The Chimes

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'What have you done?' she asked: regarding him with terror.

He looked at her, but gave no answer.

After a short silence, he made a gesture with his hand, as if he
set her question by; as if he brushed it aside; and said:

'It's long ago, Margaret, now: but that night is as fresh in my
memory as ever 'twas. We little thought, then,' he added, looking
round, 'that we should ever meet like this. Your child, Margaret?
Let me have it in my arms. Let me hold your child.'

He put his hat upon the floor, and took it. And he trembled as he
took it, from head to foot.

'Is it a girl?'

'Yes.'

He put his hand before its little face.

'See how weak I'm grown, Margaret, when I want the courage to look
at it! Let her be, a moment. I won't hurt her. It's long ago,
but - What's her name?'

'Margaret,' she answered, quickly.

'I'm glad of that,' he said. 'I'm glad of that!' He seemed to
breathe more freely; and after pausing for an instant, took away
his hand, and looked upon the infant's face. But covered it again,
immediately.

'Margaret!' he said; and gave her back the child. 'It's Lilian's.'

'Lilian's!'

'I held the same face in my arms when Lilian's mother died and left
her.'

'When Lilian's mother died and left her!' she repeated, wildly.

'How shrill you speak! Why do you fix your eyes upon me so?
Margaret!'

She sunk down in a chair, and pressed the infant to her breast, and
wept over it. Sometimes, she released it from her embrace, to look
anxiously in its face: then strained it to her bosom again. At
those times, when she gazed upon it, then it was that something
fierce and terrible began to mingle with her love. Then it was
that her old father quailed.

'Follow her!' was sounded through the house. 'Learn it, from the
creature dearest to your heart!'

'Margaret,' said Fern, bending over her, and kissing her upon the
brow: 'I thank you for the last time. Good night. Good bye! Put
your hand in mine, and tell me you'll forget me from this hour, and
try to think the end of me was here.'

'What have you done?' she asked again.

'There'll be a Fire to-night,' he said, removing from her.
'There'll be Fires this winter-time, to light the dark nights,
East, West, North, and South. When you see the distant sky red,
they'll be blazing. When you see the distant sky red, think of me
no more; or, if you do, remember what a Hell was lighted up inside
of me, and think you see its flames reflected in the clouds. Good
night. Good bye!' She called to him; but he was gone. She sat
down stupefied, until her infant roused her to a sense of hunger,
cold, and darkness. She paced the room with it the livelong night,
hushing it and soothing it. She said at intervals, 'Like Lilian,
when her mother died and left her!' Why was her step so quick, her
eye so wild, her love so fierce and terrible, whenever she repeated
those words?

'But, it is Love,' said Trotty. 'It is Love. She'll never cease
to love it. My poor Meg!'

She dressed the child next morning with unusual care - ah, vain
expenditure of care upon such squalid robes! - and once more tried
to find some means of life. It was the last day of the Old Year.
She tried till night, and never broke her fast. She tried in vain.

She mingled with an abject crowd, who tarried in the snow, until it
pleased some officer appointed to dispense the public charity (the
lawful charity; not that once preached upon a Mount), to call them
in, and question them, and say to this one, 'Go to such a place,'
to that one, 'Come next week;' to make a football of another
wretch, and pass him here and there, from hand to hand, from house
to house, until he wearied and lay down to die; or started up and
robbed, and so became a higher sort of criminal, whose claims
allowed of no delay. Here, too, she failed.

She loved her child, and wished to have it lying on her breast.
And that was quite enough.

It was night: a bleak, dark, cutting night: when, pressing the
child close to her for warmth, she arrived outside the house she
called her home. She was so faint and giddy, that she saw no one
standing in the doorway until she was close upon it, and about to
enter. Then, she recognised the master of the house, who had so
disposed himself - with his person it was not difficult - as to
fill up the whole entry.

'O!' he said softly. 'You have come back?'

She looked at the child, and shook her head.

'Don't you think you have lived here long enough without paying any
rent? Don't you think that, without any money, you've been a
pretty constant customer at this shop, now?' said Mr. Tugby.

She repeated the same mute appeal.

'Suppose you try and deal somewhere else,' he said. 'And suppose
you provide yourself with another lodging. Come! Don't you think
you could manage it?'

