The Seven Poor Travellers

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Transcribed from the 1894 Chapman and best kids pottery kits for 13 year olds under 10 dollarsHall edition of “ChristmasStories” by David Price, email [email protected]

THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS—IN THREE CHAPTERS

CHAPTER I—IN THE OLD CITY OF ROCHESTER

Strictly speaking, there were only six Poor Travellers; but, beinga Traveller myself, though an idle one, and being withal as poor asI hope to be, I brought the number up to seven.  This word of explanationis due at once, for what says the inscription over the quaint old door?

RICHARD WATTS, Esq.
by his Will, dated 22 Aug. 1579,
founded this Charity
for Six poor Travellers,
who not being ROGUES, or PROCTORS,
May receive gratis for one Night,
Lodging, Entertainment,
and Fourpence each.

It was in the ancient little city of Rochester in Kent, of all thegood days in the year upon a Christmas-eve, that I stood reading thisinscription over the quaint old door in question.  I had been wanderingabout the neighbouring Cathedral, and had seen the tomb of Richard Watts,with the effigy of worthy Master Richard starting out of it like a ship’sfigure-head; and I had felt that I could do no less, as I gave the Vergerhis fee, than inquire the way to Watts’s Charity.  The waybeing very short and very plain, I had come prosperously to the inscriptionand the quaint old door.

“Now,” said I to myself, as I looked at the knocker,“I know I am not a Proctor; I wonder whether I am a Rogue!”

Upon the whole, though Conscience reproduced two or three prettyfaces which might have had smaller attraction for a moral Goliath thanthey had had for me, who am but a Tom Thumb in that way, I came to theconclusion that I was not a Rogue.  So, beginning to regard theestablishment as in some sort my property, bequeathed to me and diversco-legatees, share and share alike, by the Worshipful Master RichardWatts, I stepped backward into the road to survey my inheritance.

I found it to be a clean white house, of a staid and venerable air,with the quaint old door already three times mentioned (an arched door),choice little long low lattice-windows, and a roof of three gables. The silent High Street of Rochester is full of gables, with old beamsand timbers carved into strange faces.  It is oddly garnished witha queer old clock that projects over the pavement out of a grave red-brickbuilding, as if Time carried on business there, and hung out his sign. Sooth to say, he did an active stroke of work in Rochester, in the olddays of the Romans, and the Saxons, and the Normans; and down to thetimes of King John, when the rugged castle—I will not undertaketo say how many hundreds of years old then—was abandoned to thecenturies of weather which have so defaced the dark apertures in itswalls, that the ruin looks as if the rooks and daws had pecked its eyesout.

I was very well pleased, both with my property and its situation. While I was yet surveying it with growing content, I espied, at oneof the upper lattices which stood open, a decent body, of a wholesomematronly appearance, whose eyes I caught inquiringly addressed to mine. They said so plainly, “Do you wish to see the house?” thatI answered aloud, “Yes, if you please.”  And withina minute the old door opened, and I bent my head, and went down twosteps into the entry.

“This,” said the matronly presence, ushering me intoa low room on the right, “is where the Travellers sit by the fire,and cook what bits of suppers they buy with their fourpences.”

“O!  Then they have no Entertainment?” said I. For the inscription over the outer door was still running in my head,and I was mentally repeating, in a kind of tune, “Lodging, entertainment,and fourpence each.”

“They have a fire provided for ’em,” returned thematron—a mighty civil person, not, as I could make out, overpaid;“and these cooking utensils.  And this what’s paintedon a board is the rules for their behaviour.  They have their fourpenceswhen they get their tickets from the steward over the way,—forI don’t admit ’em myself, they must get their tickets first,—andsometimes one buys a rasher of bacon, and another a herring, and anothera pound of potatoes, or what not.  Sometimes two or three of ’emwill club their fourpences together, and make a supper that way. But not much of anything is to be got for fourpence, at present, whenprovisions is so dear.”

“True indeed,” I remarked.  I had been looking aboutthe room, admiring its snug fireside at the upper end, its glimpse ofthe street through the low mullioned window, and its beams overhead. “It is very comfortable,” said I.

“Ill-conwenient,” observed the matronly presence.

I liked to hear her say so; for it showed a commendable anxiety toexecute in no niggardly spirit the intentions of Master Richard Watts. But the room was really so well adapted to its purpose that I protested,quite enthusiastically, against her disparagement.

“Nay, ma’am,” said I, “I am sure it is warmin winter and cool in summer.  It has a look of homely welcomeand soothing rest.  It has a remarkably cosey fireside, the veryblink of which, gleaming out into the street upon a winter night, isenough to warm all Rochester’s heart.  And as to the convenienceof the six Poor Travellers—”

“I don’t mean them,” returned the presence. “I speak of its being an ill-conwenience to myself and my daughter,having no other room to sit in of a night.”

This was true enough, but there was another quaint room of correspondingdimensions on the opposite side of the entry: so I stepped across toit, through the open doors of both rooms, and asked what this chamberwas for.

“This,” returned the presence, “is the Board Room. Where the gentlemen meet when they come here.”

Let me see.  I had counted from the street six upper windowsbesides these on the ground-story.  Making a perplexed calculationin my mind, I rejoined, “Then the six Poor Travellers sleep upstairs?”

My new friend shook her head.  “They sleep,” sheanswered, “in two little outer galleries at the back, where theirbeds has always been, ever since the Charity was founded.  It beingso very ill-conwenient to me as things is at present, the gentlemenare going to take off a bit of the back-yard, and make a slip of a roomfor ’em there, to sit in before they go to bed.”

“And then the six Poor Travellers,” said I, “willbe entirely out of the house?”

“Entirely out of the house,” assented the presence, comfortablysmoothing her hands.  “Which is considered much better forall parties, and much more conwenient.”

I had been a little startled, in the Cathedral, by the emphasis withwhich the effigy of Master Richard Watts was bursting out of his tomb;but I began to think, now, that it might be expected to come acrossthe High Street some stormy night, and make a disturbance here.

