The Chimes

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'But I have broken it, father,' interposed his daughter, laughing,
'all to bits. I have had my dinner.'

'Nonsense,' said Trotty. 'Two dinners in one day! It an't
possible! You might as well tell me that two New Year's Days will
come together, or that I have had a gold head all my life, and
never changed it.'

'I have had my dinner, father, for all that,' said Meg, coming
nearer to him. 'And if you'll go on with yours, I'll tell you how
and where; and how your dinner came to be brought; and - and
something else besides.'

Toby still appeared incredulous; but she looked into his face with
her clear eyes, and laying her hand upon his shoulder, motioned him
to go on while the meat was hot. So Trotty took up his knife and
fork again, and went to work. But much more slowly than before,
and shaking his head, as if he were not at all pleased with
himself.

'I had my dinner, father,' said Meg, after a little hesitation,
'with - with Richard. His dinner-time was early; and as he brought
his dinner with him when he came to see me, we - we had it
together, father.'

Trotty took a little beer, and smacked his lips. Then he said,
'Oh!' - because she waited.

'And Richard says, father - ' Meg resumed. Then stopped.

'What does Richard say, Meg?' asked Toby.

'Richard says, father - ' Another stoppage.

'Richard's a long time saying it,' said Toby.

'He says then, father,' Meg continued, lifting up her eyes at last,
and speaking in a tremble, but quite plainly; 'another year is
nearly gone, and where is the use of waiting on from year to year,
when it is so unlikely we shall ever be better off than we are now?
He says we are poor now, father, and we shall be poor then, but we
are young now, and years will make us old before we know it. He
says that if we wait: people in our condition: until we see our
way quite clearly, the way will be a narrow one indeed - the common
way - the Grave, father.'

A bolder man than Trotty Veck must needs have drawn upon his
boldness largely, to deny it. Trotty held his peace.

'And how hard, father, to grow old, and die, and think we might
have cheered and helped each other! How hard in all our lives to
love each other; and to grieve, apart, to see each other working,
changing, growing old and grey. Even if I got the better of it,
and forgot him (which I never could), oh father dear, how hard to
have a heart so full as mine is now, and live to have it slowly
drained out every drop, without the recollection of one happy
moment of a woman's life, to stay behind and comfort me, and make
me better!'

Trotty sat quite still. Meg dried her eyes, and said more gaily:
that is to say, with here a laugh, and there a sob, and here a
laugh and sob together:

'So Richard says, father; as his work was yesterday made certain
for some time to come, and as I love him, and have loved him full
three years - ah! longer than that, if he knew it! - will I marry
him on New Year's Day; the best and happiest day, he says, in the
whole year, and one that is almost sure to bring good fortune with
it. It's a short notice, father - isn't it? - but I haven't my
fortune to be settled, or my wedding dresses to be made, like the
great ladies, father, have I? And he said so much, and said it in
his way; so strong and earnest, and all the time so kind and
gentle; that I said I'd come and talk to you, father. And as they
paid the money for that work of mine this morning (unexpectedly, I
am sure!) and as you have fared very poorly for a whole week, and
as I couldn't help wishing there should be something to make this
day a sort of holiday to you as well as a dear and happy day to me,
father, I made a little treat and brought it to surprise you.'

'And see how he leaves it cooling on the step!' said another voice.

It was the voice of this same Richard, who had come upon them
unobserved, and stood before the father and daughter; looking down
upon them with a face as glowing as the iron on which his stout
sledge-hammer daily rung. A handsome, well-made, powerful
youngster he was; with eyes that sparkled like the red-hot
droppings from a furnace fire; black hair that curled about his
swarthy temples rarely; and a smile - a smile that bore out Meg's
eulogium on his style of conversation.

'See how he leaves it cooling on the step!' said Richard. 'Meg
don't know what he likes. Not she!'

Trotty, all action and enthusiasm, immediately reached up his hand
to Richard, and was going to address him in great hurry, when the
house-door opened without any warning, and a footman very nearly
put his foot into the tripe.

'Out of the vays here, will you! You must always go and be a-
settin on our steps, must you! You can't go and give a turn to
none of the neighbours never, can't you! WILL you clear the road,
or won't you?'

Strictly speaking, the last question was irrelevant, as they had
already done it.

'What's the matter, what's the matter!' said the gentleman for whom
the door was opened; coming out of the house at that kind of light-
heavy pace - that peculiar compromise between a walk and a jog-trot
- with which a gentleman upon the smooth down-hill of life, wearing
creaking boots, a watch-chain, and clean linen, MAY come out of his
house: not only without any abatement of his dignity, but with an
expression of having important and wealthy engagements elsewhere.
'What's the matter! What's the matter!'

