precipitately.

‘It’s wery wrong in little boys to make game o’ their grandfathers, an’t it, mum?’ said Mr. Weller, shaking his head waggishly, until Tony looked at him, when he counterfeited the deepest dejection and sorrow.

‘O, very sad!’ assented the housekeeper. ‘But I hope no little boys do that?’

‘There is vun young Turk, mum,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘as havin’ seen his grandfather a little overcome vith drink on the occasion of a friend’s birthday, goes a reelin’ and staggerin’ about the house, and makin’ believe that he’s the old gen’lm’n.’

‘O, quite shocking!’ cried the housekeeper,

‘Yes, mum,’ said Mr. Weller; ‘and previously to so doin’, this here young traitor that I’m a speakin’ of, pinches his little nose to make it red, and then he gives a hiccup and says, “I’m all right,” he says; “give us another song!” Ha, ha! “Give us another song,” he says. Ha, ha, ha!’

In his excessive delight, Mr. Weller was quite unmindful of his moral responsibility, until little Tony kicked up his legs, and laughing immoderately, cried, ‘That was me, that was;’ whereupon the grandfather, by a great effort, became extremely solemn.

‘No, Tony, not you,’ said Mr. Weller. ‘I hope it warn’t you, Tony. It must ha’ been that ’ere naughty little chap as comes sometimes out o’ the empty watch-box round the corner,—that same little chap as wos found standing on the table afore the looking-glass, pretending to shave himself vith a oyster-knife.’

‘He didn’t hurt himself, I hope?’ observed the housekeeper.

‘Not he, mum,’ said Mr. Weller proudly; ‘bless your heart, you might trust that ’ere boy vith a steam-engine a’most, he’s such a knowin’ young’—but suddenly recollecting himself and observing that Tony perfectly understood and appreciated the compliment, the old gentleman groaned and observed that ‘it wos all wery shockin’—wery.’

‘O, he’s a bad ’un,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘is that ’ere watch-box boy, makin’ such a noise and litter in the back yard, he does, waterin’ wooden horses and feedin’ of ’em vith grass, and perpetivally spillin’ his little brother out of a veelbarrow and frightenin’ his mother out of her vits, at the wery moment wen she’s expectin’ to increase his stock of happiness vith another play-feller,—O, he’s a bad one! He’s even gone so far as to put on a pair of paper spectacles as he got his father to make for him, and walk up and down the garden vith his hands behind him in imitation of Mr. Pickwick,—but Tony don’t do sich things, O no!’

‘O no!’ echoed Tony.

‘He knows better, he does,’ said Mr. Weller. ‘He knows that if he wos to come sich games as these nobody wouldn’t love him, and that his grandfather in partickler couldn’t abear the sight on him; for vich reasons Tony’s always good.’

‘Always good,’ echoed Tony; and his grandfather immediately took him on his knee and kissed him, at the same time, with many nods and winks, slyly pointing at the child’s head with his thumb, in order that the housekeeper, otherwise deceived by the admirable manner in which he (Mr. Weller) had sustained his character, might not suppose that any other young gentleman was referred to, and might clearly understand that the boy of the watch-box was but an imaginary creation, and a fetch of Tony himself, invented for his improvement and reformation.

Not confining himself to a mere verbal description of his grandson’s abilities, Mr. Weller, when tea was finished, invited him by various gifts of pence and halfpence to smoke imaginary pipes, drink visionary beer from real pots, imitate his grandfather without reserve, and in particular to go through the drunken scene, which threw the old gentleman into ecstasies and filled the housekeeper with wonder. Nor was Mr. Weller’s pride satisfied with even this display, for when he took his leave he carried the child, like some rare and astonishing curiosity, first to the barber’s house and afterwards to the tobacconist’s, at each of which places he repeated his performances with the utmost effect to applauding and delighted audiences. It was half-past nine o’clock when Mr. Weller was last seen carrying him home upon his shoulder, and it has been whispered abroad that at that time the infant Tony was rather intoxicated. [306]

I was musing the other evening upon the characters and incidents with which I had been so long engaged; wondering how I could ever have looked forward with pleasure to the completion of my tale, and reproaching myself for having done so, as if it were a kind of cruelty to those companions of my solitude whom I had now dismissed, and could never again recall; when my clock struck ten. Punctual to the hour, my friends appeared.

On our last night of meeting, we had finished the story which the reader has just concluded. Our conversation took the same current as the meditations which the entrance of my friends had interrupted, and The Old Curiosity Shop was the staple of our discourse.

I may confide to the reader now, that in connection with this little history I had something upon my mind; something to communicate which I had all along with difficulty repressed; something I had deemed it, during the progress of the story, necessary to its interest to disguise, and which, now that it was over, I wished, and was yet reluctant, to disclose.

