Wise Saws and Modern Instances Part 1

Wise Saws and Modern Instances.

Volume II.

by Thomas Cooper.

THE OLD CORPORATION.

Those words "odd," and "singular," and "eccentric," what odd, singular, eccentric sort of words they are, reader! How often they mean nothing,--being thrown out, as descriptions of character, by drivelling Ignorance, who sc.r.a.pes them up as the dregs,--the mere siftings left at the bottom of his vocabulary, when he has expended his scant collection of more definite images-in-syllables. And how much more often are they affixed to the memories of the living or dead, who have been real brothers among men, and have thus earned these epithets from jaundiced envy, or guilty selfishness, or heartless pride and tyranny. How little it commends to us, either our common nature, or such corrupt fas.h.i.+oning as ages of wrong have given it, that, if we would become acquainted with a truly good man,--a being to love and to knit the heart unto,--we must seek for him among the cla.s.s of character which the world--woe worth it!--calls "odd," or "singular," or "eccentric!"

Yet so it is, the best of mankind, those, most veritably, "of whom the world was not worthy," have been, in their day, either the b.u.t.t for the sneers of silliness, or the object of envy's relentless hate, or they have toiled and toiled, perhaps unto martyrdom, beneath the withering, blasting frown of pride and oppression. Ay, and let us be honest with ourselves, and confess, that though years or hard experience may have bettered our own natures,--for we are all too much like that kind of fruit which takes long days and many weathers to ripen it, so as to bring forth its most wholesome flavour,--let us be honest, I say, with ourselves, and confess, that we were as foolishly willing as others, in our youth, to laugh at what the varlet world calls oddness, and singularity, and eccentricity. Some of us, however, now see matters in a somewhat different light. We have discovered that there is some marrow of meaning in many of those old saws we once thought so tiresome and dry,--such as, "All is not gold that glitters," and, "Judge not a nut by the sh.e.l.l," and the like; and we say, within ourselves, when we are in a moralising mood, (as you and I are now, reader,) that, if we were young again, we would not join the world in laughing as we used to laugh with it, at certain queer folk who dwell in our memories,--for we begin to have a shrewd suspicion that they were among the true "diamonds in the rough" of human character.

And, to be truly candid with ourselves, reader, have not you and I found out, by this time, that we are, to all intents and purposes, as "odd," and as "singular," and as "eccentric," as other folk? Is not the jewel of the truth this,--as pointless as the saying may look at first sight,--that--All men are singular? Hath not every man his likes and his dislikes, his whims and his caprices, his fancies and his hobbies, his faults and his failings? And are not these found so strangely interwoven in our daily thinkings, and sayings, and doings, that they may well make observers ponder upon them, if they had not enough of similar employment at home? Nay, if some one unnatural sort of thought, or impression, or habit, which each of us have, could be seen, at all times, by every body, in its true dimensions, would it not look as uncouth as one of those huge boulders of primary rock tumbled down from the ma.s.s, and left sticking out from some late-formed strata of marl, quite at a distance from its proper place, that the geologists talk of? Would not the thought, or impression, or habit, if our most attached friends could see it in its proper moral bulk, dwarf many of our "excellencies," as their partiality phrases it, and really render us poor deformed things, in their judgment?

"What, then, do ye mean to preach us into the belief that it is a crime for us ever to have a hearty, harmless laugh, at a queer fellow when we chance to see him?" Not exactly so, my lads; but we ought never to forget that we are queer fellows ourselves. Nor ought we to fail in the reflection that, if we were fully acquainted with that queer fellow, it might happen we should discover him to be of infinitely more moral value than ten thousand of the smooth-trimmed estimables in the eye of the world, who conform to all its precepts so obediently that they never anger it. And, much more, if we know enough of the "queer fellow" to be aware that a true, warm, glowing, fraternal heart for his fellow-creatures beats in his bosom, notwithstanding a few outward traits of somewhat striking difference from the crowd, why, then, it becomes our bounden duty,--I will not say, never to smile at his peculiarities, for that sort of puritanism will not make us better men,--but to dwell upon his virtues and excellencies,--to extol them, yea, to enthrone them, whenever he is seen, or heard, or talked of, by those with whom we company.

