The Lamplighter
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Charles Dickens >> The Lamplighter
The Lamplighter by Charles Dickens
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THE LAMPLIGHTER
'If you talk of Murphy and Francis Moore, gentlemen,' said the
lamplighter who was in the chair, 'I mean to say that neither of
'em ever had any more to do with the stars than Tom Grig had.'
'And what had HE to do with 'em?' asked the lamplighter who
officiated as vice.
'Nothing at all,' replied the other; 'just exactly nothing at all.'
'Do you mean to say you don't believe in Murphy, then?' demanded
the lamplighter who had opened the discussion.
'I mean to say I believe in Tom Grig,' replied the chairman.
'Whether I believe in Murphy, or not, is a matter between me and my
conscience; and whether Murphy believes in himself, or not, is a
matter between him and his conscience. Gentlemen, I drink your
healths.'
The lamplighter who did the company this honour, was seated in the
chimney-corner of a certain tavern, which has been, time out of
mind, the Lamplighters' House of Call. He sat in the midst of a
circle of lamplighters, and was the cacique, or chief of the tribe.
If any of our readers have had the good fortune to behold a
lamplighter's funeral, they will not be surprised to learn that
lamplighters are a strange and primitive people; that they rigidly
adhere to old ceremonies and customs which have been handed down
among them from father to son since the first public lamp was
lighted out of doors; that they intermarry, and betroth their
children in infancy; that they enter into no plots or conspiracies
(for who ever heard of a traitorous lamplighter?); that they commit
no crimes against the laws of their country (there being no
instance of a murderous or burglarious lamplighter); that they are,
in short, notwithstanding their apparently volatile and restless
character, a highly moral and reflective people: having among
themselves as many traditional observances as the Jews, and being,
as a body, if not as old as the hills, at least as old as the
streets. It is an article of their creed that the first faint
glimmering of true civilisation shone in the first street-light
maintained at the public expense. They trace their existence and
high position in the public esteem, in a direct line to the heathen
mythology; and hold that the history of Prometheus himself is but a
pleasant fable, whereof the true hero is a lamplighter.
'Gentlemen,' said the lamplighter in the chair, 'I drink your
healths.'
'And perhaps, Sir,' said the vice, holding up his glass, and rising
a little way off his seat and sitting down again, in token that he
recognised and returned the compliment, 'perhaps you will add to
that condescension by telling us who Tom Grig was, and how he came
to be connected in your mind with Francis Moore, Physician.'
'Hear, hear, hear!' cried the lamplighters generally.
'Tom Grig, gentlemen,' said the chairman, 'was one of us; and it
happened to him, as it don't often happen to a public character in
our line, that he had his what-you-may-call-it cast.'
'His head?' said the vice.
'No,' replied the chairman, 'not his head.'
'His face, perhaps?' said the vice. 'No, not his face.' 'His
legs?' 'No, not his legs.' Nor yet his arms, nor his hands, nor
his feet, nor his chest, all of which were severally suggested.
'His nativity, perhaps?'
'That's it,' said the chairman, awakening from his thoughtful
attitude at the suggestion. 'His nativity. That's what Tom had
cast, gentlemen.'
'In plaster?' asked the vice.
'I don't rightly know how it's done,' returned the chairman. 'But
I suppose it was.'
And there he stopped as if that were all he had to say; whereupon
there arose a murmur among the company, which at length resolved
itself into a request, conveyed through the vice, that he would go
on. This being exactly what the chairman wanted, he mused for a
little time, performed that agreeable ceremony which is popularly
termed wetting one's whistle, and went on thus:
'Tom Grig, gentlemen, was, as I have said, one of us; and I may go
further, and say he was an ornament to us, and such a one as only
the good old times of oil and cotton could have produced. Tom's
family, gentlemen, were all lamplighters.'
'Not the ladies, I hope?' asked the vice.
'They had talent enough for it, Sir,' rejoined the chairman, 'and
would have been, but for the prejudices of society. Let women have
their rights, Sir, and the females of Tom's family would have been
every one of 'em in office. But that emancipation hasn't come yet,
and hadn't then, and consequently they confined themselves to the
bosoms of their families, cooked the dinners, mended the clothes,
minded the children, comforted their husbands, and attended to the
house-keeping generally. It's a hard thing upon the women,
gentlemen, that they are limited to such a sphere of action as
this; very hard.
