CHERRY & VIOLET

Cherry & Violet:
A Tale of the Great Plague

Illvstrations by

John Jellicoe

&

Herbert Railton

Introdvction by The Rev^d. W·H·Hutton

London

John C. Nimmo

·MDCCCXCVII·

Cherry and Violet

CHERRY & VIOLET

A TALE OF

THE GREAT PLAGUE

BY

THE AUTHOR OF “MARY POWELL” AND “THE

HOUSEHOLD OF SIR THOS. MORE”

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

THE REV. W. H. HUTTON, B.D.

FELLOW OF S. JOHN’S COLLEGE, OXFORD

AND TWENTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIONS BY

JOHN JELLICOE AND HERBERT RAILTON

LONDON

JOHN C. NIMMO

NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

MDCCCXCVII

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.

At the Ballantyne Press

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

From Drawings by John Jellicoe and Herbert Railton.

Introduction

SO reticent was Miss Manning in her lifetime, and so loyally have her wishes been obeyed by her kindred since her death, that when Mr. Nimmo last year re-published her beautiful memorial portrait, “The Household of Sir Thomas More,” it was clear that whatever of her personal history had ever been known had been already forgotten. She had indeed been confused, in a Biographical Dictionary, with another writer: it even needed the assurance of her surviving niece to convince inquirers that she lived and died unmarried. Thus to live and die, “the world forgetting, by the world forgot,” was what the gentle spirit chose. To be known through her books, and loved, there can be little question, was her ambition, and it was a wish which I cannot doubt is fulfilled. The “author of ‘Mary Powell,’” as she styled herself on her title-pages, has left several exquisite little studies, highly appreciated when they first saw the light, and still worthy, as it seems to me, of that kind of immortality of regard which is won by those writers whom none of us would place in the first rank of Literature, but whom all who know them remember with something of a personal affection. When I say that Miss Manning reminds me of Miss Rossetti, I do not mean that the earlier writer has the genius of the most perfect poet that ever, in the English tongue, linked the highest aspirations of Religion with the most exquisite expressions of Poetry; but rather that their minds were both beautiful, their experiences pathetic, their hearts true. They would walk together in Paradise, and understand each other: when our Lady of Sorrows sings “Magnificat,” they would stand by, and their souls would echo to her song. The matter of the work of each is very different, yet in the manner there is something indescribably akin. Christina Rossetti is one of the greatest writers of the century; but, unique though she is, and unapproachable in her sphere, in the land below her the author of “Mary Powell” has thought some of the same thoughts, and thought them in the same way.

“O my soul, she beats her wings,

And pants to fly away

Up to immortal things

In the heavenly day:

Yet she flags and almost faints;

Can such be meant for me?—

Come and see, say the Saints.

Saith Jesus: Come and see.

Say the saints: His pleasures please us

Before God and the Lamb.

Come and taste My sweets, saith Jesus:

Be with Me where I am.”

The voice is that of Christina Rossetti, but it is the thought too of her who wrote “Cherry and Violet.”

Miss Manning, as we read her life in her books, walks through the world with an unbounded charity and a hope ever refreshed. “Preach peace to all,” said S. Francis of Assisi, “for often those whom you think to be the children of the devil are those whom you will know some day to be the sons of God.” Miss Manning loved to think of, and to look upon, whatsoever things are lovely and of good report, and so thinking and looking she found flowers everywhere to spring up beneath her feet.

“Tread softly! all the earth is holy ground.

It may be, could we look with seeing eyes,

This spot we stand on is a Paradise

Where dead have come to life and lost been found,

Where faith has triumphed, martyrdom been crowned,

Where fools have foiled the wisdom of the wise;

From this same spot the dust of saints may rise,

And the King’s prisoners come to light unbound.”

So when she turns to the sixteenth century, with its sordid materialism and its coarse handling of things most sacred, not merely does she recognise, as an Englishwoman, the grandeur of its struggles, but she sees its best embodiment in the tragedy of an almost perfect life. As she seeks refuge in that time of stress with the Household of Sir Thomas More, so in the next century she turns aside from the pettiness of Pepys or the realism of Defoe to the life of a simple girl born and nurtured on the great bridge that spans the Thames.

“Quali colombe dal disio chiamante

Con l’ali aperte e ferme al dolce nido

Volan per l’aer dal voler portate.”