Howbeit, I kept my thoughts to myself, and accompanied the presenceto the little galleries at the back.  I found them on a tiny scale,like the galleries in old inn-yards; and they were very clean.

While I was looking at them, the matron gave me to understand thatthe prescribed number of Poor Travellers were forthcoming every nightfrom year’s end to year’s end; and that the beds were alwaysoccupied.  My questions upon this, and her replies, brought usback to the Board Room so essential to the dignity of “the gentlemen,”where she showed me the printed accounts of the Charity hanging up bythe window.  From them I gathered that the greater part of theproperty bequeathed by the Worshipful Master Richard Watts for the maintenanceof this foundation was, at the period of his death, mere marsh-land;but that, in course of time, it had been reclaimed and built upon, andwas very considerably increased in value.  I found, too, that abouta thirtieth part of the annual revenue was now expended on the purposescommemorated in the inscription over the door; the rest being handsomelylaid out in Chancery, law expenses, collectorship, receivership, poundage,and other appendages of management, highly complimentary to the importanceof the six Poor Travellers.  In short, I made the not entirelynew discovery that it may be said of an establishment like this, indear old England, as of the fat oyster in the American story, that ittakes a good many men to swallow it whole.

“And pray, ma’am,” said I, sensible that the blanknessof my face began to brighten as the thought occurred to me, “couldone see these Travellers?”

“Well!” she returned dubiously, “no!”

“Not to-night, for instance!” said I.

“Well!” she returned more positively, “no. Nobody ever asked to see them, and nobody ever did see them.”

As I am not easily balked in a design when I am set upon it, I urgedto the good lady that this was Christmas-eve; that Christmas comes butonce a year,—which is unhappily too true, for when it begins tostay with us the whole year round we shall make this earth a very differentplace; that I was possessed by the desire to treat the Travellers toa supper and a temperate glass of hot Wassail; that the voice of Famehad been heard in that land, declaring my ability to make hot Wassail;that if I were permitted to hold the feast, I should be found conformableto reason, sobriety, and good hours; in a word, that I could be merryand wise myself, and had been even known at a pinch to keep others so,although I was decorated with no badge or medal, and was not a Brother,Orator, Apostle, Saint, or Prophet of any denomination whatever. In the end I prevailed, to my great joy.  It was settled that atnine o’clock that night a Turkey and a piece of Roast Beef shouldsmoke upon the board; and that I, faint and unworthy minister for onceof Master Richard Watts, should preside as the Christmas-supper hostof the six Poor Travellers.

I went back to my inn to give the necessary directions for the Turkeyand Roast Beef, and, during the remainder of the day, could settle tonothing for thinking of the Poor Travellers.  When the wind blewhard against the windows,—it was a cold day, with dark gusts ofsleet alternating with periods of wild brightness, as if the year weredying fitfully,—I pictured them advancing towards their resting-placealong various cold roads, and felt delighted to think how little theyforesaw the supper that awaited them.  I painted their portraitsin my mind, and indulged in little heightening touches.  I madethem footsore; I made them weary; I made them carry packs and bundles;I made them stop by finger-posts and milestones, leaning on their bentsticks, and looking wistfully at what was written there; I made themlose their way; and filled their five wits with apprehensions of lyingout all night, and being frozen to death.  I took up my hat, andwent out, climbed to the top of the Old Castle, and looked over thewindy hills that slope down to the Medway, almost believing that I coulddescry some of my Travellers in the distance.  After it fell dark,and the Cathedral bell was heard in the invisible steeple—quitea bower of frosty rime when I had last seen it—striking five,six, seven, I became so full of my Travellers that I could eat no dinner,and felt constrained to watch them still in the red coals of my fire. They were all arrived by this time, I thought, had got their tickets,and were gone in.—There my pleasure was dashed by the reflectionthat probably some Travellers had come too late and were shut out.

After the Cathedral bell had struck eight, I could smell a delicioussavour of Turkey and Roast Beef rising to the window of my adjoiningbedroom, which looked down into the inn-yard just where the lights ofthe kitchen reddened a massive fragment of the Castle Wall.  Itwas high time to make the Wassail now; therefore I had up the materials(which, together with their proportions and combinations, I must declineto impart, as the only secret of my own I was ever known to keep), andmade a glorious jorum.  Not in a bowl; for a bowl anywhere buton a shelf is a low superstition, fraught with cooling and slopping;but in a brown earthenware pitcher, tenderly suffocated, when full,with a coarse cloth.  It being now upon the stroke of nine, I setout for Watts’s Charity, carrying my brown beauty in my arms. I would trust Ben, the waiter, with untold gold; but there are stringsin the human heart which must never be sounded by another, and drinksthat I make myself are those strings in mine.

The Travellers were all assembled, the cloth was laid, and Ben hadbrought a great billet of wood, and had laid it artfully on the topof the fire, so that a touch or two of the poker after supper shouldmake a roaring blaze.  Having deposited my brown beauty in a rednook of the hearth, inside the fender, where she soon began to singlike an ethereal cricket, diffusing at the same time odours as of ripevineyards, spice forests, and orange groves,—I say, having stationedmy beauty in a place of security and improvement, I introduced myselfto my guests by shaking hands all round, and giving them a hearty welcome.

I found the party to be thus composed.  Firstly, myself. Secondly, a very decent man indeed, with his right arm in a sling, whohad a certain clean agreeable smell of wood about him, from which Ijudged him to have something to do with shipbuilding.  Thirdly,a little sailor-boy, a mere child, with a profusion of rich dark brownhair, and deep womanly-looking eyes.  Fourthly, a shabby-genteelpersonage in a threadbare black suit, and apparently in very bad circumstances,with a dry suspicious look; the absent buttons on his waistcoat ekedout with red tape; and a bundle of extraordinarily tattered papers stickingout of an inner breast-pocket.  Fifthly, a foreigner by birth,but an Englishman in speech, who carried his pipe in the band of hishat, and lost no time in telling me, in an easy, simple, engaging way,that he was a watchmaker from Geneva, and travelled all about the Continent,mostly on foot, working as a journeyman, and seeing new countries,—possibly(I thought) also smuggling a watch or so, now and then.  Sixthly,a little widow, who had been very pretty and was still very young, butwhose beauty had been wrecked in some great misfortune, and whose mannerwas remarkably timid, scared, and solitary.  Seventhly and lastly,a Traveller of a kind familiar to my boyhood, but now almost obsolete,—aBook-Pedler, who had a quantity of Pamphlets and Numbers with him, andwho presently boasted that he could repeat more verses in an eveningthan he could sell in a twelvemonth.