'You're always a-being begged, and prayed, upon your bended knees
you are,' said the footman with great emphasis to Trotty Veck, 'to
let our door-steps be. Why don't you let 'em be? CAN'T you let
'em be?'

'There! That'll do, that'll do!' said the gentleman. 'Halloa
there! Porter!' beckoning with his head to Trotty Veck. 'Come
here. What's that? Your dinner?'

'Yes, sir,' said Trotty, leaving it behind him in a corner.

'Don't leave it there,' exclaimed the gentleman. 'Bring it here,
bring it here. So! This is your dinner, is it?'

'Yes, sir,' repeated Trotty, looking with a fixed eye and a watery
mouth, at the piece of tripe he had reserved for a last delicious
tit-bit; which the gentleman was now turning over and over on the
end of the fork.

Two other gentlemen had come out with him. One was a low-spirited
gentleman of middle age, of a meagre habit, and a disconsolate
face; who kept his hands continually in the pockets of his scanty
pepper-and-salt trousers, very large and dog's-eared from that
custom; and was not particularly well brushed or washed. The
other, a full-sized, sleek, well-conditioned gentleman, in a blue
coat with bright buttons, and a white cravat. This gentleman had a
very red face, as if an undue proportion of the blood in his body
were squeezed up into his head; which perhaps accounted for his
having also the appearance of being rather cold about the heart.

He who had Toby's meat upon the fork, called to the first one by
the name of Filer; and they both drew near together. Mr. Filer
being exceedingly short-sighted, was obliged to go so close to the
remnant of Toby's dinner before he could make out what it was, that
Toby's heart leaped up into his mouth. But Mr. Filer didn't eat
it.

'This is a description of animal food, Alderman,' said Filer,
making little punches in it with a pencil-case, 'commonly known to
the labouring population of this country, by the name of tripe.'

The Alderman laughed, and winked; for he was a merry fellow,
Alderman Cute. Oh, and a sly fellow too! A knowing fellow. Up to
everything. Not to be imposed upon. Deep in the people's hearts!
He knew them, Cute did. I believe you!

'But who eats tripe?' said Mr. Filer, looking round. 'Tripe is
without an exception the least economical, and the most wasteful
article of consumption that the markets of this country can by
possibility produce. The loss upon a pound of tripe has been found
to be, in the boiling, seven-eights of a fifth more than the loss
upon a pound of any other animal substance whatever. Tripe is more
expensive, properly understood, than the hothouse pine-apple.
Taking into account the number of animals slaughtered yearly within
the bills of mortality alone; and forming a low estimate of the
quantity of tripe which the carcases of those animals, reasonably
well butchered, would yield; I find that the waste on that amount
of tripe, if boiled, would victual a garrison of five hundred men
for five months of thirty-one days each, and a February over. The
Waste, the Waste!'

Trotty stood aghast, and his legs shook under him. He seemed to
have starved a garrison of five hundred men with his own hand.

'Who eats tripe?' said Mr. Filer, warmly. 'Who eats tripe?'

Trotty made a miserable bow.

'You do, do you?' said Mr. Filer. 'Then I'll tell you something.
You snatch your tripe, my friend, out of the mouths of widows and
orphans.'

'I hope not, sir,' said Trotty, faintly. 'I'd sooner die of want!'

'Divide the amount of tripe before-mentioned, Alderman,' said Mr.
Filer, 'by the estimated number of existing widows and orphans, and
the result will be one pennyweight of tripe to each. Not a grain
is left for that man. Consequently, he's a robber.'

Trotty was so shocked, that it gave him no concern to see the
Alderman finish the tripe himself. It was a relief to get rid of
it, anyhow.

'And what do you say?' asked the Alderman, jocosely, of the red-
faced gentleman in the blue coat. 'You have heard friend Filer.
What do YOU SAY?'

'What's it possible to say?' returned the gentleman. 'What IS to
be said? Who can take any interest in a fellow like this,' meaning
Trotty; 'in such degenerate times as these? Look at him. What an
object! The good old times, the grand old times, the great old
times! THOSE were the times for a bold peasantry, and all that
sort of thing. Those were the times for every sort of thing, in
fact. There's nothing now-a-days. Ah!' sighed the red-faced
gentleman. 'The good old times, the good old times!'

The gentleman didn't specify what particular times he alluded to;
nor did he say whether he objected to the present times, from a
disinterested consciousness that they had done nothing very
remarkable in producing himself.