She said in a low voice, that it was very late. To-morrow.

'Now I see what you want,' said Tugby; 'and what you mean. You
know there are two parties in this house about you, and you delight
in setting 'em by the ears. I don't want any quarrels; I'm
speaking softly to avoid a quarrel; but if you don't go away, I'll
speak out loud, and you shall cause words high enough to please
you. But you shan't come in. That I am determined.'

She put her hair back with her hand, and looked in a sudden manner
at the sky, and the dark lowering distance.

'This is the last night of an Old Year, and I won't carry ill-blood
and quarrellings and disturbances into a New One, to please you nor
anybody else,' said Tugby, who was quite a retail Friend and
Father. 'I wonder you an't ashamed of yourself, to carry such
practices into a New Year. If you haven't any business in the
world, but to be always giving way, and always making disturbances
between man and wife, you'd be better out of it. Go along with
you.'

'Follow her! To desperation!'

Again the old man heard the voices. Looking up, he saw the figures
hovering in the air, and pointing where she went, down the dark
street.

'She loves it!' he exclaimed, in agonised entreaty for her.
'Chimes! she loves it still!'

'Follow her!' The shadow swept upon the track she had taken, like
a cloud.

He joined in the pursuit; he kept close to her; he looked into her
face. He saw the same fierce and terrible expression mingling with
her love, and kindling in her eyes. He heard her say, 'Like
Lilian! To be changed like Lilian!' and her speed redoubled.

O, for something to awaken her! For any sight, or sound, or scent,
to call up tender recollections in a brain on fire! For any gentle
image of the Past, to rise before her!

'I was her father! I was her father!' cried the old man,
stretching out his hands to the dark shadows flying on above.
'Have mercy on her, and on me! Where does she go? Turn her back!
I was her father!'

But they only pointed to her, as she hurried on; and said, 'To
desperation! Learn it from the creature dearest to your heart!' A
hundred voices echoed it. The air was made of breath expended in
those words. He seemed to take them in, at every gasp he drew.
They were everywhere, and not to be escaped. And still she hurried
on; the same light in her eyes, the same words in her mouth, 'Like
Lilian! To be changed like Lilian!' All at once she stopped.

'Now, turn her back!' exclaimed the old man, tearing his white
hair. 'My child! Meg! Turn her back! Great Father, turn her
back!'

In her own scanty shawl, she wrapped the baby warm. With her
fevered hands, she smoothed its limbs, composed its face, arranged
its mean attire. In her wasted arms she folded it, as though she
never would resign it more. And with her dry lips, kissed it in a
final pang, and last long agony of Love.

Putting its tiny hand up to her neck, and holding it there, within
her dress, next to her distracted heart, she set its sleeping face
against her: closely, steadily, against her: and sped onward to
the River.

To the rolling River, swift and dim, where Winter Night sat
brooding like the last dark thoughts of many who had sought a
refuge there before her. Where scattered lights upon the banks
gleamed sullen, red, and dull, as torches that were burning there,
to show the way to Death. Where no abode of living people cast its
shadow, on the deep, impenetrable, melancholy shade.

To the River! To that portal of Eternity, her desperate footsteps
tended with the swiftness of its rapid waters running to the sea.
He tried to touch her as she passed him, going down to its dark
level: but, the wild distempered form, the fierce and terrible
love, the desperation that had left all human check or hold behind,
swept by him like the wind.

He followed her. She paused a moment on the brink, before the
dreadful plunge. He fell down on his knees, and in a shriek
addressed the figures in the Bells now hovering above them.

'I have learnt it!' cried the old man. 'From the creature dearest
to my heart! O, save her, save her!'

He could wind his fingers in her dress; could hold it! As the
words escaped his lips, he felt his sense of touch return, and knew
that he detained her.

The figures looked down steadfastly upon him.

'I have learnt it!' cried the old man. 'O, have mercy on me in
this hour, if, in my love for her, so young and good, I slandered
Nature in the breasts of mothers rendered desperate! Pity my
presumption, wickedness, and ignorance, and save her.' He felt his
hold relaxing. They were silent still.