All these I have mentioned in the order in which they sat at table. I presided, and the matronly presence faced me.  We were not longin taking our places, for the supper had arrived with me, in the followingprocession:

Myself with the pitcher.
Ben with Beer.
Inattentive Boy with hot plates.  Inattentive Boy with hot plates.
THE TURKEY.
Female carrying sauces to be heated on the spot.
THE BEEF.
Man with Tray on his head, containing Vegetables and Sundries.
Volunteer Hostler from Hotel, grinning,
And rendering no assistance.

As we passed along the High Street, comet-like, we left a long tailof fragrance behind us which caused the public to stop, sniffing inwonder.  We had previously left at the corner of the inn-yard awall-eyed young man connected with the Fly department, and well accustomedto the sound of a railway whistle which Ben always carries in his pocket,whose instructions were, so soon as he should hear the whistle blown,to dash into the kitchen, seize the hot plum-pudding and mince-pies,and speed with them to Watts’s Charity, where they would be received(he was further instructed) by the sauce-female, who would be providedwith brandy in a blue state of combustion.

All these arrangements were executed in the most exact and punctualmanner.  I never saw a finer turkey, finer beef, or greater prodigalityof sauce and gravy;—and my Travellers did wonderful justice toeverything set before them.  It made my heart rejoice to observehow their wind and frost hardened faces softened in the clatter of platesand knives and forks, and mellowed in the fire and supper heat. While their hats and caps and wrappers, hanging up, a few small bundleson the ground in a corner, and in another corner three or four old walking-sticks,worn down at the end to mere fringe, linked this smug interior withthe bleak outside in a golden chain.

When supper was done, and my brown beauty had been elevated on thetable, there was a general requisition to me to “take the corner;”which suggested to me comfortably enough how much my friends here madeof a fire,—for when had Iever thought so highly of thecorner, since the days when I connected it with Jack Horner?  However,as I declined, Ben, whose touch on all convivial instruments is perfect,drew the table apart, and instructing my Travellers to open right andleft on either side of me, and form round the fire, closed up the centrewith myself and my chair, and preserved the order we had kept at table. He had already, in a tranquil manner, boxed the ears of the inattentiveboys until they had been by imperceptible degrees boxed out of the room;and he now rapidly skirmished the sauce-female into the High Street,disappeared, and softly closed the door.

This was the time for bringing the poker to bear on the billet ofwood.  I tapped it three times, like an enchanted talisman, anda brilliant host of merry-makers burst out of it, and sported off bythe chimney,—rushing up the middle in a fiery country dance, andnever coming down again.  Meanwhile, by their sparkling light,which threw our lamp into the shade, I filled the glasses, and gavemy Travellers, CHRISTMAS!—CHRISTMAS-EVE, my friends, when theshepherds, who were Poor Travellers, too, in their way, heard the Angelssing, “On earth, peace.  Good-will towards men!”

I don’t know who was the first among us to think that we oughtto take hands as we sat, in deference to the toast, or whether any oneof us anticipated the others, but at any rate we all did it.  Wethen drank to the memory of the good Master Richard Watts.  AndI wish his Ghost may never have had worse usage under that roof thanit had from us.

It was the witching time for Story-telling.  “Our wholelife, Travellers,” said I, “is a story more or less intelligible,—generallyless; but we shall read it by a clearer light when it is ended. I, for one, am so divided this night between fact and fiction, thatI scarce know which is which.  Shall I beguile the time by tellingyou a story as we sit here?”

They all answered, yes.  I had little to tell them, but I wasbound by my own proposal.  Therefore, after looking for awhileat the spiral column of smoke wreathing up from my brown beauty, throughwhich I could have almost sworn I saw the effigy of Master Richard Wattsless startled than usual, I fired away.

CHAPTER II—THE STORY OF RICHARD DOUBLEDICK

In the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, a relativeof mine came limping down, on foot, to this town of Chatham.  Icall it this town, because if anybody present knows to a nicety whereRochester ends and Chatham begins, it is more than I do.  He wasa poor traveller, with not a farthing in his pocket.  He sat bythe fire in this very room, and he slept one night in a bed that willbe occupied to-night by some one here.

My relative came down to Chatham to enlist in a cavalry regiment,if a cavalry regiment would have him; if not, to take King George’sshilling from any corporal or sergeant who would put a bunch of ribbonsin his hat.  His object was to get shot; but he thought he mightas well ride to death as be at the trouble of walking.

My relative’s Christian name was Richard, but he was betterknown as Dick.  He dropped his own surname on the road down, andtook up that of Doubledick.  He was passed as Richard Doubledick;age, twenty-two; height, five foot ten; native place, Exmouth, whichhe had never been near in his life.  There was no cavalry in Chathamwhen he limped over the bridge here with half a shoe to his dusty feet,so he enlisted into a regiment of the line, and was glad to get drunkand forget all about it.

You are to know that this relative of mine had gone wrong, and runwild.  His heart was in the right place, but it was sealed up. He had been betrothed to a good and beautiful girl, whom he had lovedbetter than she—or perhaps even he—believed; but in an evilhour he had given her cause to say to him solemnly, “Richard,I will never marry another man.  I will live single for your sake,but Mary Marshall’s lips”—her name was Mary Marshall—“neveraddress another word to you on earth.  Go, Richard!  Heavenforgive you!”  This finished him.  This brought himdown to Chatham.  This made him Private Richard Doubledick, witha determination to be shot.