'The good old times, the good old times,' repeated the gentleman.
'What times they were! They were the only times. It's of no use
talking about any other times, or discussing what the people are in
THESE times. You don't call these, times, do you? I don't. Look
into Strutt's Costumes, and see what a Porter used to be, in any of
the good old English reigns.'

'He hadn't, in his very best circumstances, a shirt to his back, or
a stocking to his foot; and there was scarcely a vegetable in all
England for him to put into his mouth,' said Mr. Filer. 'I can
prove it, by tables.'

But still the red-faced gentleman extolled the good old times, the
grand old times, the great old times. No matter what anybody else
said, he still went turning round and round in one set form of
words concerning them; as a poor squirrel turns and turns in its
revolving cage; touching the mechanism, and trick of which, it has
probably quite as distinct perceptions, as ever this red-faced
gentleman had of his deceased Millennium.

It is possible that poor Trotty's faith in these very vague Old
Times was not entirely destroyed, for he felt vague enough at that
moment. One thing, however, was plain to him, in the midst of his
distress; to wit, that however these gentlemen might differ in
details, his misgivings of that morning, and of many other
mornings, were well founded. 'No, no. We can't go right or do
right,' thought Trotty in despair. 'There is no good in us. We
are born bad!'

But Trotty had a father's heart within him; which had somehow got
into his breast in spite of this decree; and he could not bear that
Meg, in the blush of her brief joy, should have her fortune read by
these wise gentlemen. 'God help her,' thought poor Trotty. 'She
will know it soon enough.'

He anxiously signed, therefore, to the young smith, to take her
away. But he was so busy, talking to her softly at a little
distance, that he only became conscious of this desire,
simultaneously with Alderman Cute. Now, the Alderman had not yet
had his say, but HE was a philosopher, too - practical, though!
Oh, very practical - and, as he had no idea of losing any portion
of his audience, he cried 'Stop!'

'Now, you know,' said the Alderman, addressing his two friends,
with a self-complacent smile upon his face which was habitual to
him, 'I am a plain man, and a practical man; and I go to work in a
plain practical way. That's my way. There is not the least
mystery or difficulty in dealing with this sort of people if you
only understand 'em, and can talk to 'em in their own manner. Now,
you Porter! Don't you ever tell me, or anybody else, my friend,
that you haven't always enough to eat, and of the best; because I
know better. I have tasted your tripe, you know, and you can't
"chaff" me. You understand what "chaff" means, eh? That's the
right word, isn't it? Ha, ha, ha! Lord bless you,' said the
Alderman, turning to his friends again, 'it's the easiest thing on
earth to deal with this sort of people, if you understand 'em.'

Famous man for the common people, Alderman Cute! Never out of
temper with them! Easy, affable, joking, knowing gentleman!

'You see, my friend,' pursued the Alderman, 'there's a great deal
of nonsense talked about Want - "hard up," you know; that's the
phrase, isn't it? ha! ha! ha! - and I intend to Put it Down.
There's a certain amount of cant in vogue about Starvation, and I
mean to Put it Down. That's all! Lord bless you,' said the
Alderman, turning to his friends again, 'you may Put Down anything
among this sort of people, if you only know the way to set about
it.'

Trotty took Meg's hand and drew it through his arm. He didn't seem
to know what he was doing though.

'Your daughter, eh?' said the Alderman, chucking her familiarly
under the chin.

Always affable with the working classes, Alderman Cute! Knew what
pleased them! Not a bit of pride!

'Where's her mother?' asked that worthy gentleman.

'Dead,' said Toby. 'Her mother got up linen; and was called to
Heaven when She was born.'

'Not to get up linen THERE, I suppose,' remarked the Alderman
pleasantly

Toby might or might not have been able to separate his wife in
Heaven from her old pursuits. But query: If Mrs. Alderman Cute
had gone to Heaven, would Mr. Alderman Cute have pictured her as
holding any state or station there?

'And you're making love to her, are you?' said Cute to the young
smith.

'Yes,' returned Richard quickly, for he was nettled by the
question. 'And we are going to be married on New Year's Day.'

'What do you mean!' cried Filer sharply. 'Married!'

'Why, yes, we're thinking of it, Master,' said Richard. 'We're
rather in a hurry, you see, in case it should be Put Down first.'

'Ah!' cried Filer, with a groan. 'Put THAT down indeed, Alderman,
and you'll do something. Married! Married!! The ignorance of the
first principles of political economy on the part of these people;
their improvidence; their wickedness; is, by Heavens! enough to -
Now look at that couple, will you!'

Well? They were worth looking at. And marriage seemed as
reasonable and fair a deed as they need have in contemplation.