'I happen to know all about Tom, gentlemen, from the circumstance
of his uncle by his mother's side, having been my particular
friend. His (that's Tom's uncle's) fate was a melancholy one. Gas
was the death of him. When it was first talked of, he laughed. He
wasn't angry; he laughed at the credulity of human nature. "They
might as well talk," he says, "of laying on an everlasting
succession of glow-worms;" and then he laughed again, partly at his
joke, and partly at poor humanity.
'In course of time, however, the thing got ground, the experiment
was made, and they lighted up Pall Mall. Tom's uncle went to see
it. I've heard that he fell off his ladder fourteen times that
night, from weakness, and that he would certainly have gone on
falling till he killed himself, if his last tumble hadn't been into
a wheelbarrow which was going his way, and humanely took him home.
"I foresee in this," says Tom's uncle faintly, and taking to his
bed as he spoke - "I foresee in this," he says, "the breaking up of
our profession. There's no more going the rounds to trim by
daylight, no more dribbling down of the oil on the hats and bonnets
of ladies and gentlemen when one feels in spirits. Any low fellow
can light a gas-lamp. And it's all up." In this state of mind, he
petitioned the government for - I want a word again, gentlemen -
what do you call that which they give to people when it's found
out, at last, that they've never been of any use, and have been
paid too much for doing nothing?'
'Compensation?' suggested the vice.
'That's it,' said the chairman. 'Compensation. They didn't give
it him, though, and then he got very fond of his country all at
once, and went about saying that gas was a death-blow to his native
land, and that it was a plot of the radicals to ruin the country
and destroy the oil and cotton trade for ever, and that the whales
would go and kill themselves privately, out of sheer spite and
vexation at not being caught. At last he got right-down cracked;
called his tobacco-pipe a gas-pipe; thought his tears were lamp-
oil; and went on with all manner of nonsense of that sort, till one
night he hung himself on a lamp-iron in Saint Martin's Lane, and
there was an end of HIM.
'Tom loved him, gentlemen, but he survived it. He shed a tear over
his grave, got very drunk, spoke a funeral oration that night in
the watch-house, and was fined five shillings for it, in the
morning. Some men are none the worse for this sort of thing. Tom
was one of 'em. He went that very afternoon on a new beat: as
clear in his head, and as free from fever as Father Mathew himself.
'Tom's new beat, gentlemen, was - I can't exactly say where, for
that he'd never tell; but I know it was in a quiet part of town,
where there were some queer old houses. I have always had it in my
head that it must have been somewhere near Canonbury Tower in
Islington, but that's a matter of opinion. Wherever it was, he
went upon it, with a bran-new ladder, a white hat, a brown holland
jacket and trousers, a blue neck-kerchief, and a sprig of full-
blown double wall-flower in his button-hole. Tom was always
genteel in his appearance, and I have heard from the best judges,
that if he had left his ladder at home that afternoon, you might
have took him for a lord.
'He was always merry, was Tom, and such a singer, that if there was
any encouragement for native talent, he'd have been at the opera.
He was on his ladder, lighting his first lamp, and singing to
himself in a manner more easily to be conceived than described,
when he hears the clock strike five, and suddenly sees an old
gentleman with a telescope in his hand, throw up a window and look
at him very hard.
'Tom didn't know what could be passing in this old gentleman's
mind. He thought it likely enough that he might be saying within
himself, "Here's a new lamplighter - a good-looking young fellow -
shall I stand something to drink?" Thinking this possible, he
keeps quite still, pretending to be very particular about the wick,
and looks at the old gentleman sideways, seeming to take no notice
of him.
'Gentlemen, he was one of the strangest and most mysterious-looking
files that ever Tom clapped his eyes on. He was dressed all
slovenly and untidy, in a great gown of a kind of bed-furniture
pattern, with a cap of the same on his head; and a long old flapped
waistcoat; with no braces, no strings, very few buttons - in short,
with hardly any of those artificial contrivances that hold society
together. Tom knew by these signs, and by his not being shaved,
and by his not being over-clean, and by a sort of wisdom not quite
awake, in his face, that he was a scientific old gentleman. He
often told me that if he could have conceived the possibility of
the whole Royal Society being boiled down into one man, he should
have said the old gentleman's body was that Body.
'The old gentleman claps the telescope to his eye, looks all round,
sees nobody else in sight, stares at Tom again, and cries out very
loud:
'"Hal-loa!"
'"Halloa, Sir," says Tom from the ladder; "and halloa again, if you
come to that."
'"Here's an extraordinary fulfilment," says the old gentleman, "of
a prediction of the planets."