There was not a more dissipated and reckless soldier in Chatham barracks,in the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, than PrivateRichard Doubledick.  He associated with the dregs of every regiment;he was as seldom sober as he could be, and was constantly under punishment. It became clear to the whole barracks that Private Richard Doubledickwould very soon be flogged.

Now the Captain of Richard Doubledick’s company was a younggentleman not above five years his senior, whose eyes had an expressionin them which affected Private Richard Doubledick in a very remarkableway.  They were bright, handsome, dark eyes,—what are calledlaughing eyes generally, and, when serious, rather steady than severe,—butthey were the only eyes now left in his narrowed world that PrivateRichard Doubledick could not stand.  Unabashed by evil report andpunishment, defiant of everything else and everybody else, he had butto know that those eyes looked at him for a moment, and he felt ashamed. He could not so much as salute Captain Taunton in the street like anyother officer.  He was reproached and confused,—troubledby the mere possibility of the captain’s looking at him. In his worst moments, he would rather turn back, and go any distanceout of his way, than encounter those two handsome, dark, bright eyes.

One day, when Private Richard Doubledick came out of the Black hole,where he had been passing the last eight-and-forty hours, and in whichretreat he spent a good deal of his time, he was ordered to betake himselfto Captain Taunton’s quarters.  In the stale and squalidstate of a man just out of the Black hole, he had less fancy than everfor being seen by the captain; but he was not so mad yet as to disobeyorders, and consequently went up to the terrace overlooking the parade-ground,where the officers’ quarters were; twisting and breaking in hishands, as he went along, a bit of the straw that had formed the decorativefurniture of the Black hole.

“Come in!” cried the Captain, when he had knocked withhis knuckles at the door.  Private Richard Doubledick pulled offhis cap, took a stride forward, and felt very conscious that he stoodin the light of the dark, bright eyes.

There was a silent pause.  Private Richard Doubledick had putthe straw in his mouth, and was gradually doubling it up into his windpipeand choking himself.

“Doubledick,” said the Captain, “do you know whereyou are going to?”

“To the Devil, sir?” faltered Doubledick.

“Yes,” returned the Captain.  “And very fast.”

Private Richard Doubledick turned the straw of the Black hole inhis month, and made a miserable salute of acquiescence.

“Doubledick,” said the Captain, “since I enteredhis Majesty’s service, a boy of seventeen, I have been painedto see many men of promise going that road; but I have never been sopained to see a man make the shameful journey as I have been, ever sinceyou joined the regiment, to see you.”

Private Richard Doubledick began to find a film stealing over thefloor at which he looked; also to find the legs of the Captain’sbreakfast-table turning crooked, as if he saw them through water.

“I am only a common soldier, sir,” said he.  “Itsignifies very little what such a poor brute comes to.”

“You are a man,” returned the Captain, with grave indignation,“of education and superior advantages; and if you say that, meaningwhat you say, you have sunk lower than I had believed.  How lowthat must be, I leave you to consider, knowing what I know of your disgrace,and seeing what I see.”

“I hope to get shot soon, sir,” said Private RichardDoubledick; “and then the regiment and the world together willbe rid of me.”

The legs of the table were becoming very crooked.  Doubledick,looking up to steady his vision, met the eyes that had so strong aninfluence over him.  He put his hand before his own eyes, and thebreast of his disgrace-jacket swelled as if it would fly asunder.

“I would rather,” said the young Captain, “seethis in you, Doubledick, than I would see five thousand guineas countedout upon this table for a gift to my good mother.  Have you a mother?”

“I am thankful to say she is dead, sir.”

“If your praises,” returned the Captain, “weresounded from mouth to mouth through the whole regiment, through thewhole army, through the whole country, you would wish she had livedto say, with pride and joy, ‘He is my son!’”

“Spare me, sir,” said Doubledick.  “She wouldnever have heard any good of me.  She would never have had anypride and joy in owning herself my mother.  Love and compassionshe might have had, and would have always had, I know but not—Spareme, sir!  I am a broken wretch, quite at your mercy!” And he turned his face to the wall, and stretched out his imploringhand.

“My friend—” began the Captain.

“God bless you, sir!” sobbed Private Richard Doubledick.

“You are at the crisis of your fate.  Hold your courseunchanged a little longer, and you know what must happen.  Iknow even better than you can imagine, that, after that has happened,you are lost.  No man who could shed those tears could bear thosemarks.”

“I fully believe it, sir,” in a low, shivering voicesaid Private Richard Doubledick.

“But a man in any station can do his duty,” said theyoung Captain, “and, in doing it, can earn his own respect, evenif his case should be so very unfortunate and so very rare that he canearn no other man’s.  A common soldier, poor brute thoughyou called him just now, has this advantage in the stormy times we livein, that he always does his duty before a host of sympathising witnesses. Do you doubt that he may so do it as to be extolled through a wholeregiment, through a whole army, through a whole country?  Turnwhile you may yet retrieve the past, and try.”

“I will!  I ask for only one witness, sir,” criedRichard, with a bursting heart.

“I understand you.  I will be a watchful and a faithfulone.”

I have heard from Private Richard Doubledick’s own lips, thathe dropped down upon his knee, kissed that officer’s hand, arose,and went out of the light of the dark, bright eyes, an altered man.

In that year, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, the Frenchwere in Egypt, in Italy, in Germany, where not?  Napoleon Bonapartehad likewise begun to stir against us in India, and most men could readthe signs of the great troubles that were coming on.  In the verynext year, when we formed an alliance with Austria against him, CaptainTaunton’s regiment was on service in India.  And there wasnot a finer non-commissioned officer in it,—no, nor in the wholeline—than Corporal Richard Doubledick.

In eighteen hundred and one, the Indian army were on the coast ofEgypt.  Next year was the year of the proclamation of the shortpeace, and they were recalled.  It had then become well known tothousands of men, that wherever Captain Taunton, with the dark, brighteyes, led, there, close to him, ever at his side, firm as a rock, trueas the sun, and brave as Mars, would be certain to be found, while lifebeat in their hearts, that famous soldier, Sergeant Richard Doubledick.