'A man may live to be as old as Methuselah,' said Mr. Filer, 'and
may labour all his life for the benefit of such people as those;
and may heap up facts on figures, facts on figures, facts on
figures, mountains high and dry; and he can no more hope to
persuade 'em that they have no right or business to be married,
than he can hope to persuade 'em that they have no earthly right or
business to be born. And THAT we know they haven't. We reduced it
to a mathematical certainty long ago!'

Alderman Cute was mightily diverted, and laid his right forefinger
on the side of his nose, as much as to say to both his friends,
'Observe me, will you! Keep your eye on the practical man!' - and
called Meg to him.

'Come here, my girl!' said Alderman Cute.

The young blood of her lover had been mounting, wrathfully, within
the last few minutes; and he was indisposed to let her come. But,
setting a constraint upon himself, he came forward with a stride as
Meg approached, and stood beside her. Trotty kept her hand within
his arm still, but looked from face to face as wildly as a sleeper
in a dream.

'Now, I'm going to give you a word or two of good advice, my girl,'
said the Alderman, in his nice easy way. 'It's my place to give
advice, you know, because I'm a Justice. You know I'm a Justice,
don't you?'

Meg timidly said, 'Yes.' But everybody knew Alderman Cute was a
Justice! Oh dear, so active a Justice always! Who such a mote of
brightness in the public eye, as Cute!

'You are going to be married, you say,' pursued the Alderman.
'Very unbecoming and indelicate in one of your sex! But never mind
that. After you are married, you'll quarrel with your husband and
come to be a distressed wife. You may think not; but you will,
because I tell you so. Now, I give you fair warning, that I have
made up my mind to Put distressed wives Down. So, don't be brought
before me. You'll have children - boys. Those boys will grow up
bad, of course, and run wild in the streets, without shoes and
stockings. Mind, my young friend! I'll convict 'em summarily,
every one, for I am determined to Put boys without shoes and
stockings, Down. Perhaps your husband will die young (most likely)
and leave you with a baby. Then you'll be turned out of doors, and
wander up and down the streets. Now, don't wander near me, my
dear, for I am resolved, to Put all wandering mothers Down. All
young mothers, of all sorts and kinds, it's my determination to Put
Down. Don't think to plead illness as an excuse with me; or babies
as an excuse with me; for all sick persons and young children (I
hope you know the church-service, but I'm afraid not) I am
determined to Put Down. And if you attempt, desperately, and
ungratefully, and impiously, and fraudulently attempt, to drown
yourself, or hang yourself, I'll have no pity for you, for I have
made up my mind to Put all suicide Down! If there is one thing,'
said the Alderman, with his self-satisfied smile, 'on which I can
be said to have made up my mind more than on another, it is to Put
suicide Down. So don't try it on. That's the phrase, isn't it?
Ha, ha! now we understand each other.'

Toby knew not whether to be agonised or glad, to see that Meg had
turned a deadly white, and dropped her lover's hand.

'And as for you, you dull dog,' said the Alderman, turning with
even increased cheerfulness and urbanity to the young smith, 'what
are you thinking of being married for? What do you want to be
married for, you silly fellow? If I was a fine, young, strapping
chap like you, I should be ashamed of being milksop enough to pin
myself to a woman's apron-strings! Why, she'll be an old woman
before you're a middle-aged man! And a pretty figure you'll cut
then, with a draggle-tailed wife and a crowd of squalling children
crying after you wherever you go!'

O, he knew how to banter the common people, Alderman Cute!

'There! Go along with you,' said the Alderman, 'and repent. Don't
make such a fool of yourself as to get married on New Year's Day.
You'll think very differently of it, long before next New Year's
Day: a trim young fellow like you, with all the girls looking
after you. There! Go along with you!'

They went along. Not arm in arm, or hand in hand, or interchanging
bright glances; but, she in tears; he, gloomy and down-looking.
Were these the hearts that had so lately made old Toby's leap up
from its faintness? No, no. The Alderman (a blessing on his
head!) had Put THEM Down.

'As you happen to be here,' said the Alderman to Toby, 'you shall
carry a letter for me. Can you be quick? You're an old man.'

Toby, who had been looking after Meg, quite stupidly, made shift to
murmur out that he was very quick, and very strong.

'How old are you?' inquired the Alderman.

'I'm over sixty, sir,' said Toby.

'O! This man's a great deal past the average age, you know,' cried
Mr. Filer breaking in as if his patience would bear some trying,
but this really was carrying matters a little too far.

'I feel I'm intruding, sir,' said Toby. 'I - I misdoubted it this
morning. Oh dear me!'