To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart. This temper, and the consciousness of having done some violence to it in my narrative, laid me under a restraint which I should have had great difficulty in overcoming, but for a timely remark from Mr. Miles, who, as I hinted in a former paper, is a gentleman of business habits, and of great exactness and propriety in all his transactions.

‘I could have wished,’ my friend objected, ‘that we had been made acquainted with the single gentleman’s name. I don’t like his withholding his name. It made me look upon him at first with suspicion, and caused me to doubt his moral character, I assure you. I am fully satisfied by this time of his being a worthy creature; but in this respect he certainly would not appear to have acted at all like a man of business.’

‘My friends,’ said I, drawing to the table, at which they were by this time seated in their usual chairs, ‘do you remember that this story bore another title besides that one we have so often heard of late?’

Mr. Miles had his pocket-book out in an instant, and referring to an entry therein, rejoined, ‘Certainly. Personal Adventures of Master Humphrey. Here it is. I made a note of it at the time.’

I was about to resume what I had to tell them, when the same Mr. Miles again interrupted me, observing that the narrative originated in a personal adventure of my own, and that was no doubt the reason for its being thus designated.

This led me to the point at once.

‘You will one and all forgive me,’ I returned, ‘if for the greater convenience of the story, and for its better introduction, that adventure was fictitious. I had my share, indeed,—no light or trivial one,—in the pages we have read, but it was not the share I feigned to have at first. The younger brother, the single gentleman, the nameless actor in this little drama, stands before you now.’

It was easy to see they had not expected this disclosure.

‘Yes,’ I pursued. ‘I can look back upon my part in it with a calm, half-smiling pity for myself as for some other man. But I am he, indeed; and now the chief sorrows of my life are yours.’

I need not say what true gratification I derived from the sympathy and kindness with which this acknowledgment was received; nor how often it had risen to my lips before; nor how difficult I had found it—how impossible, when I came to those passages which touched me most, and most nearly concerned me—to sustain the character I had assumed. It is enough to say that I replaced in the clock-case the record of so many trials,—sorrowfully, it is true, but with a softened sorrow which was almost pleasure; and felt that in living through the past again, and communicating to others the lesson it had helped to teach me, I had been a happier man.

We lingered so long over the leaves from which I had read, that as I consigned them to their former resting-place, the hand of my trusty clock pointed to twelve, and there came towards us upon the wind the voice of the deep and distant bell of St. Paul’s as it struck the hour of midnight.

‘This,’ said I, returning with a manuscript I had taken at the moment, from the same repository, ‘to be opened to such music, should be a tale where London’s face by night is darkly seen, and where some deed of such a time as this is dimly shadowed out. Which of us here has seen the working of that great machine whose voice has just now ceased?’

Mr. Pickwick had, of course, and so had Mr. Miles. Jack and my deaf friend were in the minority.

I had seen it but a few days before, and could not help telling them of the fancy I had about it.

I paid my fee of twopence upon entering, to one of the money-changers who sit within the Temple; and falling, after a few turns up and down, into the quiet train of thought which such a place awakens, paced the echoing stones like some old monk whose present world lay all within its walls. As I looked afar up into the lofty dome, I could not help wondering what were his reflections whose genius reared that mighty pile, when, the last small wedge of timber fixed, the last nail driven into its home for many centuries, the clang of hammers, and the hum of busy voices gone, and the Great Silence whole years of noise had helped to make, reigning undisturbed around, he mused, as I did now, upon his work, and lost himself amid its vast extent. I could not quite determine whether the contemplation of it would impress him with a sense of greatness or of insignificance; but when I remembered how long a time it had taken to erect, in how short a space it might be traversed even to its remotest parts, for how brief a term he, or any of those who cared to bear his name, would live to see it, or know of its existence, I imagined him far more melancholy than proud, and looking with regret upon his labour done. With these thoughts in my mind, I began to ascend, almost unconsciously, the flight of steps leading to the several wonders of the building, and found myself before a barrier where another money-taker sat, who demanded which among them I would choose to see. There were the stone gallery, he said, and the whispering gallery, the geometrical staircase, the room of models, the clock—the clock being quite in my way, I stopped him there, and chose that sight from all the rest.