Eighteen hundred and five, besides being the great year of Trafalgar,was a year of hard fighting in India.  That year saw such wondersdone by a Sergeant-Major, who cut his way single-handed through a solidmass of men, recovered the colours of his regiment, which had been seizedfrom the hand of a poor boy shot through the heart, and rescued hiswounded Captain, who was down, and in a very jungle of horses’hoofs and sabres,—saw such wonders done, I say, by this braveSergeant-Major, that he was specially made the bearer of the colourshe had won; and Ensign Richard Doubledick had risen from the ranks.

Sorely cut up in every battle, but always reinforced by the bravestof men,—for the fame of following the old colours, shot throughand through, which Ensign Richard Doubledick had saved, inspired allbreasts,—this regiment fought its way through the Peninsular war,up to the investment of Badajos in eighteen hundred and twelve. Again and again it had been cheered through the British ranks untilthe tears had sprung into men’s eyes at the mere hearing of themighty British voice, so exultant in their valour; and there was nota drummer-boy but knew the legend, that wherever the two friends, MajorTaunton, with the dark, bright eyes, and Ensign Richard Doubledick,who was devoted to him, were seen to go, there the boldest spirits inthe English army became wild to follow.

One day, at Badajos,—not in the great storming, but in repellinga hot sally of the besieged upon our men at work in the trenches, whohad given way,—the two officers found themselves hurrying forward,face to face, against a party of French infantry, who made a stand. There was an officer at their head, encouraging his men,—a courageous,handsome, gallant officer of five-and-thirty, whom Doubledick saw hurriedly,almost momentarily, but saw well.  He particularly noticed thisofficer waving his sword, and rallying his men with an eager and excitedcry, when they fired in obedience to his gesture, and Major Tauntondropped.

It was over in ten minutes more, and Doubledick returned to the spotwhere he had laid the best friend man ever had on a coat spread uponthe wet clay.  Major Taunton’s uniform was opened at thebreast, and on his shirt were three little spots of blood.

“Dear Doubledick,” said he, “I am dying.”

“For the love of Heaven, no!” exclaimed the other, kneelingdown beside him, and passing his arm round his neck to raise his head. “Taunton!  My preserver, my guardian angel, my witness! Dearest, truest, kindest of human beings!  Taunton!  For God’ssake!”

The bright, dark eyes—so very, very dark now, in the pale face—smiledupon him; and the hand he had kissed thirteen years ago laid itselffondly on his breast.

“Write to my mother.  You will see Home again.  Tellher how we became friends.  It will comfort her, as it comfortsme.”

He spoke no more, but faintly signed for a moment towards his hairas it fluttered in the wind.  The Ensign understood him. He smiled again when he saw that, and, gently turning his face overon the supporting arm as if for rest, died, with his hand upon the breastin which he had revived a soul.

No dry eye looked on Ensign Richard Doubledick that melancholy day. He buried his friend on the field, and became a lone, bereaved man. Beyond his duty he appeared to have but two remaining cares in life,—one,to preserve the little packet of hair he was to give to Taunton’smother; the other, to encounter that French officer who had ralliedthe men under whose fire Taunton fell.  A new legend now beganto circulate among our troops; and it was, that when he and the Frenchofficer came face to face once more, there would be weeping in France.

The war went on—and through it went the exact picture of theFrench officer on the one side, and the bodily reality upon the other—untilthe Battle of Toulouse was fought.  In the returns sent home appearedthese words: “Severely wounded, but not dangerously, LieutenantRichard Doubledick.”

At Midsummer-time, in the year eighteen hundred and fourteen, LieutenantRichard Doubledick, now a browned soldier, seven-and-thirty years ofage, came home to England invalided.  He brought the hair withhim, near his heart.  Many a French officer had he seen since thatday; many a dreadful night, in searching with men and lanterns for hiswounded, had he relieved French officers lying disabled; but the mentalpicture and the reality had never come together.

Though he was weak and suffered pain, he lost not an hour in gettingdown to Frome in Somersetshire, where Taunton’s mother lived. In the sweet, compassionate words that naturally present themselvesto the mind to-night, “he was the only son of his mother, andshe was a widow.”

It was a Sunday evening, and the lady sat at her quiet garden-window,reading the Bible; reading to herself, in a trembling voice, that verypassage in it, as I have heard him tell.  He heard the words: “Youngman, I say unto thee, arise!”

He had to pass the window; and the bright, dark eyes of his debasedtime seemed to look at him.  Her heart told her who he was; shecame to the door quickly, and fell upon his neck.

“He saved me from ruin, made me a human creature, won me frominfamy and shame.  O, God for ever bless him!  As He will,He Will!”

“He will!” the lady answered.  “I know heis in heaven!”  Then she piteously cried, “But O, mydarling boy, my darling boy!”

Never from the hour when Private Richard Doubledick enlisted at Chathamhad the Private, Corporal, Sergeant, Sergeant-Major, Ensign, or Lieutenantbreathed his right name, or the name of Mary Marshall, or a word ofthe story of his life, into any ear except his reclaimer’s. That previous scene in his existence was closed.  He had firmlyresolved that his expiation should be to live unknown; to disturb nomore the peace that had long grown over his old offences; to let itbe revealed, when he was dead, that he had striven and suffered, andhad never forgotten; and then, if they could forgive him and believehim—well, it would be time enough—time enough!

But that night, remembering the words he had cherished for two years,“Tell her how we became friends.  It will comfort her, asit comforts me,” he related everything.  It gradually seemedto him as if in his maturity he had recovered a mother; it graduallyseemed to her as if in her bereavement she had found a son.  Duringhis stay in England, the quiet garden into which he had slowly and painfullycrept, a stranger, became the boundary of his home; when he was ableto rejoin his regiment in the spring, he left the garden, thinking wasthis indeed the first time he had ever turned his face towards the oldcolours with a woman’s blessing!