Perhaps political party is more universal than any other bad influence without, in misguiding Englishmen into ill-natured, or contemptuous, or depreciatory judgments of their neighbours and fellow-townsmen. The last dozen or fifteen years, especially, have engendered a superabundance of this foul canker;--so many new rivalries have sprung up with the great changes in political and munic.i.p.al inst.i.tutions; and men, from the mightiest to the meanest, have been caught up, and whirled along, in many instances so involuntarily, into the rush and torrent of change.

And yet, how the lapse of these dozen or fifteen years hath altered the judgment of many of us, with regard to some men and their party-cries.

What a wide-spread "liberal" laudation, for instance, there was about the famous definition of a Tory, in the _Times_,--and yet how soon it became its own "duck-legged drummer-boy," and all that! Nay, how soon did some of the very chiefs of the potential reforming party,--from idols of the mult.i.tude,--by their refusal to complete what they had begun, and, indeed, in some instances, by their open manifestation of a will to undo what they had done,--become its scoff and scorn, nay, even its detestation!

And then the old "Guilds," or "Corporations," to which the new "Town-Councils" have succeeded,--what a general tendency to exaggeration there was in the mode of judging of them, and in the tone of talking and writing about them, especially in the public prints. How witty were the newspaper people in their conceits of conserving, or pickling, or embalming an alderman, and having him placed in the British Museum, as a curiosity for antiquaries to form profound speculations upon, some ten or twelve centuries into futurity! Ay, and how eloquently abusive was the prevailing Whig strain about "nests of corruption," and "rotten lumber," and "fine pickings," and "impositions, and frauds, and dark rogueries of the self-elect!" And how the scale has turned, since, in the greater share of boroughs, where the poor and labouring cla.s.ses threw up their hats for joy at "munic.i.p.al reform,"--and now mutter discontent at the pride of upstarts become insolent oppressors,--or openly curse, as in the poverty-stricken and hunger-bitten manufacturing districts, at the relentless and grinding tyrannies of the recreant middle-cla.s.ses whom munic.i.p.al honours have drawn off from their hot-blooded radicalism, and converted into cold, unfeeling, merciless wielders of magisterial or other local power.

There was, it cannot be denied, in the droll trappings and antiquated mummeries of the old guilds,--in their ermined scarlet cloaks, and funny c.o.c.ked hats, and in their maces and staves,--and above all, in the starch, and march, and swelling, and strut, and pomposity, with which these were worn or borne,--much that was calculated to tickle the spectator into mirth; but, really, when one thinks of it, are the horse-hair wig of a bishop, a judge, or a barrister, the robe and coronet of a peer, or the crown and sceptre of a king or queen, less like playthings for upgrown children than were the "regalia" and antique habits of the old corporation-men? Was Cromwell so far beside the mark when he called the Speaker's mace a "fool's bauble?"--and might not the expression be applied with as much fitness to many other "ensigns of office," as they are called?

And again: though it is true that a grand uncurtaining of robbery,--for that is the plain English of it,--was made in some, at least, of the old boroughs, by the inquest of that parliamentary commission which preceded the sweeping away of the old corporations,--yet are we not, now, become conscious, that amid the party heat and animosity of the period, much private excellence was over-shaded or forgotten in the rage of public censure, nay, that much virtue was denied, even where it was known to exist, lest the recognition of it should mar the scheme for overthrowing the party to which that virtue was attached?