With “The Household of Sir Thomas More” we walked in the dangerous days when the Lion found his strength. With “Cherry and Violet” we are in the still more alarming atmosphere of the Commonwealth and the Restoration. Year by year, as old houses open their chests, and scholars hunt among their yellow papers, we learn more of the reign of terror which marked the closing years of the Protectorate. We see one Verney living a “lude life” with “my lord Claypoll” and other “my lords” the kindred of the Protector; while another, the honest Sir Ralph, stoutest of Parliamentarians, is clapped in prison, no man knows why; and at the same time John Howe, pious Puritan preacher (whom Mistress Cherry herself knew of), is confessing how impossible it is to win the family which reigns at Whitehall to think of the welfare of their souls. Yet all the while there hangs over the land the outer gloom of an enforced conformity, which Miss Manning so happily describes. When we find ourselves in the heyday of the Restoration, or when we watch the splendours and the scandals of the Court of Charles II., we learn from the scandalous Pepys—now so much more than ever since Mr. H. B. Wheatley has given us all that it was possible to print of the wonderful Diary as Pepys really wrote it—how utterly rotten was the social life of the age, even among those, too often, who might seem to sit sedately above its more flagrant iniquities.

And then there comes in Defoe with his marvellous photographic realism of fiction, and tells us of the horrors of the Plague with a fidelity which those who had lived among them could, we fancy, hardly have approached.

From sources such as these—from Pepys and Defoe, as well as from the more sober pages of the stately Evelyn, it is that Miss Manning takes much of the mise-en-scène of her “Tale of the Great Plague”; and we find, as historic evidence accumulates around us, how true her imaginary picture is.

It was a happy thought which made the story begin on old London Bridge—happier still, readers will now think when they see Mr. Herbert Railton’s beautiful drawings. Something we learn of the stress of the time as we recall, with Mistress Cherry, the strange pageants which the bridge-dwellers watched from their windows. They saw the double tide, portent of unknown woes. They saw how the mighty Strafford went serenely to his death, and the old Archbishop passed up and down under guard on the long days of his weary trial. They saw the King come to his own again—and some of them may have looked out of windows that wet Sunday night in 1662 when Mr. Pepys had left his singing of “some holy things” and went back by water, shooting the rapids under “the bridge (which did trouble me) home, and so to bed.” The life on the bridge must have been something which an Englishman’s experience of to-day can hardly help to picture. Something of it we may fancy as we enter an old shop on the Ponte Vecchio at Florence, or look out upon it and the Arno from the long corridor that connects the Uffizi with the Pitti. But on that narrow space is no such crowded life as on old London Bridge—no such dangers for foot-passengers, drivers, and horsemen. To picture this in seventeenth-century England we must cross near mid-day from Stamboul towards Pera by the far-famed Galata Bridge. Scarce anywhere but in Florence and in Constantinople can we now recall what sights old London Bridge must have witnessed. Mr. Railton sees them, though, very clearly, and we are more than content to see with his eyes. Something idealised they are, perhaps. Old London Bridge was hardly so beautiful, surely, as he pictures it; and his drawings, perhaps, are more like what the houses ought to have been than ever they were. “More Nurembergy than Nuremberg,” says Mr. Ruskin of some of Prout’s famous work. We may say it of Mr. Railton’s old London; and high praise it is. And as Mr. Railton brings back to us the scenes, so Mr. Jellicoe gives us the persons of old time in their habits as they lived.

Among such surroundings we picture Cherry doing her simple duties, tending her mother, thinking somewhat primly of her vivacious neighbour Violet, fancying she has lost her heart for ever to poor Mark, and then waking to a heroine’s work in the horrors of the Plague, and finding through that her own bright reward.

“The Plague growing on us,” says Pepys, and of remedies “some saying one thing, and some another.” So it begins in May, and by the first week of June, “much against my will, I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors, and ‘Lord have mercy upon us’ writ there; which was a sad sight to me, being the first of the kind that to my remembrance I ever saw.” Ten days later, and as he goes in a hackney coach from the Lord Treasurer’s, his coachman is struck of a sudden “very sick and almost blind”—and journey by coach becomes “a very dangerous passage nowadays.” So it comes till there are seven hundred dying in a week, and “it was a sad noise to hear our bell to toll and ring so often either for death or burials.”

And soon, “But, Lord! how sad a sight it is to see the streets empty of people and very few upon the ’Change. Jealous of every door that one sees shut up, lest it should be the Plague; and about us two shops in three, if not more, generally shut up.”