He followed them—so ragged, so scarred and pierced now, thatthey would scarcely hold together—to Quatre Bras and Ligny. He stood beside them, in an awful stillness of many men, shadowy throughthe mist and drizzle of a wet June forenoon, on the field of Waterloo. And down to that hour the picture in his mind of the French officerhad never been compared with the reality.

The famous regiment was in action early in the battle, and receivedits first check in many an eventful year, when he was seen to fall. But it swept on to avenge him, and left behind it no such creature inthe world of consciousness as Lieutenant Richard Doubledick.

Through pits of mire, and pools of rain; along deep ditches, onceroads, that were pounded and ploughed to pieces by artillery, heavywaggons, tramp of men and horses, and the struggle of every wheeledthing that could carry wounded soldiers; jolted among the dying andthe dead, so disfigured by blood and mud as to be hardly recognisablefor humanity; undisturbed by the moaning of men and the shrieking ofhorses, which, newly taken from the peaceful pursuits of life, couldnot endure the sight of the stragglers lying by the wayside, never toresume their toilsome journey; dead, as to any sentient life that wasin it, and yet alive,—the form that had been Lieutenant RichardDoubledick, with whose praises England rang, was conveyed to Brussels. There it was tenderly laid down in hospital; and there it lay, weekafter week, through the long bright summer days, until the harvest,spared by war, had ripened and was gathered in.

Over and over again the sun rose and set upon the crowded city; overand over again the moonlight nights were quiet on the plains of Waterloo:and all that time was a blank to what had been Lieutenant Richard Doubledick. Rejoicing troops marched into Brussels, and marched out; brothers andfathers, sisters, mothers, and wives, came thronging thither, drew theirlots of joy or agony, and departed; so many times a day the bells rang;so many times the shadows of the great buildings changed; so many lightssprang up at dusk; so many feet passed here and there upon the pavements;so many hours of sleep and cooler air of night succeeded: indifferentto all, a marble face lay on a bed, like the face of a recumbent statueon the tomb of Lieutenant Richard Doubledick.

Slowly labouring, at last, through a long heavy dream of confusedtime and place, presenting faint glimpses of army surgeons whom he knew,and of faces that had been familiar to his youth,—dearest andkindest among them, Mary Marshall’s, with a solicitude upon itmore like reality than anything he could discern,—Lieutenant RichardDoubledick came back to life.  To the beautiful life of a calmautumn evening sunset, to the peaceful life of a fresh quiet room witha large window standing open; a balcony beyond, in which were movingleaves and sweet-smelling flowers; beyond, again, the clear sky, withthe sun full in his sight, pouring its golden radiance on his bed.

It was so tranquil and so lovely that he thought he had passed intoanother world.  And he said in a faint voice, “Taunton, areyou near me?”

A face bent over him.  Not his, his mother’s.

“I came to nurse you.  We have nursed you many weeks. You were moved here long ago.  Do you remember nothing?”

“Nothing.”

The lady kissed his cheek, and held his hand, soothing him.

“Where is the regiment?  What has happened?  Letme call you mother.  What has happened, mother?”

“A great victory, dear.  The war is over, and the regimentwas the bravest in the field.”

His eyes kindled, his lips trembled, he sobbed, and the tears randown his face.  He was very weak, too weak to move his hand.

“Was it dark just now?” he asked presently.

“No.”

“It was only dark to me?  Something passed away, likea black shadow.  But as it went, and the sun—O the blessedsun, how beautiful it is!—touched my face, I thought I saw a lightwhite cloud pass out at the door.  Was there nothing that wentout?”

She shook her head, and in a little while he fell asleep, she stillholding his hand, and soothing him.

From that time, he recovered.  Slowly, for he had been desperatelywounded in the head, and had been shot in the body, but making somelittle advance every day.  When he had gained sufficient strengthto converse as he lay in bed, he soon began to remark that Mrs. Tauntonalways brought him back to his own history.  Then he recalled hispreserver’s dying words, and thought, “It comforts her.”

One day he awoke out of a sleep, refreshed, and asked her to readto him.  But the curtain of the bed, softening the light, whichshe always drew back when he awoke, that she might see him from hertable at the bedside where she sat at work, was held undrawn; and awoman’s voice spoke, which was not hers.

“Can you bear to see a stranger?” it said softly. “Will you like to see a stranger?”

“Stranger!” he repeated.  The voice awoke old memories,before the days of Private Richard Doubledick.

“A stranger now, but not a stranger once,” it said intones that thrilled him.  “Richard, dear Richard, lost throughso many years, my name—”

He cried out her name, “Mary,” and she held him in herarms, and his head lay on her bosom.

“I am not breaking a rash vow, Richard.  These are notMary Marshall’s lips that speak.  I have another name.”

She was married.

“I have another name, Richard.  Did you ever hear it?”

“Never!”

He looked into her face, so pensively beautiful, and wondered atthe smile upon it through her tears.

“Think again, Richard.  Are you sure you never heard myaltered name?”

“Never!”

“Don’t move your head to look at me, dear Richard. Let it lie here, while I tell my story.  I loved a generous, nobleman; loved him with my whole heart; loved him for years and years; lovedhim faithfully, devotedly; loved him without hope of return; loved him,knowing nothing of his highest qualities—not even knowing thathe was alive.  He was a brave soldier.  He was honoured andbeloved by thousands of thousands, when the mother of his dear friendfound me, and showed me that in all his triumphs he had never forgottenme.  He was wounded in a great battle.  He was brought, dying,here, into Brussels.  I came to watch and tend him, as I wouldhave joyfully gone, with such a purpose, to the dreariest ends of theearth.  When he knew no one else, he knew me.  When he sufferedmost, he bore his sufferings barely murmuring, content to rest his headwhere your rests now.  When he lay at the point of death, he marriedme, that he might call me Wife before he died.  And the name, mydear love, that I took on that forgotten night—”

“I know it now!” he sobbed.  “The shadowyremembrance strengthens.  It is come back.  I thank Heaventhat my mind is quite restored!  My Mary, kiss me; lull this wearyhead to rest, or I shall die of gratitude.  His parting words werefulfilled.  I see Home again!”

