Читать книгу The Scouring of the White Horse - Hughes Thomas - Страница 3

“Richard,” said our governor, as I entered his room at five o’clock on the afternoon of the 31st of August, 1857, running his pen down the columns of the salary-book, “your quarter-day to-day, I think? Let me see; you were raised to £ – a-year in February last, – so much for quarter’s salary, and so much for extra work. I am glad to see that you have been working so steadily; you’ll deserve your holiday, and enjoy it all the more. You’ll find that all right, I think;” and he pushed a small paper across the table towards me, on which my account was stated in our cashier’s hand, and looked at me over his spectacles.

My heart jumped at the mention of my holiday; I just ran my eye down the figures, and was glad to find the total a pound or two higher than I had expected. For I had lately learnt shorthand, and had been taking notes for our firm, for which I found they allowed me extra pay.

“Quite right, Sir,” I said; “and I’m sure I’m much obliged to you, Sir, for letting me do the extra work, because – ”

“Well, never mind that,” said he, with a little laugh; “I shouldn’t give you the extra work, Richard, if it didn’t suit me, or if I could get it better done anywhere else; so the account’s all square on that point. There’s your money.”

And he pushed over to me a very nice sum of money. I dare say you would like to know what it was, reader. Now, I’m not going to tell you. Why should you know just what my income is? I don’t owe you or any one else five shillings, and have a very tidy account at the savings’ bank, besides having paid for all the furniture and books in my room, not very far from Lambsconduit Street, which I reckon to be worth fifty pounds of any man’s money; so you see my income is enough to keep me before the world, and I wish more of you could say as much.

“I’m very much obliged, Sir,” said I again, as I wrote a receipt over a stamp which I took out of my pocket-book, and stuck on to the bottom of the account.

“No, you’re not,” said our governor, quite short; “it’s your own money, fairly earned. You’re not obliged to any man for giving you what’s your own.” He is such an odd fellow about these things. But mind you, I think he’s quite right, too; for, after all, no doubt each of us earns a good penny for him over and above what he pays us, else why should he keep us on? but, somehow, one can’t help thanking any one who pays one money; at least, I can’t.

“Now, as to your holiday,” went on our governor. “There’s Jobson went for his fortnight on the 30th; he’ll be back on the 14th of September, at latest. You can take any time you like, after that.”

“Then, Sir,” said I directly, “I should like it as soon as possible.”

“Very well,” said he; “Tuesday the 16th to Tuesday the 29th of September, both inclusive;” and he made a note in another book which lay on his desk. “Good evening, Richard.”

“Good evening, Sir,” said I; and away I went down to our room in as good spirits as any young fellow in our quarter of London.

Of course all the other clerks began shouting out at once to know how much money I’d got, and when I was going to have my holiday. Well, I didn’t tell them what money I had, any more than I’ve told you, because I like to keep my own counsel about such matters. Besides, there are several of our clerks whose ways I don’t at all like; so I don’t do any thing I can help which might look as if I liked them. No! hands off, is my motto with these sort of chaps.

I’m sure there’s no pride about me, though. My name’s Easy, and always was; and I like every fellow, whatever his coat is, who isn’t always thinking about the cut of it, or what he has in the pocket of it. But, goodness knows, I can’t stand a fellow who gives himself airs, and thinks himself a chalk above everybody who can’t dress and do just as he can. Those chaps, I always see, are just the ones to do lick-spittle to those that they think have more in their pockets than themselves.

But I must get on with my story, for you don’t all want to know my opinions about the clerks in our office, I dare say.

Well, when I got down, as I said before, we were all just on the move, (business hours being from nine till six in our office,) taking down coats and hats, and clearing desks for the night, so I just sidled up to Jem Fisher, and little Neddy Baily, who are the two I like best, and told them to come up to my room to supper at eight o’clock, which they of course were very glad to promise to do, and then I went off to get ready for them.