'"Is there?" says Tom. "I'm very glad to hear it."
'"Young man," says the old gentleman, "you don't know me."
'"Sir," says Tom, "I have not that honour; but I shall be happy to
drink your health, notwithstanding."
'"I read," cries the old gentleman, without taking any notice of
this politeness on Tom's part - "I read what's going to happen, in
the stars."
'Tom thanked him for the information, and begged to know if
anything particular was going to happen in the stars, in the course
of a week or so; but the old gentleman, correcting him, explained
that he read in the stars what was going to happen on dry land, and
that he was acquainted with all the celestial bodies.
'"I hope they're all well, Sir," says Tom, - "everybody."
'"Hush!" cries the old gentleman. "I have consulted the book of
Fate with rare and wonderful success. I am versed in the great
sciences of astrology and astronomy. In my house here, I have
every description of apparatus for observing the course and motion
of the planets. Six months ago, I derived from this source, the
knowledge that precisely as the clock struck five this afternoon a
stranger would present himself - the destined husband of my young
and lovely niece - in reality of illustrious and high descent, but
whose birth would be enveloped in uncertainty and mystery. Don't
tell me yours isn't," says the old gentleman, who was in such a
hurry to speak that he couldn't get the words out fast enough, "for
I know better."
'Gentlemen, Tom was so astonished when he heard him say this, that
he could hardly keep his footing on the ladder, and found it
necessary to hold on by the lamp-post. There WAS a mystery about
his birth. His mother had always admitted it. Tom had never known
who was his father, and some people had gone so far as to say that
even SHE was in doubt.
'While he was in this state of amazement, the old gentleman leaves
the window, bursts out of the house-door, shakes the ladder, and
Tom, like a ripe pumpkin, comes sliding down into his arms.
'"Let me embrace you," he says, folding his arms about him, and
nearly lighting up his old bed-furniture gown at Tom's link.
"You're a man of noble aspect. Everything combines to prove the
accuracy of my observations. You have had mysterious promptings
within you," he says; "I know you have had whisperings of
greatness, eh?" he says.
'"I think I have," says Tom - Tom was one of those who can persuade
themselves to anything they like - "I've often thought I wasn't the
small beer I was taken for."
'"You were right," cries the old gentleman, hugging him again.
"Come in. My niece awaits us."
'"Is the young lady tolerable good-looking, Sir?" says Tom, hanging
fire rather, as he thought of her playing the piano, and knowing
French, and being up to all manner of accomplishments.
'"She's beautiful!" cries the old gentleman, who was in such a
terrible bustle that he was all in a perspiration. "She has a
graceful carriage, an exquisite shape, a sweet voice, a countenance
beaming with animation and expression; and the eye," he says,
rubbing his hands, "of a startled fawn."
'Tom supposed this might mean, what was called among his circle of
acquaintance, "a game eye;" and, with a view to this defect,
inquired whether the young lady had any cash.
'"She has five thousand pounds," cries the old gentleman. "But
what of that? what of that? A word in your ear. I'm in search of
the philosopher's stone. I have very nearly found it - not quite.
It turns everything to gold; that's its property."
'Tom naturally thought it must have a deal of property; and said
that when the old gentleman did get it, he hoped he'd be careful to
keep it in the family.
'"Certainly," he says, "of course. Five thousand pounds! What's
five thousand pounds to us? What's five million?" he says.
"What's five thousand million? Money will be nothing to us. We
shall never be able to spend it fast enough."
'"We'll try what we can do, Sir," says Tom.
'"We will," says the old gentleman. "Your name?"
'"Grig," says Tom.
'The old gentleman embraced him again, very tight; and without
speaking another word, dragged him into the house in such an
excited manner, that it was as much as Tom could do to take his
link and ladder with him, and put them down in the passage.
'Gentlemen, if Tom hadn't been always remarkable for his love of
truth, I think you would still have believed him when he said that
all this was like a dream. There is no better way for a man to
find out whether he is really asleep or awake, than calling for
something to eat. If he's in a dream, gentlemen, he'll find
something wanting in flavour, depend upon it.
'Tom explained his doubts to the old gentleman, and said that if
there was any cold meat in the house, it would ease his mind very
much to test himself at once. The old gentleman ordered up a
venison pie, a small ham, and a bottle of very old Madeira. At the
first mouthful of pie and the first glass of wine, Tom smacks his
lips and cries out, "I'm awake - wide awake;" and to prove that he
was so, gentlemen, he made an end of 'em both.