Well!  They were happy.  It was a long recovery, but theywere happy through it all.  The snow had melted on the ground,and the birds were singing in the leafless thickets of the early spring,when those three were first able to ride out together, and when peopleflocked about the open carriage to cheer and congratulate Captain RichardDoubledick.

But even then it became necessary for the Captain, instead of returningto England, to complete his recovery in the climate of Southern France. They found a spot upon the Rhône, within a ride of the old townof Avignon, and within view of its broken bridge, which was all theycould desire; they lived there, together, six months; then returnedto England.  Mrs. Taunton, growing old after three years—thoughnot so old as that her bright, dark eyes were dimmed—and rememberingthat her strength had been benefited by the change resolved to go backfor a year to those parts.  So she went with a faithful servant,who had often carried her son in his arms; and she was to be rejoinedand escorted home, at the year’s end, by Captain Richard Doubledick.

She wrote regularly to her children (as she called them now), andthey to her.  She went to the neighbourhood of Aix; and there,in their own château near the farmer’s house she rented,she grew into intimacy with a family belonging to that part of France. The intimacy began in her often meeting among the vineyards a prettychild, a girl with a most compassionate heart, who was never tired oflistening to the solitary English lady’s stories of her poor sonand the cruel wars.  The family were as gentle as the child, andat length she came to know them so well that she accepted their invitationto pass the last month of her residence abroad under their roof. All this intelligence she wrote home, piecemeal as it came about, fromtime to time; and at last enclosed a polite note, from the head of thechâteau, soliciting, on the occasion of his approaching missionto that neighbourhood, the honour of the company of cet homme si justementcélèbre, Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick.

Captain Doubledick, now a hardy, handsome man in the full vigourof life, broader across the chest and shoulders than he had ever beenbefore, dispatched a courteous reply, and followed it in person. Travelling through all that extent of country after three years of Peace,he blessed the better days on which the world had fallen.  Thecorn was golden, not drenched in unnatural red; was bound in sheavesfor food, not trodden underfoot by men in mortal fight.  The smokerose up from peaceful hearths, not blazing ruins.  The carts wereladen with the fair fruits of the earth, not with wounds and death. To him who had so often seen the terrible reverse, these things werebeautiful indeed; and they brought him in a softened spirit to the oldchâteau near Aix upon a deep blue evening.

It was a large château of the genuine old ghostly kind, withround towers, and extinguishers, and a high leaden roof, and more windowsthan Aladdin’s Palace.  The lattice blinds were all thrownopen after the heat of the day, and there were glimpses of ramblingwalls and corridors within.  Then there were immense out-buildingsfallen into partial decay, masses of dark trees, terrace-gardens, balustrades;tanks of water, too weak to play and too dirty to work; statues, weeds,and thickets of iron railing that seemed to have overgrown themselveslike the shrubberies, and to have branched out in all manner of wildshapes.  The entrance doors stood open, as doors often do in thatcountry when the heat of the day is past; and the Captain saw no bellor knocker, and walked in.

He walked into a lofty stone hall, refreshingly cool and gloomy afterthe glare of a Southern day’s travel.  Extending along thefour sides of this hall was a gallery, leading to suites of rooms; andit was lighted from the top.  Still no bell was to be seen.

“Faith,” said the Captain halting, ashamed of the clankingof his boots, “this is a ghostly beginning!”

He started back, and felt his face turn white.  In the gallery,looking down at him, stood the French officer—the officer whosepicture he had carried in his mind so long and so far.  Comparedwith the original, at last—in every lineament how like it was!

He moved, and disappeared, and Captain Richard Doubledick heard hissteps coming quickly down own into the hall.  He entered throughan archway.  There was a bright, sudden look upon his face, muchsuch a look as it had worn in that fatal moment.

Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick?  Enchanted to receivehim!  A thousand apologies!  The servants were all out inthe air.  There was a little fête among them in the garden. In effect, it was the fête day of my daughter, the little cherishedand protected of Madame Taunton.

He was so gracious and so frank that Monsieur le Capitaine RichardDoubledick could not withhold his hand.  “It is the handof a brave Englishman,” said the French officer, retaining itwhile he spoke.  “I could respect a brave Englishman, evenas my foe, how much more as my friend!  I also am a soldier.”

“He has not remembered me, as I have remembered him; he didnot take such note of my face, that day, as I took of his,” thoughtCaptain Richard Doubledick.  “How shall I tell him?”

The French officer conducted his guest into a garden and presentedhim to his wife, an engaging and beautiful woman, sitting with Mrs.Taunton in a whimsical old-fashioned pavilion.  His daughter, herfair young face beaming with joy, came running to embrace him; and therewas a boy-baby to tumble down among the orange trees on the broad steps,in making for his father’s legs.  A multitude of childrenvisitors were dancing to sprightly music; and all the servants and peasantsabout the château were dancing too.  It was a scene of innocenthappiness that might have been invented for the climax of the scenesof peace which had soothed the Captain’s journey.

He looked on, greatly troubled in his mind, until a resounding bellrang, and the French officer begged to show him his rooms.  Theywent upstairs into the gallery from which the officer had looked down;and Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick was cordially welcomedto a grand outer chamber, and a smaller one within, all clocks and draperies,and hearths, and brazen dogs, and tiles, and cool devices, and elegance,and vastness.

“You were at Waterloo,” said the French officer.

“I was,” said Captain Richard Doubledick.  “Andat Badajos.”

Left alone with the sound of his own stern voice in his ears, hesat down to consider, What shall I do, and how shall I tell him? At that time, unhappily, many deplorable duels had been fought betweenEnglish and French officers, arising out of the recent war; and theseduels, and how to avoid this officer’s hospitality, were the uppermostthought in Captain Richard Doubledick’s mind.

He was thinking, and letting the time run out in which he shouldhave dressed for dinner, when Mrs. Taunton spoke to him outside thedoor, asking if he could give her the letter he had brought from Mary. “His mother, above all,” the Captain thought.  “Howshall I tell her?”

