The Three Clerks Part 81

'If,' said he, in a well-a.s.sumed indignant tone of injured innocence, 'there be any in the club who do suspect me of anything unbecoming a gentleman in this affair, I am willing to retire from it till the matter shall have been investigated; but in such case I demand that the investigation be immediate.'

Oh, Undy, Undy, the supply of cheek is not bad; it is all but unlimited; but yet it suffices thee not. 'Can there be positions in this modern West End world of mine,' thought Undy to himself, 'in which cheek, unbounded cheek, will not suffice?' Oh, Undy, they are rare; but still there are such, and this, unfortunately for thee, seemeth to be one of them.

And then got up a discreet old baronet, one who moveth not often in the affairs around him, but who, when he moveth, stirreth many waters; a man of broad acres, and a quiet, well-a.s.sured fame which has grown to him without his seeking it, as barnacles grow to the stout keel when it has been long a-swimming; him, of all men, would Undy have wished to see unconcerned with these matters.

Not in many words, nor eloquent did Sir Thomas speak. 'He felt it his duty,' he said, 'to second the proposal made by Mr. Scott for removing Mr. Tudor from amongst them. He had watched this trial with some care, and he pitied Mr. Tudor from the bottom of his heart. He would not have thought that he could have felt so strong a sympathy for a man convicted of dishonesty. But, Mr.

Tudor had been convicted, and he must incur the penalties of his fault. One of these penalties must, undoubtedly, be his banishment from this club. He therefore seconded Mr. Scott's proposal.'

He then stood silent for a moment, having finished that task; but yet he did not sit down. Why, oh, why does he not sit down? why, O Undy, does he thus stand, looking at the surface of the table on which he is leaning?

'And now,' he said, 'he had another proposition to make; and that was that Mr. Undecimus Scott should also be expelled from the club,' and having so spoken, in a voice of unusual energy, he then sat down.

And now, Undy, you may as well pack up, and be off, without further fuss, to Boulogne, Ostend, or some such idle Elysium, with such money-sc.r.a.pings as you may be able to collect together.

No importunity will avail thee anything against the judges and jurymen who are now trying thee. One word from that silent old baronet was worse to thee than all that Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s could say. Come! pack up; and begone.

But he was still a Member of Parliament. The Parliament, however, was about to be dissolved, and, of course, it would be useless for him to stand again; he, like Mr. M'Buffer had had his spell of it, and he recognized the necessity of vanis.h.i.+ng. He at first thought that his life as a legislator might be allowed to come to a natural end, that he might die as it were in his bed, without suffering the acute pain of applying for the Chiltern Hundreds.

In this, however, he found himself wrong. The injured honour of all the Tillietudlemites rose against him with one indignant shout; and a rumour, a horrid rumour, of a severer fate met his ears. He applied at once for the now coveted sinecure,--and was refused. Her Majesty could not consent to entrust to him the duties of the situation in question--; and in lieu thereof the House expelled him by its unanimous voice.

And now, indeed, it was time for him to pack and begone. He was now liable to the vulgarest persecution from the vulgar herd; his very tailor and bootmaker would beleaguer him, and coa.r.s.e unwashed bailiffs take him by the collar. Yes, now indeed, it was time to be off.

And off he was. He paid one fleeting visit to my Lord at Cauldkail Castle, collecting what little he might; another to his honourable wife, adding some slender increase to his little budget, and then he was off. Whither, it is needless to say--to Hamburg perhaps, or to Ems, or the richer tables of Homburg. How he flourished for a while with ambiguous success; how he talked to the young English tourists of what he had done when in Parliament, especially for the rights of married women; how he poked his 'Honourable' card in every one's way, and lugged Lord Gaberlunzie into all conversations; how his face became pimply and his wardrobe seedy; and how at last his wretched life will ooze out from him in some dark corner, like the filthy juice of a decayed fungus which makes hideous the hidden wall on which it bursts, all this is unnecessary more particularly to describe. He is probably still living, and those who desire his acquaintance will find him creeping round some gambling table, and trying to look as though he had in his pocket ample means to secure those h.o.a.rds of money which men are so listlessly raking about. From our view he has now vanished.