'When Tom had finished his meal (which he never spoke of afterwards
without tears in his eyes), the old gentleman hugs him again, and
says, "Noble stranger! let us visit my young and lovely niece."
Tom, who was a little elevated with the wine, replies, "The noble
stranger is agreeable!" At which words the old gentleman took him
by the hand, and led him to the parlour; crying as he opened the
door, "Here is Mr. Grig, the favourite of the planets!"
'I will not attempt a description of female beauty, gentlemen, for
every one of us has a model of his own that suits his own taste
best. In this parlour that I'm speaking of, there were two young
ladies; and if every gentleman present, will imagine two models of
his own in their places, and will be kind enough to polish 'em up
to the very highest pitch of perfection, he will then have a faint
conception of their uncommon radiance.
'Besides these two young ladies, there was their waiting-woman,
that under any other circumstances Tom would have looked upon as a
Venus; and besides her, there was a tall, thin, dismal-faced young
gentleman, half man and half boy, dressed in a childish suit of
clothes very much too short in the legs and arms; and looking,
according to Tom's comparison, like one of the wax juveniles from a
tailor's door, grown up and run to seed. Now, this youngster
stamped his foot upon the ground and looked very fierce at Tom, and
Tom looked fierce at him - for to tell the truth, gentlemen, Tom
more than half suspected that when they entered the room he was
kissing one of the young ladies; and for anything Tom knew, you
observe, it might be HIS young lady - which was not pleasant.
'"Sir," says Tom, "before we proceed any further, will you have the
goodness to inform me who this young Salamander" - Tom called him
that for aggravation, you perceive, gentlemen - "who this young
Salamander may be?"
'"That, Mr. Grig," says the old gentleman, "is my little boy. He
was christened Galileo Isaac Newton Flamstead. Don't mind him.
He's a mere child."
'"And a very fine child too," says Tom - still aggravating, you'll
observe - "of his age, and as good as fine, I have no doubt. How
do you do, my man?" with which kind and patronising expressions,
Tom reached up to pat him on the head, and quoted two lines about
little boys, from Doctor Watts's Hymns, which he had learnt at a
Sunday School.
'It was very easy to see, gentlemen, by this youngster's frowning
and by the waiting-maid's tossing her head and turning up her nose,
and by the young ladies turning their backs and talking together at
the other end of the room, that nobody but the old gentleman took
very kindly to the noble stranger. Indeed, Tom plainly heard the
waiting-woman say of her master, that so far from being able to
read the stars as he pretended, she didn't believe he knew his
letters in 'em, or at best that he had got further than words in
one syllable; but Tom, not minding this (for he was in spirits
after the Madeira), looks with an agreeable air towards the young
ladies, and, kissing his hand to both, says to the old gentleman,
"Which is which?"
'"This," says the old gentleman, leading out the handsomest, if one
of 'em could possibly be said to be handsomer than the other -
"this is my niece, Miss Fanny Barker."
'"If you'll permit me, Miss," says Tom, "being a noble stranger and
a favourite of the planets, I will conduct myself as such." With
these words, he kisses the young lady in a very affable way, turns
to the old gentleman, slaps him on the back, and says, "When's it
to come off, my buck?"
'The young lady coloured so deep, and her lip trembled so much,
gentlemen, that Tom really thought she was going to cry. But she
kept her feelings down, and turning to the old gentleman, says,
"Dear uncle, though you have the absolute disposal of my hand and
fortune, and though you mean well in disposing of 'em thus, I ask
you whether you don't think this is a mistake? Don't you think,
dear uncle," she says, "that the stars must be in error? Is it not
possible that the comet may have put 'em out?"
'"The stars," says the old gentleman, "couldn't make a mistake if
they tried. Emma," he says to the other young lady.
'"Yes, papa," says she.
'"The same day that makes your cousin Mrs. Grig will unite you to
the gifted Mooney. No remonstrance - no tears. Now, Mr. Grig, let
me conduct you to that hallowed ground, that philosophical retreat,
where my friend and partner, the gifted Mooney of whom I have just
now spoken, is even now pursuing those discoveries which shall
enrich us with the precious metal, and make us masters of the
world. Come, Mr. Grig," he says.
'"With all my heart, Sir," replies Tom; "and luck to the gifted
Mooney, say I - not so much on his account as for our worthy
selves!" With this sentiment, Tom kissed his hand to the ladies
again, and followed him out; having the gratification to perceive,
as he looked back, that they were all hanging on by the arms and
legs of Galileo Isaac Newton Flamstead, to prevent him from
following the noble stranger, and tearing him to pieces.