This is a long exordium for a fugitive sketch, and it is time to say it has sprung from reflections created in the mind of an imprisoned "conspirator" and "mover of sedition," by the flitting across his cell, in his imagination, of sundry bygone shapes with whom he was, more or less, familiar at one period of his changeful life. It is the "Old Corporation" of the ancient and time-honoured city of Lincoln, of which the writer speaks;--and though wit might discover among its members many a foible that would form a picture to "make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o' the sere," yet generosity, and justice, no less, must confess, that after the most searching inquiry and exposure, they were neither individually nor collectively stained with the acts of peculation and embezzlement, nor application of public funds to political party purposes, which were so heavily, and, no doubt, truly charged on some of the old guilds in other parts of the country.

Yet they were, as a body, supporters of the _ancien regime_, as was natural: they had been inured, the greater part of them, through nearly the whole of their lives, to look upon the established state of things as the best and fittest;--and, no doubt, the majority of them conscientiously believed it to be so,--failing, through the confined and stinted nature of their social training, to reflect that what was productive to themselves, the few, of pleasure or comfort, might confer no benefits on the many,--but rather be a source, to these, of deep and increasing suffering. Pa.s.sing by many a picture that starts to memory of "mayoralty," and its ludicrous airs of greatness, and many a reminiscence of grave joke and lighter whimsicality,--of burlesque importance, and mirth-moving earnestness about trifles,--recollection dwells with consolated interest on more durable limnings of simple, uncorrupted manners, and warm hearts, and really expansive natures, that belonged to some of that "Old Corporation."

There is one comes before me, vividly, at this moment,--while that sweet robin-red-breast hops into my day-room, and bends his neck to look at me so knowingly and friendlily in my loneliness, as he doth, almost daily;--and the loved bird's image consorts delightfully with him I was thinking of,--for, above all things, the fine, n.o.ble-hearted, yet meek and gentle old alderman, loved to be thought and esteemed an _ornithologist_! That was his pride, his loftiest aim, his highest ambition,--as far as reputation or a name was the subject of his thought. As for his charities, and enlarged acts of sympathy for his suffering fellow-creatures, his deeds of mercy and goodness, he strove to hide them, performing them often by stealth, and half denying the performance of them, when admiration of his beneficence kindled praise of it in his hearing. Ah! it is too true: he relieved wretchedness till his purse was scanty, and his circ.u.mstances were straitened;--and then,--and then,--in spite of his aldermanic dignity, in spite of his "respectable" family connections, and even the respectability of his own practice and profession, as a surgeon,--he was mentioned as the "odd,"--the "singular,"--the "eccentric" Mr. ----!

_That_ is the world. Who would have dreamt that Alderman----was odd, or singular, or eccentric, had he kept his money, instead of giving it to the distressed?

But the kind-hearted old man thirsted for reputation as an _ornithologist_. Well, and in good sooth, he had some solid claim to it.

Birds were his pa.s.sion; and you seldom met any one who knew so much about them. I know not whether his relatives keep the book of drawings which the good man showed to me, as he had showed it to hundreds, with so much innocent pride;--taking care to relate how it had been begun when he was a young apprentice, and had taken him years to complete; above all, that it was the product of early hours stolen from sleep, and had never robbed, his professional duties of their proper share of attention. They ought to keep it, however, and to value it too. Not for the sake of any surpa.s.sing excellence in the portraitures of birds with which it was filled; for, although the good old man was so proud of the "_real_ birds," which he used to observe it contained, yet they were embodied to the eye somewhat in Chinese taste, as clearly as I can remember: rather with exact.i.tude of pencillings and shades, than with skill in the "drawing" or att.i.tude of the bird, or observance of rules of perspective, or "fore-shortening," or any of the intricacies of art.

But the heart--the heart of the good man whose hand performed these curious and laborious limnings--should stamp a precious value on the book that contained them.