It was a bitter February morning, when two cabs stood packing themselves at No. 5, Paradise Row, Millbank. It was hardly yet six o'clock, and Paradise Row was dark as Erebus; that solitary gas-light sticking out from the wall of the prison only made darkness visible; the tallow candles which were brought in and out with every article that was stuffed under a seat, or into a corner, would get themselves blown out; and the sleet which was falling fast made the wicks wet, so that they could with difficulty be relighted.

But at last the cabs were packed with luggage, and into one got Gertrude with her husband, her baby, and her mother; and into the other Charley handed Linda, then Alley, and lastly, the youthful maiden, who humbly begged his pardon as she stepped up to the vehicle; and then, having given due directions to the driver, he not without difficulty squeezed himself into the remaining s.p.a.ce.

Such journeys as these are always made at a slow pace. Cabmen know very well who must go fast, and who may go slow. Women with children going on board an emigrant vessel at six o'clock on a February morning may be taken very slowly. And very slowly Gertrude and her party were taken. Time had been--nay, it was but the other day--when Alaric's impatient soul would have spurned at such a pace as this. But now he sat tranquil enough. His wife held one of his hands, and the other he pressed against his eyes, as though shading them from the light. Light there was none, but he had not yet learnt to face Mrs. Woodward even in the darkness.

He had come out of the prison on the day before, and had spent an evening with her. It is needless to say that no one had upbraided him, that no one had hinted that his backslidings had caused all this present misery, had brought them all to that wretched cabin, and would on the morrow separate, perhaps for ever, a mother and a child who loved each other so dearly. No one spoke to him of this; perhaps no one thought of it; he, however, did so think of it that he could not hold his head up before them.

'He was ill,' Gertrude said; 'his long confinement had prostrated him; but the sea air would revive him in a day or two.' And then she made herself busy, and got the tea for them, and strove, not wholly in vain,' to drive dull care away!'

But slowly as the cabs went in spite of Charley's vocal execrations, they did get to the docks in time. Who, indeed, was ever too late at the docks? Who, that ever went there, had not to linger, linger, linger, till every shred of patience was clean worn out? They got to the docks in time, and got on board that fast-sailing, clipper-built, never-beaten, always-healthy s.h.i.+p, the _Flash of Lightning_, 5,600 tons, A 1. Why, we have often wondered, are s.h.i.+ps designated as A 1, seeing that all s.h.i.+ps are of that cla.s.s? Where is the excellence, seeing that all share it? Of course the _Flash of Lightning_ was A 1. The author has for years been looking out, and has not yet found a s.h.i.+p advertised as A 2, or even as B 1. What is this catalogue of comparative excellence, of which there is but one visible number?

The world, we think, makes a great mistake on the subject of saying, or acting, farewell. The word or deed should partake of the suddenness of electricity; but we all drawl through it at a snail's pace. We are supposed to tear ourselves from our friends; but tearing is a process which should be done quickly. What is so wretched as lingering over a last kiss, giving the hand for the third time, saying over and over again, 'Good-bye, John, G.o.d bless you; and mind you write!' Who has not seen his dearest friends standing round the window of a railway carriage, while the train would not start, and has not longed to say to them, 'Stand not upon the order of your going, but go at once!' And of all such farewells, the s.h.i.+p's farewell is the longest and the most dreary. One sits on a damp bench, snuffing up the odour of oil and ropes, cudgelling one's brains to think what further word of increased tenderness can be spoken. No tenderer word can be spoken. One returns again and again to the weather, to coats and cloaks, perhaps even to sandwiches and the sherry flask. All effect is thus destroyed, and a trespa.s.s is made even on the domain of feeling.