'Gentlemen, Tom's father-in-law that was to be, took him by the
hand, and having lighted a little lamp, led him across a paved
court-yard at the back of the house, into a very large, dark,
gloomy room: filled with all manner of bottles, globes, books,
telescopes, crocodiles, alligators, and other scientific
instruments of every kind. In the centre of this room was a stove
or furnace, with what Tom called a pot, but which in my opinion was
a crucible, in full boil. In one corner was a sort of ladder
leading through the roof; and up this ladder the old gentleman
pointed, as he said in a whisper:
'"The observatory. Mr. Mooney is even now watching for the precise
time at which we are to come into all the riches of the earth. It
will be necessary for he and I, alone in that silent place, to cast
your nativity before the hour arrives. Put the day and minute of
your birth on this piece of paper, and leave the rest to me."
'"You don't mean to say," says Tom, doing as he was told and giving
him back the paper, "that I'm to wait here long, do you? It's a
precious dismal place."
'"Hush!" says the old gentleman. "It's hallowed ground.
Farewell!"
'"Stop a minute," says Tom. "What a hurry you're in! What's in
that large bottle yonder?"
'"It's a child with three heads," says the old gentleman; "and
everything else in proportion."
'"Why don't you throw him away?" says Tom. "What do you keep such
unpleasant things here for?"
'"Throw him away!" cries the old gentleman. "We use him constantly
in astrology. He's a charm."
'"I shouldn't have thought it," says Tom, "from his appearance.
MUST you go, I say?"
'The old gentleman makes him no answer, but climbs up the ladder in
a greater bustle than ever. Tom looked after his legs till there
was nothing of him left, and then sat down to wait; feeling (so he
used to say) as comfortable as if he was going to be made a
freemason, and they were heating the pokers.
'Tom waited so long, gentlemen, that he began to think it must be
getting on for midnight at least, and felt more dismal and lonely
than ever he had done in all his life. He tried every means of
whiling away the time, but it never had seemed to move so slow.
First, he took a nearer view of the child with three heads, and
thought what a comfort it must have been to his parents. Then he
looked up a long telescope which was pointed out of the window, but
saw nothing particular, in consequence of the stopper being on at
the other end. Then he came to a skeleton in a glass case,
labelled, "Skeleton of a Gentleman - prepared by Mr. Mooney," -
which made him hope that Mr. Mooney might not be in the habit of
preparing gentlemen that way without their own consent. A hundred
times, at least, he looked into the pot where they were boiling the
philosopher's stone down to the proper consistency, and wondered
whether it was nearly done. "When it is," thinks Tom, "I'll send
out for six-penn'orth of sprats, and turn 'em into gold fish for a
first experiment." Besides which, he made up his mind, gentlemen,
to have a country-house and a park; and to plant a bit of it with a
double row of gas-lamps a mile long, and go out every night with a
French-polished mahogany ladder, and two servants in livery behind
him, to light 'em for his own pleasure.
'At length and at last, the old gentleman's legs appeared upon the
steps leading through the roof, and he came slowly down: bringing
along with him, the gifted Mooney. This Mooney, gentlemen, was
even more scientific in appearance than his friend; and had, as Tom
often declared upon his word and honour, the dirtiest face we can
possibly know of, in this imperfect state of existence.
'Gentlemen, you are all aware that if a scientific man isn't absent
in his mind, he's of no good at all. Mr. Mooney was so absent,
that when the old gentleman said to him, "Shake hands with Mr.
Grig," he put out his leg. "Here's a mind, Mr. Grig!" cries the
old gentleman in a rapture. "Here's philosophy! Here's
rumination! Don't disturb him," he says, "for this is amazing!"
'Tom had no wish to disturb him, having nothing particular to say;
but he was so uncommonly amazing, that the old gentleman got
impatient, and determined to give him an electric shock to bring
him to - "for you must know, Mr. Grig," he says, "that we always
keep a strongly charged battery, ready for that purpose." These
means being resorted to, gentlemen, the gifted Mooney revived with
a loud roar, and he no sooner came to himself than both he and the
old gentleman looked at Tom with compassion, and shed tears
abundantly.
'"My dear friend," says the old gentleman to the Gifted, "prepare
him."
'"I say," cries Tom, falling back, "none of that, you know. No
preparing by Mr. Mooney if you please."