The Alderman cut him short by giving him the letter from his
pocket. Toby would have got a shilling too; but Mr. Filer clearly
showing that in that case he would rob a certain given number of
persons of ninepence-halfpenny a-piece, he only got sixpence; and
thought himself very well off to get that.

Then the Alderman gave an arm to each of his friends, and walked
off in high feather; but, he immediately came hurrying back alone,
as if he had forgotten something.

'Porter!' said the Alderman.

'Sir!' said Toby.

'Take care of that daughter of yours. She's much too handsome.'

'Even her good looks are stolen from somebody or other, I suppose,'
thought Toby, looking at the sixpence in his hand, and thinking of
the tripe. 'She's been and robbed five hundred ladies of a bloom
a-piece, I shouldn't wonder. It's very dreadful!'

'She's much too handsome, my man,' repeated the Alderman. 'The
chances are, that she'll come to no good, I clearly see. Observe
what I say. Take care of her!' With which, he hurried off again.

'Wrong every way. Wrong every way!' said Trotty, clasping his
hands. 'Born bad. No business here!'

The Chimes came clashing in upon him as he said the words. Full,
loud, and sounding - but with no encouragement. No, not a drop.

'The tune's changed,' cried the old man, as he listened. 'There's
not a word of all that fancy in it. Why should there be? I have
no business with the New Year nor with the old one neither. Let me
die!'

Still the Bells, pealing forth their changes, made the very air
spin. Put 'em down, Put 'em down! Good old Times, Good old Times!
Facts and Figures, Facts and Figures! Put 'em down, Put 'em down!
If they said anything they said this, until the brain of Toby
reeled.

He pressed his bewildered head between his hands, as if to keep it
from splitting asunder. A well-timed action, as it happened; for
finding the letter in one of them, and being by that means reminded
of his charge, he fell, mechanically, into his usual trot, and
trotted off.

CHAPTER II - The Second Quarter.

THE letter Toby had received from Alderman Cute, was addressed to a
great man in the great district of the town. The greatest district
of the town. It must have been the greatest district of the town,
because it was commonly called 'the world' by its inhabitants. The
letter positively seemed heavier in Toby's hand, than another
letter. Not because the Alderman had sealed it with a very large
coat of arms and no end of wax, but because of the weighty name on
the superscription, and the ponderous amount of gold and silver
with which it was associated.

'How different from us!' thought Toby, in all simplicity and
earnestness, as he looked at the direction. 'Divide the lively
turtles in the bills of mortality, by the number of gentlefolks
able to buy 'em; and whose share does he take but his own! As to
snatching tripe from anybody's mouth - he'd scorn it!'

With the involuntary homage due to such an exalted character, Toby
interposed a corner of his apron between the letter and his
fingers.

'His children,' said Trotty, and a mist rose before his eyes; 'his
daughters - Gentlemen may win their hearts and marry them; they may
be happy wives and mothers; they may be handsome like my darling M-
e-'.

He couldn't finish the name. The final letter swelled in his
throat, to the size of the whole alphabet.

'Never mind,' thought Trotty. 'I know what I mean. That's more
than enough for me.' And with this consolatory rumination, trotted
on.

It was a hard frost, that day. The air was bracing, crisp, and
clear. The wintry sun, though powerless for warmth, looked
brightly down upon the ice it was too weak to melt, and set a
radiant glory there. At other times, Trotty might have learned a
poor man's lesson from the wintry sun; but, he was past that, now.

The Year was Old, that day. The patient Year had lived through the
reproaches and misuses of its slanderers, and faithfully performed
its work. Spring, summer, autumn, winter. It had laboured through
the destined round, and now laid down its weary head to die. Shut
out from hope, high impulse, active happiness, itself, but active
messenger of many joys to others, it made appeal in its decline to
have its toiling days and patient hours remembered, and to die in
peace. Trotty might have read a poor man's allegory in the fading
year; but he was past that, now.

And only he? Or has the like appeal been ever made, by seventy
years at once upon an English labourer's head, and made in vain!

The streets were full of motion, and the shops were decked out
gaily. The New Year, like an Infant Heir to the whole world, was
waited for, with welcomes, presents, and rejoicings. There were
books and toys for the New Year, glittering trinkets for the New
Year, dresses for the New Year, schemes of fortune for the New
Year; new inventions to beguile it. Its life was parcelled out in
almanacks and pocket-books; the coming of its moons, and stars, and
tides, was known beforehand to the moment; all the workings of its
seasons in their days and nights, were calculated with as much
precision as Mr. Filer could work sums in men and women.

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