I remember a line of poetry, learnt in my earliest youth, and which I believe to have emanated from a sentimental Frenchman, a man of genius, with whom my parents were acquainted. It is as follows:--

Are you go?--Is you gone?--And I left?--Vera vell!

Now the whole business of a farewell is contained in that line.

When the moment comes, let that be said; let that be said and felt, and then let the dear ones depart.

Mrs. Woodward and Gertrude--G.o.d bless them!--had never studied the subject. They knew no better than to sit in the nasty cabin, surrounded by boxes, stewards, porters, children, and abominations of every kind, holding each other's hands, and pressing damp handkerchiefs to their eyes. The delay, the lingering, upset even Gertrude, and brought her for a moment down to the usual level of leave-taking womanhood. Alaric, the meanwhile, stood leaning over the taffrail with Charley, as mute as the fishes beneath him.

'Write to us the moment you get there,' said Charley. How often had the injunction been given! 'And now we had better get off--you'll be better when we are gone, Alaric,'--Charley had some sense of the truth about him--'and, Alaric, take my word for it, I'll come and set the Melbourne Weights and Measures to rights before long--I'll come and weigh your gold for you.'

'We had better be going now,' said Charley, looking down into the cabin; 'they may let loose and be off any moment now.'

'Oh, Charley, not yet, not yet,' said Linda, clinging to her sister.

'You'll have to go down to the Nore, if you stay; that's all,'

said Charley.

And then again began the kissing and the crying. Yes, ye dear ones--it is hard to part--it is hard for the mother to see the child of her bosom torn from her for ever; it is cruel that sisters should be severed: it is a harsh sentence for the world to give, that of such a separation as this. These, O ye loving hearts, are the penalties of love! Those that are content to love must always be content to pay them.

'Go, mamma, go,' said Gertrude; 'dearest, best, sweetest mother--my own, own mother; go, Linda, darling Linda. Give my kindest love to Harry--Charley, you and Harry will be good to mamma, I know you will. And mamma'--and then she whispered to her mother one last prayer in Charley's favour--'she may love him now, indeed she may.'

Alaric came to them at the last moment--'Mrs. Woodward,' said he, 'say that you forgive me.'

'I do,' said she, embracing him--'G.o.d knows that I do;--but, Alaric, remember what a treasure you possess.'

And so they parted. May G.o.d speed the wanderers!

CHAPTER XLV

THE FATE OF THE NAVVIES

And now, having dispatched Alaric and his wife and bairns on their long journey, we must go back for a while and tell how Charley had been transformed from an impudent, idle young Navvy into a well-conducted, zealous young Weights.

When Alaric was convicted, Charley had, as we all know, belonged to the Internal Navigation; when the six months' sentence had expired, Charley was in full blow at the decorous office in Whitehall; and during the same period Norman had resigned and taken on himself the new duties of a country squire. The change which had been made had affected others than Charley. It had been produced by one of those far-stretching, world-moving commotions which now and then occur, sometimes twice or thrice in a generation, and, perhaps, not again for half a century, causing timid men to whisper in corners, and the brave and high-spirited to struggle with the struggling waves, so that when the storm subsides they may be found floating on the surface. A moral earthquake had been endured by a portion of the Civil Service of the country.

The Internal Navigation had--No, my prognostic reader, it had not been reformed; no new blood had been infused into it; no attempt had been made to produce a better discipline by the appointment of a younger secretary; there had been no carting away of decayed wood in the shape of Mr. Snape, or gathering of rank weeds in the form of Mr. Corkscrew; nothing of the kind had been attempted.

No--the disease had gone too far either for phlebotomy, purging, or cautery. The Internal Navigation had ceased to exist! Its demise had been in this wise.--It may be remembered that some time since Mr. Oldeschole had mentioned in the hearing of Mr.