Nor was it a mere unmeaning hobby, this love of the feathered tribe which was so strong in the benevolent alderman. He was another Gilbert White in diligence of observation on their habits in the woods and fields, and on the heath and the moor. In his rural rides as a surgeon, he was ever learning some fact relative to their economy, and he most diligently chronicled it. And at the return of the season, he was as punctually periodical as the fall of the leaf in acquainting his friendly circle with his impressions relative to the severity or the openness of the ensuing winter, from his observations on the feathered tribe. Many of these "prognostications," as some people called them, although he never a.s.sumed the character of a prophet himself, were registered in the _Stamford Mercury_, the long-established and ably-conducted medium of information for the extensive though thinly-peopled district of Lincolns.h.i.+re; and they so seldom failed to be realised, that the ornithological surgeon was often complimented on his prophecies. "Nay," he would reply, "I am no prophet: I only go by Nature's books: you may do the same, if you'll read them."

Was it his diligent and loving perusal of these books which imbued him with that never-failing zeal to relieve the miserable? was it by his continued drinking of the lessons of bounty and care discoverable in those books, that kept open, to his latest day, the sluices of his beneficent heart,--so that the icy influences of the world never froze them up,--but they were left to well out goodness, and tenderness, and pity, for the poor, and hungry, and sick, and miserable, to the end of his life?

One cannot suppress a persuasion of this kind; and it seems next to impossible but that Gilbert White must have gladdened the poor of his "Selborne," to the very extent of his means, and, perhaps, sometimes beyond it,--secretly, humbly, and un.o.btrusively,--while his amiable mind was displaying so simply and charmingly, in that correspondence with Tennant and Barrington, its devoted love and admiration of the characters in "Nature's books." This thought may be but a prejudice of the imagination; but such prejudices are less criminal than the prejudices of the judgment or understanding, and one feels unwilling to have them removed in a case like this: we have, alas! too many examples of evil contradictions in the characters we thirst to love,--and our wors.h.i.+p even of the n.o.blest intelligences,--such as Bacon,--is too often checked by them.

In the devoted reader of "Nature's books," however, of whom we are immediately speaking, there was a delightful harmony of character. "I cannot pay you, yet, Mr. ----,"--said a poor woman to him, as I walked by his side, along the High Street of St. Botolph's parish, listening to his autumnal chronicle,--"I cannot pay you yet, sir, for my husband is out of work."--"Pr'ythee, never mind, woman," replied the good man.

"Make thyself easy, and get that poor boy a pair of shoes, before thou pays me!"--"G.o.d bless you, sir!" replied the poor woman, with her ragged and shoeless lad, and dropped a courtesy, while the grateful tear rolled down her cheek. I looked, with an impulse of admiration, at the face of the good alderman, as we pa.s.sed along, and the tears were coursing each other adown his face likewise!

And how often have I heard,--what, indeed, well-nigh every citizen of old Lincoln had either heard, or witnessed,--of his bounteous relief of famis.h.i.+ng and clotheless families he was called to attend during the sickness of a child or father, or the mother's agony of Nature. One thought presents itself painfully: it is, that while he manifested so true a fraternity with man, and lived a life of so much private, un.o.btrusive blessing,--he was so frequently the victim of encroaching and designing knaves. His ready loans of money, in his wealthiest days, to needy tradesmen, were often punctually and honestly returned; but he was too often victimised. And there is one image now crosses me, very legibly,--that used to haunt and pester the good-hearted man, even up to the period of his straitness,--ever goading him with some plea of difficulty, and essaying to squeeze out of him another sum, under the unprincipled name of a loan. He was a "limb of the law," who had been "done up" in his profession, for his want of honesty. And yet I have some misgivings whether that human being were so morally culpable as his life of shuffle, and deceit, and meanness, would lead one to think; for I remember how often I noticed the large indentation across his bald head, caused by some accident, in which the bone of the skull had been bent or broken, and, consequently, the brain injured. His career is at an end, however; and whatever might be the true solution of the problem of his idiosyncrasy, one cannot help feeling a regret that the best and finest natures should so often, in this world, become a prey to the worst,--as in the case of this vile practiser, who often boasted over his brandy, in the presence of some base a.s.sociate, that he had gulled the alderman again!----