“You will form a friendship with your host, I hope,”said Mrs. Taunton, whom he hurriedly admitted, “that will lastfor life.  He is so true-hearted and so generous, Richard, thatyou can hardly fail to esteem one another.  If He had been spared,”she kissed (not without tears) the locket in which she wore his hair,“he would have appreciated him with his own magnanimity, and wouldhave been truly happy that the evil days were past which made such aman his enemy.”

She left the room; and the Captain walked, first to one window, whencehe could see the dancing in the garden, then to another window, whencehe could see the smiling prospect and the peaceful vineyards.

“Spirit of my departed friend,” said he, “is itthrough thee these better thoughts are rising in my mind?  Is itthou who hast shown me, all the way I have been drawn to meet this man,the blessings of the altered time?  Is it thou who hast sent thystricken mother to me, to stay my angry hand?  Is it from theethe whisper comes, that this man did his duty as thou didst,—andas I did, through thy guidance, which has wholly saved me here on earth,—andthat he did no more?”

He sat down, with his head buried in his hands, and, when he roseup, made the second strong resolution of his life,—that neitherto the French officer, nor to the mother of his departed friend, norto any soul, while either of the two was living, would he breathe whatonly he knew.  And when he touched that French officer’sglass with his own, that day at dinner, he secretly forgave him in thename of the Divine Forgiver of injuries.

* * * *

Here I ended my story as the first Poor Traveller.  But, ifI had told it now, I could have added that the time has since come whenthe son of Major Richard Doubledick, and the son of that French officer,friends as their fathers were before them, fought side by side in onecause, with their respective nations, like long-divided brothers whomthe better times have brought together, fast united.

CHAPTER III—THE ROAD

My story being finished, and the Wassail too, we broke up as theCathedral bell struck Twelve.  I did not take leave of my travellersthat night; for it had come into my head to reappear, in conjunctionwith some hot coffee, at seven in the morning.

As I passed along the High Street, I heard the Waits at a distance,and struck off to find them.  They were playing near one of theold gates of the City, at the corner of a wonderfully quaint row ofred-brick tenements, which the clarionet obligingly informed me wereinhabited by the Minor-Canons.  They had odd little porches overthe doors, like sounding-boards over old pulpits; and I thought I shouldlike to see one of the Minor-Canons come out upon his top stop, andfavour us with a little Christmas discourse about the poor scholarsof Rochester; taking for his text the words of his Master relative tothe devouring of Widows’ houses.

The clarionet was so communicative, and my inclinations were (asthey generally are) of so vagabond a tendency, that I accompanied theWaits across an open green called the Vines, and assisted—in theFrench sense—at the performance of two waltzes, two polkas, andthree Irish melodies, before I thought of my inn any more.  However,I returned to it then, and found a fiddle in the kitchen, and Ben, thewall-eyed young man, and two chambermaids, circling round the greatdeal table with the utmost animation.

I had a very bad night.  It cannot have been owing to the turkeyor the beef,—and the Wassail is out of the question—butin every endeavour that I made to get to sleep I failed most dismally. I was never asleep; and in whatsoever unreasonable direction my mindrambled, the effigy of Master Richard Watts perpetually embarrassedit.

In a word, I only got out of the Worshipful Master Richard Watts’sway by getting out of bed in the dark at six o’clock, and tumbling,as my custom is, into all the cold water that could be accumulated forthe purpose.  The outer air was dull and cold enough in the street,when I came down there; and the one candle in our supper-room at Watts’sCharity looked as pale in the burning as if it had had a bad night too. But my Travellers had all slept soundly, and they took to the hot coffee,and the piles of bread-and-butter, which Ben had arranged like dealsin a timber-yard, as kindly as I could desire.

While it was yet scarcely daylight, we all came out into the streettogether, and there shook hands.  The widow took the little sailortowards Chatham, where he was to find a steamboat for Sheerness; thelawyer, with an extremely knowing look, went his own way, without committinghimself by announcing his intentions; two more struck off by the cathedraland old castle for Maidstone; and the book-pedler accompanied me overthe bridge.  As for me, I was going to walk by Cobham Woods, asfar upon my way to London as I fancied.

When I came to the stile and footpath by which I was to diverge fromthe main road, I bade farewell to my last remaining Poor Traveller,and pursued my way alone.  And now the mists began to rise in themost beautiful manner, and the sun to shine; and as I went on throughthe bracing air, seeing the hoarfrost sparkle everywhere, I felt asif all Nature shared in the joy of the great Birthday.

Going through the woods, the softness of my tread upon the mossyground and among the brown leaves enhanced the Christmas sacrednessby which I felt surrounded.  As the whitened stems environed me,I thought how the Founder of the time had never raised his benignanthand, save to bless and heal, except in the case of one unconscioustree.  By Cobham Hall, I came to the village, and the churchyardwhere the dead had been quietly buried, “in the sure and certainhope” which Christmas time inspired.  What children couldI see at play, and not be loving of, recalling who had loved them! No garden that I passed was out of unison with the day, for I rememberedthat the tomb was in a garden, and that “she, supposing him tobe the gardener,” had said, “Sir, if thou have borne himhence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.” In time, the distant river with the ships came full in view, and withit pictures of the poor fishermen, mending their nets, who arose andfollowed him,—of the teaching of the people from a ship pushedoff a little way from shore, by reason of the multitude,—of amajestic figure walking on the water, in the loneliness of night. My very shadow on the ground was eloquent of Christmas; for did notthe people lay their sick where the more shadows of the men who hadheard and seen him might fall as they passed along?

Thus Christmas begirt me, far and near, until I had come to Blackheath,and had walked down the long vista of gnarled old trees in GreenwichPark, and was being steam-rattled through the mists now closing in oncemore, towards the lights of London.  Brightly they shone, but notso brightly as my own fire, and the brighter faces around it, when wecame together to celebrate the day.  And there I told of worthyMaster Richard Watts, and of my supper with the Six Poor Travellerswho were neither Rogues nor Proctors, and from that hour to this I havenever seen one of them again.

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