Snape that things were going wrong. Sir Gregory Hardlines had expressed an adverse opinion as to the Internal Navigation, and worse, ten times worse than that, there had been an article in the _Times_. Now, we all know that if anything is ever done in any way towards improvement in these days, the public press does it. And we all know, also, of what the public press consists. Mr. Oldeschole knew this well, and even Mr. Snape had a glimmering idea of the truth. When he read that article, Mr.

Oldeschole felt that his days were numbered, and Mr. Snape, when he heard of it, began to calculate for the hundredth time to what highest amount of pension he might be adjudged to be ent.i.tled by a liberal-minded Treasury minute.

Mr. Oldeschole began to set his house in order, hopelessly; for any such effort the time was gone by. It was too late for the office to be so done by, and too late for Mr. Oldeschole to do it. He had no apt.i.tude for new styles and modern improvements; he could not understand Sir Gregory's code of rules, and was dumbfounded by the Civil Service requisitions that were made upon him from time to time. Then came frequent calls for him to attend at Sir Gregory's office. There a new broom had been brought in, in the place of our poor friend Alaric, a broom which seemed determined to sweep all before it with an unmitigable energy. Mr.

Oldeschole found that he could not stand at all before this young Hercules, seeing that his special stall was considered to be the foulest in the whole range of the Augean stables. He soon saw that the river was to be turned in on him, and that he was to be officially obliterated in the flood.

The civility of those wonder-doing demiG.o.ds--those Magi of the Civil Service office--was most oppressive to him. When he got to the board, he was always treated with a deference which he knew was but a prelude to barbaric tortures. They would ask him to sit down in a beautiful new leathern arm-chair, as though he were really some great man, and then examine him as they would a candidate for the Custom House, smiling always, but looking at him as though they were determined to see through him.

They asked him all manner of questions; but there was one question which they put to him, day after day, for four days, that nearly drove him mad. It was always put by that horrid young lynx-eyed new commissioner, who sat there with his hair brushed high from off his forehead, peering out of his capacious, excellently-washed s.h.i.+rt-collars, a personification of conscious official zeal.

'And now, Mr. Oldeschole, if you have had leisure to consider the question more fully, perhaps you can define to us what is the--hum--hm--the use--hm--hm--the exact use of the Internal Navigation Office?'

And then Sir Warwick would go on looking through his millstone as though now he really had a hope of seeing something, and Sir Gregory would lean back in his chair, and rubbing his hands slowly over each other, like a great Akinetos as he was, wait leisurely for Mr. Oldeschole's answer, or rather for his no answer.

What a question was this to ask of a man who had spent all his life in the Internal Navigation Office! O reader! should it chance that thou art a clergyman, imagine what it would be to thee, wert thou asked what is the exact use of the Church of England; and that, too, by some stubborn catechist whom thou wert bound to answer; or, if a lady, happy in a husband and family, say, what would be thy feelings if demanded to define the exact use of matrimony? Use! Is it not all in all to thee?

Mr. Oldeschole felt a hearty inward conviction that his office had been of very great use. In the first place, had he not drawn from it a thousand a year for the last five-and-twenty years? had it not given maintenance and employment to many worthy men who might perhaps have found it difficult to obtain maintenance elsewhere? had it not always been an office, a public office of note and reputation, with proper work a.s.signed to it? The use of it--the exact use of it? Mr. Oldeschole at last declared, with some indignation in his tone, that he had been there for forty years and knew well that the office was very useful; but that he would not undertake to define its exact use. 'Thank you, thank you, Mr. Oldeschole--that will do, I think,' said the very spruce-looking new gentleman out of his s.h.i.+rt-collars.

In these days there was a kind of prescience at the Internal Navigation that something special was going to be done with them.

Mr. Oldeschole said nothing openly; but it may be presumed that he did whisper somewhat to those of the seniors around him in whom he most confided. And then, his frequent visits to Whitehall were spoken of even by the most thoughtless of the navvies, and the threatenings of the coming storm revealed themselves with more or less distinctness to every mind.