Memory calls up another form less distinctly, since it belonged to one who was much nearer the end of his course; and the impression of his ident.i.ty depends more on what others said of him than on any thing like personal or intimate acquaintance with his character. From some unskilfulness of speech, or want of grace in outward demeanour, or some other mark that the world thought "odd," or "singular," or "eccentric,"

he had gained the odd, singular, and eccentric, but very distinctive _soubriquet_ of Alderman Lob. He was a bulky sort of man externally, talked thick, yet talked a great deal; was laid up with the gout often, and pa.s.sed his closing years totally within doors as an invalid: but many a poverty-stricken habitant of Lincoln found weekly relief at his door; and more than one aged and infirm creature prayed for the lengthening out of his life, in the fear they would be left dest.i.tute, or be compelled to go into the workhouse, when they could no longer depend on his weekly charity.----

The master-spirit of that old guild, though too mentally acute, and too successful in the acquirement of wealth to leave room for the world to term him odd, or singular, or eccentric, united in his composition some high qualities that now rise in kindly answer to the record memory gives of the bitter things spoken of him by party. He had been the "town-clerk" of the guild, and even then wielded the princ.i.p.al power in it, being really its master, though nominally its servant; and only laid aside the black gown and quill to don an alderman's ermined cloak, because he had become too wealthy either to desire longer to reap the salary, or undergo the fatigue and labour of his first office.

His attention to every man in whom he discerned superior ability, without regard to conventional grade, and often in defiance of its rules; his real liberality in giving aid to honest industry, wherever he found it; his munificence in a.s.sisting either the "charities" which are the just pride of old Lincoln, or any plan for presenting its citizens with amus.e.m.e.nt that combined usefulness: these were among his life-long acts. And, in spite of the keen raillery with which his shrewd penetration of character often led him to visit the vulgar conceit or affectation of some with whom his office brought him into frequent contact, all bore testimony to his intelligence and honour. Nay, although he was one who never professed any fervid sympathy with popular progress, and therefore was not likely to become a favourite with a people so strongly political as the Lincoln cits were a few years ago, yet so deeply did they regard him as a man who, by the excellence of his understanding, had done honour to their city in bearing one of its chief offices, that a general and reverential sorrow was expressed when his end approached, for it was seen, in his wasted frame and fading eye, many months before the fatal moment came.

Perhaps their knowledge of the one bitter draught that was mingled with his life's chalice, during the concluding years of his course, served greatly to soften their thoughts towards the intellectual chief of the old munic.i.p.al inst.i.tution, even while many of them rejoiced at the overthrow of the inst.i.tution itself. His tenderly beloved and highly accomplished daughter,--his only child,--faded and died; and, therewith, the charm of life seemed broken for him. How often was this a subject of kindly-spirited converse among citizens as he pa.s.sed; and how reflectingly did they note what they learnt to be his own poignant observations on that heart-rending bereavement!--his pithy and thrilling confessions that he had toiled for nothing!--that life was only a scene of disappointment!--that he had used unceasing exertion to attain wealth; but he had, now, neither "chick nor child" to leave it to! So fertile is life in affording moral nurture and correction to all hearts!--creating sympathy with the sorrowful brother, with him to whom the bitter cup is appointed; but infusing a salutary admonition, meanwhile, not to set our hearts too pa.s.sionately on things of clay, lest we doom ourselves also to drink of that bitterness!----