'Have mercy on her!' he exclaimed, 'as one in whom this dreadful
crime has sprung from Love perverted; from the strongest, deepest
Love we fallen creatures know! Think what her misery must have
been, when such seed bears such fruit! Heaven meant her to be
good. There is no loving mother on the earth who might not come to
this, if such a life had gone before. O, have mercy on my child,
who, even at this pass, means mercy to her own, and dies herself,
and perils her immortal soul, to save it!'

She was in his arms. He held her now. His strength was like a
giant's.

'I see the Spirit of the Chimes among you!' cried the old man,
singling out the child, and speaking in some inspiration, which
their looks conveyed to him. 'I know that our inheritance is held
in store for us by Time. I know there is a sea of Time to rise one
day, before which all who wrong us or oppress us will be swept away
like leaves. I see it, on the flow! I know that we must trust and
hope, and neither doubt ourselves, nor doubt the good in one
another. I have learnt it from the creature dearest to my heart.
I clasp her in my arms again. O Spirits, merciful and good, I take
your lesson to my breast along with her! O Spirits, merciful and
good, I am grateful!'

He might have said more; but, the Bells, the old familiar Bells,
his own dear, constant, steady friends, the Chimes, began to ring
the joy-peals for a New Year: so lustily, so merrily, so happily,
so gaily, that he leapt upon his feet, and broke the spell that
bound him.

'And whatever you do, father,' said Meg, 'don't eat tripe again,
without asking some doctor whether it's likely to agree with you;
for how you HAVE been going on, Good gracious!'

She was working with her needle, at the little table by the fire;
dressing her simple gown with ribbons for her wedding. So quietly
happy, so blooming and youthful, so full of beautiful promise, that
he uttered a great cry as if it were an Angel in his house; then
flew to clasp her in his arms.

But, he caught his feet in the newspaper, which had fallen on the
hearth; and somebody came rushing in between them.

'No!' cried the voice of this same somebody; a generous and jolly
voice it was! 'Not even you. Not even you. The first kiss of Meg
in the New Year is mine. Mine! I have been waiting outside the
house, this hour, to hear the Bells and claim it. Meg, my precious
prize, a happy year! A life of happy years, my darling wife!'

And Richard smothered her with kisses.

You never in all your life saw anything like Trotty after this. I
don't care where you have lived or what you have seen; you never in
all your life saw anything at all approaching him! He sat down in
his chair and beat his knees and cried; he sat down in his chair
and beat his knees and laughed; he sat down in his chair and beat
his knees and laughed and cried together; he got out of his chair
and hugged Meg; he got out of his chair and hugged Richard; he got
out of his chair and hugged them both at once; he kept running up
to Meg, and squeezing her fresh face between his hands and kissing
it, going from her backwards not to lose sight of it, and running
up again like a figure in a magic lantern; and whatever he did, he
was constantly sitting himself down in his chair, and never
stopping in it for one single moment; being - that's the truth -
beside himself with joy.

'And to-morrow's your wedding-day, my pet!' cried Trotty. 'Your
real, happy wedding-day!'

'To-day!' cried Richard, shaking hands with him. 'To-day. The
Chimes are ringing in the New Year. Hear them!'

They WERE ringing! Bless their sturdy hearts, they WERE ringing!
Great Bells as they were; melodious, deep-mouthed, noble Bells;
cast in no common metal; made by no common founder; when had they
ever chimed like that, before!

'But, to-day, my pet,' said Trotty. 'You and Richard had some
words to-day.'

'Because he's such a bad fellow, father,' said Meg. 'An't you,
Richard? Such a headstrong, violent man! He'd have made no more
of speaking his mind to that great Alderman, and putting HIM down I
don't know where, than he would of - '

' - Kissing Meg,' suggested Richard. Doing it too!

'No. Not a bit more,' said Meg. 'But I wouldn't let him, father.
Where would have been the use!'

'Richard my boy!' cried Trotty. 'You was turned up Trumps
originally; and Trumps you must be, till you die! But, you were
crying by the fire to-night, my pet, when I came home! Why did you
cry by the fire?'

'I was thinking of the years we've passed together, father. Only
that. And thinking that you might miss me, and be lonely.'

Trotty was backing off to that extraordinary chair again, when the
child, who had been awakened by the noise, came running in half-
dressed.