I groped my way into the Turret which it occupies, and saw before me, in a kind of loft, what seemed to be a great, old oaken press with folding doors. These being thrown back by the attendant (who was sleeping when I came upon him, and looked a drowsy fellow, as though his close companionship with Time had made him quite indifferent to it), disclosed a complicated crowd of wheels and chains in iron and brass,—great, sturdy, rattling engines,—suggestive of breaking a finger put in here or there, and grinding the bone to powder,—and these were the Clock! Its very pulse, if I may use the word, was like no other clock. It did not mark the flight of every moment with a gentle second stroke, as though it would check old Time, and have him stay his pace in pity, but measured it with one sledge-hammer beat, as if its business were to crush the seconds as they came trooping on, and remorselessly to clear a path before the Day of Judgment.

I sat down opposite to it, and hearing its regular and never-changing voice, that one deep constant note, uppermost amongst all the noise and clatter in the streets below,—marking that, let that tumult rise or fall, go on or stop,—let it be night or noon, to-morrow or to-day, this year or next,—it still performed its functions with the same dull constancy, and regulated the progress of the life around, the fancy came upon me that this was London’s Heart,—and that when it should cease to beat, the City would be no more.

It is night. Calm and unmoved amidst the scenes that darkness favours, the great heart of London throbs in its Giant breast. Wealth and beggary, vice and virtue, guilt and innocence, repletion and the direst hunger, all treading on each other and crowding together, are gathered round it. Draw but a little circle above the clustering housetops, and you shall have within its space everything, with its opposite extreme and contradiction, close beside. Where yonder feeble light is shining, a man is but this moment dead. The taper at a few yards’ distance is seen by eyes that have this instant opened on the world. There are two houses separated by but an inch or two of wall. In one, there are quiet minds at rest; in the other, a waking conscience that one might think would trouble the very air. In that close corner where the roofs shrink down and cower together as if to hide their secrets from the handsome street hard by, there are such dark crimes, such miseries and horrors, as could be hardly told in whispers. In the handsome street, there are folks asleep who have dwelt there all their lives, and have no more knowledge of these things than if they had never been, or were transacted at the remotest limits of the world,—who, if they were hinted at, would shake their heads, look wise, and frown, and say they were impossible, and out of Nature,—as if all great towns were not. Does not this Heart of London, that nothing moves, nor stops, nor quickens,—that goes on the same let what will be done, does it not express the City’s character well?

The day begins to break, and soon there is the hum and noise of life. Those who have spent the night on doorsteps and cold stones crawl off to beg; they who have slept in beds come forth to their occupation, too, and business is astir. The fog of sleep rolls slowly off, and London shines awake. The streets are filled with carriages and people gaily clad. The jails are full, too, to the throat, nor have the workhouses or hospitals much room to spare. The courts of law are crowded. Taverns have their regular frequenters by this time, and every mart of traffic has its throng. Each of these places is a world, and has its own inhabitants; each is distinct from, and almost unconscious of the existence of any other. There are some few people well to do, who remember to have heard it said, that numbers of men and women—thousands, they think it was—get up in London every day, unknowing where to lay their heads at night; and that there are quarters of the town where misery and famine always are. They don’t believe it quite,—there may be some truth in it, but it is exaggerated, of course. So, each of these thousand worlds goes on, intent upon itself, until night comes again,—first with its lights and pleasures, and its cheerful streets; then with its guilt and darkness.

Heart of London, there is a moral in thy every stroke! as I look on at thy indomitable working, which neither death, nor press of life, nor grief, nor gladness out of doors will influence one jot, I seem to hear a voice within thee which sinks into my heart, bidding me, as I elbow my way among the crowd, have some thought for the meanest wretch that passes, and, being a man, to turn away with scorn and pride from none that bear the human shape.

I am by no means sure that I might not have been tempted to enlarge upon the subject, had not the papers that lay before me on the table been a silent reproach for even this digression. I took them up again when I had got thus far, and seriously prepared to read.

The handwriting was strange to me, for the manuscript had been fairly copied. As it is against our rules, in such a case, to inquire into the authorship until the reading is concluded, I could only glance at the different faces round me, in search of some expression which should betray the writer. Whoever he might be, he was prepared for this, and gave no sign for my enlightenment.

I had the papers in my hand, when my deaf friend interposed with a suggestion.

‘It has occurred to me,’ he said, ‘bearing in mind your sequel to the tale we have finished, that if such of us as have anything to relate of our own lives could interweave it with our contribution to the Clock, it would be well to do so. This need be no restraint upon us, either as to time, or place, or incident, since any real passage of this kind may be surrounded by fictitious circumstances, and represented by fictitious characters. What if we make this an article of agreement among ourselves?’

The proposition was cordially received, but the difficulty appeared to be that here was a long story written before we had thought of it.

‘Unless,’ said I, ‘it should have happened that the writer of this tale—which is not impossible, for men are apt to do so when they write—has actually mingled with it something of his own endurance and experience.’

Nobody spoke, but I thought I detected in one quarter that this was really the case.