He who was esteemed the most "odd," the most "singular," the most "eccentric" member of that Old Corporation, lingered long after its demise; and by the popularity of his character, as the only radical alderman of the Old, became a town councillor, and eventually a mayor, under the New munic.i.p.al inst.i.tution. How rife were the stories of his furious attacks upon the "self-elect" of the olden time!--and what a rich hue of the burlesque was thrown around the pictures that were given of him in daily conversation! Yet, who did not, in spite of his slenderness of intellect, love him for his incorruptible honesty, and, above all, for his unfailing benevolence? Oh! there was not a human being,--beggar, pauper, distressed stranger, or townsman,--who ever went from his door unrelieved; nor could he pa.s.s, in the street, a fellow-creature whose appearance led him to suppose he had found a real sufferer, but he must inquire into it, even unsolicited. The abhorrent enactments of the New Poor Law,--how he hated them!--and how staggered he felt in his reforming faith, when the "liberal" administration urged the pa.s.sing of the strange Malthusian measure! "I cannot understand it!"

he would exclaim, in the hearing of the numerous partic.i.p.ants in his English hospitality; "I never thought that Reform was to make the poor more miserable, and the poorest of the poor the most miserable: it is a mystery to me! Surely it is a mistake in Lord Grey and Lord Brougham!"

So the good old man thought and said; but he did not live to see the "liberal" lawmakers either correct their mistake, or acknowledge that they had made one,--though agonised thousands pealed that sad truth in their ears!

NED WILCOM;

A STORY OF A FATHER'S SACRIFICE OF HIS CHILD AT THE SHRINE OF MAMMON.

"Sirrah! you have nothing to do but to get on in the world. You _may_ do that, if you will. The way is open for you, as it was for me; so get up to London, and try. There's twenty pounds for you: I'll give you twenty thousand, as soon as you show me one thousand of your own; but I won't give you another farthing till you prove to me that you know the value of money, and can get it yourself. And mark me, sir! if you haven't the nouse to make something out in the world, you shall live and die a beggar, for me; for I'll leave all I have to your sisters, and cut you off with a s.h.i.+lling. There, sir! there's your road! Good morning!"

And so saying, Mr. Ned Wilcom, senior, pushed Mr. Ned Wilcom, junior, his only son, out of his counting-house, and shut the door upon him.

That was an awkward way for a rich Leeds merchant to receive a son on the completion of his apprentices.h.i.+p as a draper, and at the early age of twenty. Yet it was no worse than young Ned expected. Nor did it break his heart, as it would have broken the heart of a lad who had been more tenderly nurtured. Ned Wilcom never saw his father occupied with any other thought, act, employ, or pleasure, but what pertained to money-getting; nor ever heard his father pa.s.s an encomium on any human character in his life, save on such as succeeded in piling together large fortunes from small beginnings, or enriched themselves by outwitting their neighbours. From the age of nine to sixteen, he had only seen his father twice a year--Midsummer and Christmas; and having lost his mother when a mere infant, he never knew or felt the softening influences of maternal affection. The artificial life of a boarding-school, during those seven years, infused a good deal of craft, and nearly as large a measure of heartlessness, into Ned's nature--for it was not originally of such tendencies. The master and ushers were hypocrites and tyrants, only differing in grade; and if there were a lad with a little more gentleness, humanity, and openness about him than the rest, Ned observed that he soon "went to the wall" among his school-fellows. And so, with one influence or other, Ned Wilcom left school with the firm persuasion that the world was a general battle-field, where the weak and the virtuous were destined to become the prey of the strong and the crafty; and, all things considered, Ned resolved to take sides with the winning party.

Such were Ned's resolves at sixteen; and they were by no means changed in their direction, or weakened in their vigour, by an apprentices.h.i.+p in a das.h.i.+ng and aspiring draper's shop in Liverpool during the succeeding four years. To that sea-port he was accompanied, per coach, by his father; whose parting words then were, that he was to remember that "he was going to be taught how to make money, the only thing worth learning;" and, until he received the summary benediction already rehea.r.s.ed, Ned did not see his father again. It is true, he received from home a half-yearly letter, but it never harped on more than one string, and that was the old one; so that, drawing his inferences from these premises, Ned Wilcom was not surprised to be dismissed in five minutes, with twenty pounds, and to have the counting-house door shut in his face by his own father.