'Why, here she is!' cried Trotty, catching her up. 'Here's little
Lilian! Ha ha ha! Here we are and here we go! O here we are and
here we go again! And here we are and here we go! and Uncle Will
too!' Stopping in his trot to greet him heartily. 'O, Uncle Will,
the vision that I've had to-night, through lodging you! O, Uncle
Will, the obligations that you've laid me under, by your coming, my
good friend!'

Before Will Fern could make the least reply, a band of music burst
into the room, attended by a lot of neighbours, screaming 'A Happy
New Year, Meg!' 'A Happy Wedding!' 'Many of em!' and other
fragmentary good wishes of that sort. The Drum (who was a private
friend of Trotty's) then stepped forward, and said:

'Trotty Veck, my boy! It's got about, that your daughter is going
to be married to-morrow. There an't a soul that knows you that
don't wish you well, or that knows her and don't wish her well. Or
that knows you both, and don't wish you both all the happiness the
New Year can bring. And here we are, to play it in and dance it
in, accordingly.'

Which was received with a general shout. The Drum was rather
drunk, by-the-bye; but, never mind.

'What a happiness it is, I'm sure,' said Trotty, 'to be so
esteemed! How kind and neighbourly you are! It's all along of my
dear daughter. She deserves it!'

They were ready for a dance in half a second (Meg and Richard at
the top); and the Drum was on the very brink of feathering away
with all his power; when a combination of prodigious sounds was
heard outside, and a good-humoured comely woman of some fifty years
of age, or thereabouts, came running in, attended by a man bearing
a stone pitcher of terrific size, and closely followed by the
marrow-bones and cleavers, and the bells; not THE Bells, but a
portable collection on a frame.

Trotty said, 'It's Mrs. Chickenstalker!' And sat down and beat his
knees again.

'Married, and not tell me, Meg!' cried the good woman. 'Never! I
couldn't rest on the last night of the Old Year without coming to
wish you joy. I couldn't have done it, Meg. Not if I had been
bed-ridden. So here I am; and as it's New Year's Eve, and the Eve
of your wedding too, my dear, I had a little flip made, and brought
it with me.'

Mrs. Chickenstalker's notion of a little flip did honour to her
character. The pitcher steamed and smoked and reeked like a
volcano; and the man who had carried it, was faint.

'Mrs. Tugby!' said Trotty, who had been going round and round her,
in an ecstasy. - 'I SHOULD say, Chickenstalker - Bless your heart
and soul! A Happy New Year, and many of 'em! Mrs. Tugby,' said
Trotty when he had saluted her; - 'I SHOULD say, Chickenstalker -
This is William Fern and Lilian.'

The worthy dame, to his surprise, turned very pale and very red.

'Not Lilian Fern whose mother died in Dorsetshire!' said she.

Her uncle answered 'Yes,' and meeting hastily, they exchanged some
hurried words together; of which the upshot was, that Mrs.
Chickenstalker shook him by both hands; saluted Trotty on his cheek
again of her own free will; and took the child to her capacious
breast.

'Will Fern!' said Trotty, pulling on his right-hand muffler. 'Not
the friend you was hoping to find?'

'Ay!' returned Will, putting a hand on each of Trotty's shoulders.
'And like to prove a'most as good a friend, if that can be, as one
I found.'

'O!' said Trotty. 'Please to play up there. Will you have the
goodness!'

To the music of the band, and, the bells, the marrow-bones and
cleavers, all at once; and while the Chimes were yet in lusty
operation out of doors; Trotty, making Meg and Richard, second
couple, led off Mrs. Chickenstalker down the dance, and danced it
in a step unknown before or since; founded on his own peculiar
trot.

Had Trotty dreamed? Or, are his joys and sorrows, and the actors
in them, but a dream; himself a dream; the teller of this tale a
dreamer, waking but now? If it be so, O listener, dear to him in
all his visions, try to bear in mind the stern realities from which
these shadows come; and in your sphere - none is too wide, and none
too limited for such an end - endeavour to correct, improve, and
soften them. So may the New Year be a happy one to you, happy to
many more whose happiness depends on you! So may each year be
happier than the last, and not the meanest of our brethren or
sisterhood debarred their rightful share, in what our Great Creator
formed them to enjoy.

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