Jem Fisher and I are very fond of a dish which I believe very few of you ever heard of. One Sunday in May, a year or two back, he and I had been down beyond Notting Hill, listening to the nightingales; and coming back, we walked through Kensington Gardens, and came out at the gate into the Notting Hill Road, close to Hyde Park. We were late, for us, so we hailed a ’bus, and got on the box. The driver was full of talk about all the fine people he had been seeing walking in the gardens that afternoon, and seemed to think it hard he couldn’t enjoy himself just as they did. “However, gentlemen,” said he at last, “there’s some things as the haristocracy ain’t alive to. Did you ever eat cow-heel?” Perhaps Jem, who had all his best clothes on, didn’t mind being taken for one of the aristocracy; at least just for a minute, for he’s too good a fellow to like being taken for anybody but himself when he comes to think of it; at any rate, he and I took to eating cow-heel from that time. So the first thing I did, after going home and locking up most of my money, and speaking to my landlady, who is the best old soul alive if you take her in her own way, was, to set off to Clare Market, and buy some cow-heel and sausages; and on my way back through the Turnstile, I thought, as it was so hot, I would have some fruit too; so I bought a pottle of plums and a piece of a pine-apple, and got home.

They came in sharp to time, and I and my landlady had every thing ready, and two foaming pewter pots full of bitter beer and porter. So we had a capital supper, and then cleared it all away, and sat down to eat the fruit and have a quiet pipe by the time it began to get dark.

“And so,” said little Neddy, (he is only just eighteen, and hasn’t been in our office a year yet; but he’s such a clever, industrious little chap, that he has gone over the heads of half a dozen of our youngsters, and hasn’t stopped yet by a long way,) “you’re off on the 15th! wish I was. Well, here’s luck any how,” said he, nodding to me, and taking a bite out of a slice of pine-apple.

“Gentle Shepherd, tell me where?” said Jem Fisher. (Jem is very fond of quoting poetry; not that I think half that he quotes is real poetry, only how is one to find him out? Jem is a tall, good-looking fellow, as old as I am, and that’s twenty-one last birthday; we came into the office together years ago, and have been very thick ever since, which I sometimes wonder at, for Jem is a bit of a swell – Gentleman Jem they call him in the office.) “Now, Dick, where are you bound for?”

“Well, that’s more than I know myself,” said I.

“Then,” said he, taking his pipe out of his pocket and filling it, “I vote we settle for him, eh, Neddy?”

“Aye, aye, Sir,” said Neddy, stretching over for the pottle; “but, I say, Jem, you haven’t finished all those plums?” and he poked about in the leaves with his fingers.

“Every mother’s son of them,” said Jem, lighting a lucifer; “if you come to that, Master Ned, hand me over some of that pine-apple. But now, about the tour; how much money are you going to spend on it, Dick?”

“Well, I haven’t quite settled,” said I; “but I shouldn’t mind, now, going as high as four or five pounds, if I can suit myself.”

“You may go pretty near to Jericho for that now-a-days,” said Neddy. “As I came along Holborn to-night, I saw a great placard outside the George and Blue Boar, with ‘to Llangollen and back 15s.’ on it. What do you think of that? You’ll be turned out at the station there with £4 5s. in your pocket.”

“Where’s Llangollen?” said I.

“Not half-way to Jericho,” shouted Jem, with a laugh. “Where’s Llangollen? Why didn’t you ever hear the song of Kitty Morgan, the maid of Llangollen? You’re a pretty fellow to go touring.”

“Yes, fifty times,” said I; “only the song don’t tell you where the place is – where is it now?”

“In Wales, of course,” said he, thinking he had me.

“Yes, I know that; but whereabouts in Wales,” said I, “for Wales is a biggish place. Is it near any thing one reads about in books, and ought to go and see?”

“Hanged if I know exactly,” said Jem, puffing away; “only of course Wales is worth seeing.”

“So is France,” struck in Neddy; “why, you may go to Paris and stay a fortnight for I don’t know how little.”

“Aye, or to Edinburgh or the Lakes,” said Jem.

“I want to have the particulars though,” said I; “I’m not going to start off to some foreign place, and find myself with no money to spend and enjoy myself with, when I get there.”

“I’ll tell you what,” said Neddy, jumping up, “I’ll just run round to the Working Men’s College, and borrow a Bradshaw from the secretary. We shall find all the cheap excursions there;” and away he went before we could say a word.

“I say,” said Jem to me, “how fond he is of bringing up that place; he’s always at me to go and enter there.”

“So he is at me,” said I, “and I think I shall, for he seems to pick up a lot of things there. How sharp he is at figures! and he knows more history and geography ten to one than I do. I’ll bet he knew what county Llangollen is in, and something about it too. Let’s ask him when he comes back.”

“Catch me!” said Jem; “he’ll look it out on the map on his way back, or ask one of the lecturers.”