Within a week after his arrival in London, Ned Wilcom found a situation; and it was one to his heart's content--as he told his father in a letter of five lines, for he knew his parent too well to trouble him with a longer epistle. The lad's ambition could only have been more highly gratified by a reception into the establishment of Swan and Edgar, in the Quadrant, or the superb "Waterloo House" in c.o.c.kspur Street, for he had obtained a place in that immensest of show-shops which attracts the stranger crowds in St. Paul's Churchyard, where the business was of a less select nature than in the two rival first-rate shops at the West End, and was therefore a more fitting field for the exercise of such knowledge and tact as Ned had acquired in Liverpool. And all went on exceedingly well with Ned for several weeks. It is true, the discipline of the establishment was somewhat more rigorous than in the house he had quitted; but he was prepared to expect it. He was compelled to "look sharp about him;" but he had heard in the country that that would be the case. The matter of vianding, the exact minute of remaining out in the evening, the amount of exertion and energy in discharging his duties, all was so exactly defined, measured, and timed, that to a mere raw apprentice from the country, or to one whose mind was less determinately girt up to make his way, the situation would have seemed any thing but pleasant. Ned, however, felt quite at home, for he had yoked his will to his necessities; and in lieu of indulging the slightest disposition to grumble at his lot, set success before himself, and determined to achieve it. With a mind so fully made up, a handsome figure, a winning address, and a fair portion of natural shrewdness, Ned was sure to conduct himself in such a way as to please his employers. In fact, in the course of a dozen or fifteen weeks, he became the decided favourite with the manager of the concern, and, of course, experienced proportionate pecuniary advancement.

But a woeful change awaited Ned Wilcom, despite these fair prospects.

His eagerness to succeed had urged him to stretch his powers beyond their strength, and his resolve to economise, so as to win the means of early independence, induced him to deny himself too rigidly of under-clothing, and the consequence was, that a nervous la.s.situde and a severe cold at once attacked him. He bore up some days; but was a little shocked to observe a change of look in the manager, and to overhear a little whispering by way of comment on his lack of energy. Five days had pa.s.sed; but on the morning of the sixth, it was with extreme difficulty he rose from bed, and so lethargic were his faculties, that he felt it utterly impossible to put on appearances of excessive complaisance, or to display the customary grimaces of civility. Towards noon, excessive pains in the head and chest drove him from the shop; and, without saying a word to any one, he sought his sleeping-room, and threw himself on his bed. Here he was found in a state of insensibility, in the course of half an hour was undressed, and put into bed. Ned refused the cool offers of extra diet made him, when he came to his senses; and when visited by the manager, said he had no doubt he would be quite well by the next morning. The manager elevated his brows, said he hoped so, and walked away immediately.

When the morning came, however, the youth was so weak that he felt he would be utterly incapable of exertion if he went down stairs; yet he would have attempted it, had not one who had been much longer in the establishment than himself--though Ned had pa.s.sed him by, in preferment--stepped into his bed-room, and most pressingly persuaded him not to think of going down. So Ned put off his half resolve to go down, and threw himself again on the bed. But what was his surprise, grief, and disgust, on seeing this very individual step again into his room in the course of five minutes, to announce with the most marble coldness of look, that the manager desired Mr. Wilcom would get up and make out his account--for it was against rule for any one to remain on the establishment who was unable to attend to business. "Immediately," was the only word the messenger added, turning back as he was about to quit the room, and then departing with a wicked sneer upon his face. Poor Ned! he felt he was in a hard case; but his native pride was too great to permit him to weep, or give way. Indignation strung his nerves for the nonce; he bounced up--dressed himself--though he trembled like one in the palsy--made out his account--went down stairs, and presented it--was paid, by the manager's order--and quitted the premises, in the lapse of fifteen minutes.

Occupied with the vengeful feeling that was natural after such cruel treatment--though it was but an every-day fact, with drapers'

a.s.sistants, in London--the youth had arrived in Fleet Street ere he bethought him that he had left his clothes behind him, and had not made up his mind as to where he was going. Faintness began to come over him, and he was compelled to cling to a window for support. Two pa.s.sengers on the causeway stopped, and began to address him sympathetically; the rest of the living stream swept on, without staying to notice him. A cabman, however, less from sympathy than from the hope of employ, speedily brought his vehicle to the edge of the slabs, and jumping from his seat with the reins in his hand, asked if he could be of any service to the gentleman. Ned felt it was not a time for prolonged consideration, and earnestly, though feebly, desired the cabman to convey him to some decent boarding-house. One of the persons supporting him saw that his state did not permit questioning, and prevented the cabman's asking where he would be driven to, by telling the man to proceed at once to a number he mentioned in Bolt Court. The same individual walked by the side of the cab, for the little way that it was to the entry of the court, and then helped to support Ned to the house. A sick man, however, was not likely to meet with a very hearty welcome in a London boarding-house; and, in spite of the entreaties of the person who accompanied him, the youth would have had the door shut upon him, had he not roused all his remaining vigour, and a.s.sured the keeper of the establishment, not only that he would soon be well, but that he was able to pay for what he might need. With such a.s.surances he was reluctantly received, and supported up stairs to a bed-room. Presence of mind served him to give order for fetching his portmanteau from the establishment he had just quitted; and it was well that it was so, for he became insensible almost immediately. A fever ensued of some weeks'

continuance; and, at the end of it, when Ned regained his consciousness, he found himself reduced to a state of emaciation, and under medical attendance, with a deeply reduced purse.

These were concomitants of a nature to bring great pain to the mind of one like Ned Wilcom; and it was with a severe struggle that he shut out despair, and encouraged himself to believe that, though so grievously frustrated in his commencing hopes of independence, the prospect of success would again bud, and finally blossom. After ascertaining from his physician that his state would bear a removal to a less expensive lodging, Ned wrote home to his father, and informed him of his unfortunate condition, and of what had led to it. Mr. Wilcom, senior, was a little surprised to receive a second letter from his son so soon, for "he had no notion," as he used to say, "of lads perpetually writing home, like unweaned babies that wanted pap;" and he, therefore, broke the seal of poor Ned's letter with no remarkable degree of good humour.

The length of the letter, when opened, caused the money-getting father to throw it aside with an indescribable curl of the lip and nose, and a loud "Pshaw!"--and that was all the attention the poor youth's epistle received for the five next succeeding days, that is to say, until Sunday came, and the merchant thought he had time to look at it. The next morning Ned Wilcom received his father's answer: it was simply--

"Sir,

"Yours came to hand last Monday. If your illness was brought on by want of caution, it ought to teach you prudence. If you have been unlucky, you are only like many more; and, as your grandfather used to say, the best way and the manliest, with troubles, is to grin and abide by them. Wish you better.

"Your humble servant, "EDWARD WILCOM, senior.

The letter dropped from Ned's hand like a lump of lead too heavy to hold. With all his knowledge of his father's nature and habits, he had not expected this. Indeed, Ned's uninterrupted good health, through the whole of his brief s.p.a.ce of life, had prevented the possibility of his testing his father's tenderness before. For some hours, the youth experienced misery he had never known till then; and was so completely paralysed with the sense of his wretched and deserted state, that the physician, who made his usual call in the afternoon, could obtain no intelligent answer to his questions; and though by no means one whose heart overflowed with the milk of human kindness, felt constrained, in a sympathising tone, to ask if any thing extraordinary had occurred to his patient. Ned pointed to the letter which lay on the floor, and in spite of the hardness of feeling into which he had trained himself, burst into a flood of tears.