“Here you are! look here!” said Neddy, tumbling in with two Bradshaws and a great atlas under his arm; “‘unprecedented attraction, pleasure excursions,’ let me see – Return tickets for Ireland, available for a fortnight. Waterford, 1l. 16s.; Cork, 2l.”

“Nonsense!” cried Jem, who had got the other Bradshaw; “listen here: ‘Channel Islands, (remarkable as being the only remaining Norman possessions of the British crown,) second class and fore cabin, 21s.”

“‘London to Dieppe, return tickets available for fourteen days, second class, 21s.,’” sung out Ned, from the other Bradshaw.

And away they went, with Brussels, and Bangor, and the Manchester Exhibition, and Plymouth and Glasgow, and the Isle of Man, and Margate and Ramsgate, and the Isle of Wight; and then to Gibraltar and Malta and New York, and all over the world. I sat and smoked my pipe, for ’twas no use trying to settle any thing; but presently, when they got tired, we set to work and began to put down the figures. However, that wasn’t much better, for there were such a lot of tours to go; and one was a bit too short, and the other too long, and this cost too much, and that too little; so all the beer was gone, and we were no nearer settling any thing when eleven o’clock struck.

“Well,” said Jem, getting up and knocking the ashes out of his third pipe, “I declare it’s almost as good as going a tour one’s self, settling it for Dick here.”

“I just wish you had settled it,” said I; “I’m more puzzled than when we began.”

“Heigh-ho, fellows never know when they’re well off,” said Neddy; “now I never get a chance. In my holiday I just go down to the old folk at Romford, and there I stick.”

“They don’t indeed,” said I; “I wonder to hear you talk like that, Ned. Some folks would give all they’re worth to have old folk to go to.”

“Well, I didn’t mean it,” said he, looking hurt. And I don’t believe he did, for a kinder hearted fellow don’t live; and I was half sorry I had said what I did say.

“Further deliberation will be necessary,” said Jem, lighting his fourth pipe; “we’ll come again to-morrow night; your bacchy’s nearly out, Dick; lay in some bird’s eye for to-morrow; real Bristol, do you hear?”

“Time to go, I suppose,” said Ned, getting up and gathering the Bradshaws and atlas together; “are we to come again to-morrow, Dick?”

“To-morrow, didst thou say? methought I heard Horatio say to-morrow. Go to; it is a thing of naught,” and Jem clapped on his hat and began ranting in his way; so I broke in —

“I wish you’d hold that noise, and talk sense,” said I.

“Shakspeare!” said Jem, stopping short and pulling up his collar.

“Gammon!” said Neddy, bursting out laughing.

“That’s right, Neddy,” said I; “he’s always going off with some of his nonsense, and calling it poetry.”

“I didn’t say it was poetry, did I?” said Jem.

“What is it then?” said I.

“Blank verse,” said he.

“What’s the difference?” said I.

“Go up the mill-dam, fall down slam, dat poetry; go up the mill-dam, fall down whoppo’, dat plank verse,” said he. “Go along nigger – had him dere, nigger,” and he turned in his knees and grinned, like one of those poor beggars who black their faces and go about the streets with red striped trowsers, white ties, and banjos.

“You ought to be a nigger yourself, Jem,” said I, “and I should just like to have the driving of you. There, tumble out with you; it’s time for steady folks to turn in.”

So I turned them out and held the candle, while they floundered down stairs, that wretch, Jem, singing, “There’s some ’un in de house wid Dinah,” loud enough to be heard at the Foundling. I was glad to hear my landlady catch him at the bottom of the stairs, and give it him well about “a respectable house,” and “what she was used to with her gents,” while she opened the door; only I don’t see what right she had to give it me all over again next morning at breakfast, and call Jem Fisher a wild young man, and bad company, because that’s just what he isn’t, only a little noisy sometimes. And as if I’m not to have who I please up to my room without her interfering! I pay my rent regular every month, I know. However, I didn’t mind much what she said at breakfast time, because I had got a letter from the country. I don’t get a letter once a month, and it’s very odd this one should have come on this very morning, when I was puzzling where to go for my holiday; and I dare say you’ll think so too, when I tell you what it was about. Let’s see – here it is in my pocket, so you shall have it whole: —

“Elm Close Farm, Berks, August 31, 1857.

“Dear Dick, – You know you owe me a visit, for you’ve never been down here, often as I’ve asked you, since we was at school together – and I have been up to you four or five times. Now, why I particularly want you to come this month is, because we’ve got some sport to show you down in these quiet parts, which don’t happen every day. You see there’s an old White Horse cut out in the side of the highest hill hereabouts, (a regular break-neck place it is, and there ain’t three men in the country as’ll ride along the hill-side under the Horse,) and many folks sets a good deal of store by it, and seems to think the world’d come to an end if the horse wasn’t kept all straight. May be I’m a bit of that mind myself – anyhow you’ll see by the paper inside what’s going on; and being a scholar, may be you’ll know about the White Horse, and like to come down to a scouring. And I can tell you it will be good fun; for I remember the last, when I was quite a little chap, before I went to school, and I’ve never seen such games since. You’ve only got to write and say what train you’ll come by, and I’ll meet you at the Farringdon-road station in my trap. So, as I ain’t much of a penman, excuse mistakes, and remember me to Fisher and the others I met at your place; and no more at present from yours truly.

“Joseph Hurst.

“P. S. – You must stay as long as you can, and I’ll mount you on my young bay colt to see a cub killed.”

I shouldn’t print Joe’s letter whole, (and as it is I’ve put a good deal of the spelling right,) only I’m quite sure he’ll never read this book, and I hope it may serve as a warning to young fellows to keep up their learning when they go and settle down in the country. For when Joe left the Commercial Academy at Brentford, he could write just as good English as I, and if he had put “many folks seems to think,” or “you’ve only got to write,” in a theme, old Hopkins would have given him a good caning. But nothing wears out learning so quick as living in the country and farming, and Joe came into his farm when he was nineteen, and has been at it ever since. And after all, perhaps, it doesn’t much signify, because nobody makes himself better understood than Joe, in one way or another; and if he wasn’t a little behindhand in his grammar, he wouldn’t think much of me perhaps – and one don’t mind being taken for a scholar, even by those who are not the best judges in the world.

Well, thinks I to myself, as I finished my breakfast, this seems like business. If I go down to Joe’s, and stay there all my holiday, the fares will be only seventeen shillings; and, say a pound for expenses down there; one pound seventeen shillings, say two pounds in all. I shall put three pounds into my pocket, and please an old friend, which will be much better than any thing Jem Fisher and little Neddy Baily will hit out for me in a week from the end of Bradshaw. Besides, it will look well to be able to talk of going to a friend in Berkshire. I’ll write to Joe, and say I’ll be with him in good time on the 15th.

So I went down to the office and told Jem Fisher and little Neddy, that I had made up my mind to go and see my old friend Joe, in Berkshire, before they had had time to get their office coats on.

“What? that jolly fellow with the brown face and red whiskers,” said Jem, “who came up and slept in your room last Christmas cattle-show, and wanted to fight the cabman for a gallon of beer, who charged him half-a-crown from Baker Street to Gray’s Inn Lane?”

“Yes,” said I, “that’s the man.”

“I remember him well,” said Neddy; “and I’m sure you’ll have a good time of it if you go to see him. But, I say, how about supper to-night? You won’t want us and the Bradshaws any more, eh?”

“Oh, he isn’t going to get out of it like that,” said Jem, as he settled to his desk, and got his work out. “I say, Dick, you’re not going to be off now, are you? I know better.”

“I never was on that I know of,” said I; “however, I don’t mind standing supper at the Cheshire Cheese; but I won’t have you fellows up in my room again to-night, kicking up a row on the stairs. No! just catch me at it!”

So I gave them a supper that night, and another the night after I came back from my holiday.

They seemed just the same, but how different I felt. Only two short weeks had passed, but I was as much changed as if it had been ten years. I had found something which I never could get rid of, day or night, and which kept me always in a fret and a struggle. What a life I led with it! Sometimes it cast me down and made me ready to hang myself; and then, again, it would lift me up, and seem to fill me with warmth and sunshine. But, somehow, even when I was at the worst, if an enchanter had come and offered to wipe it all out, and to put me back just where I was the night before my holiday, I should have said “No;” and at all other times I felt that it was the most precious part of my life. What was it? Ah, what was it? Some of you will smile, and some of you will sneer, when you find out, as you will (if you don’t skip) before you get to the end of my story. And I can’t see the least reason why I should help you to it a minute sooner.