Reports are terrible of the thousands who every week are carried to their graves in the long pits; and with an even closer terror speaks the record of the veracious diarist. “I went forth and walked towards Moorfields (August 30th) to see (God forgive me my presumption!) whether I could see any dead corpse going to the grave; but, as God would have it, did not. But, Lord! how everybody looks, and discourse on the streets is of death, and nothing else, and few people going up and down, that the town is like a place distressed and forsaken.” “What a sad time it is,” he writes on 20th September, “to see no boats upon the river; and grass grows up and down White Hall Court, and nobody but poor wretches in the streets.”

To these records the genius of Defoe adds an immortal picture. “As this puts me upon mentioning my walking the Streets and Fields”—he has been speaking of the numbers that fled to the outskirts of the town, “into the Fields and Woods, and into secret uncouth Places, almost anywhere to creep into a Bush, or Hedge, and die,” and how it “was a general Method to walk away” if any one was seen coming—“I cannot omit taking notice what a desolate place the City was at that time. The great street I lived in, which is known to be one of the broadest of all the streets of London, I mean of the Suburbs as well as the Liberties; all the side where the Butchers lived, especially without the Bars, was more like a green Field than a paved Street, and the People generally went in the middle with the Horses and Carts. It is true that the farthest End, towards White-Chappel Church, was not all pav’d, but even the part that was pav’d was full of Grass also; but this need not seem strange, since the great Streets within the City, such as Leaden-Hall Street, Bishopgate-Street, Cornhill, and even the Exchange itself, had Grass growing in them, in several Places; neither Cart nor Coach were seen in the Streets from Morning to Evening, except some Country Carts to bring Roots and Beans, or Pease, Hay and Straw, to the Market, and those but very few, compared to what was usual: as for Coaches, they were scarce used, but to carry sick People to the Pest-House, and to other Hospitals; and some few to carry Physicians to such Places as they thought fit to venture to visit; for really coaches were dangerous things, and People did not Care to venture into them because they did not know who might have been carried in them last; and sick infected People were, as I have said, ordinarily carried in them to the Pest-Houses, and some times People expired in them as they went along.

“It is true, when the Infection came to such a Height as I have now mentioned, there were very few Physicians which car’d to stir abroad to sick Houses, and very many of the most eminent of the Faculty were dead as well as the Surgeons also; for now it was indeed a dismal time, and for about a month together, not taking any Notice of the Bills of Mortality, I believe there did not die less than 1500 or 1700 a-Day, one Day with another.

“One of the worst Days we had in the whole Time, as I thought, was in the Beginning of September, when indeed good People began to think that God was resolved to make a full End of the People in this miserable City. This was at that Time when the Plague was fully come into the Eastern Parishes: the Parish of Algate, if I may give my Opinion, buried above a thousand a Week for two Weeks, though the Bills did not say so many; but it surrounded me at so dismal a rate, that there was not a House in twenty uninfected; in the Minories, in Houndsditch, and in those Parts of Algate about the Butcher-Row, and the Alleys over against me, I say in those places Death reigned in every Corner. White-Chappel Parish was in the same Condition, and tho’ much less than the Parish I liv’d in; yet buried near 600 a Week by the Bills; and in my Opinion near twice as many; whole Families, and indeed whole Streets of Families were swept away together; insomuch that it was frequent for Neighbours to call to the Bellman, to go to such and such Houses, and fetch out the People, for that they were all dead.”

There is little, if anything, in the description which is exaggerated. How much in tone as well as detail Miss Manning learnt from this great master of fiction is clear. But it was altogether foreign to her nature to paint long in such gloomy colours, and she turned, with a true art, from the horrors of the Plague to the peace of country life “in good King Charles’s golden days.”

So she brings her heroine down into Berkshire. A very short journey we take it to have been, or the old horse must have been more swift of foot than we should gather from Mistress Cherry’s description, for Buckland in Berks lies not far from Faringdon, and over seventy miles from London town. One of those quiet little villages it is that nestle among the low hills that overlook the peaceful valley of the upper Thames. A fine old church may have had Master Blower for its vicar. It has four bells and a register that date from his day. There are memorials of two families, the Yates and the Southbys, who have passed away with the good old times. The house is not such as Mistress Cherry stayed in, but speaks all of the eighteenth century, of George the Second and Mr. Wood of Bath.

It is tempting to wonder whether this part of the country was one Miss Manning ever saw—whether she watched the deer speeding by her—whether she felt the fascination of

“This little stream whose hamlets scarce have names,

This far-off, lonely mother of the Thames.”

One may like to fancy her rejoicing in it, as Dante Gabriel Rossetti rejoiced, who lived in a quaint old house such as she had pictured Master Blower welcoming Cherry into, only a few miles away from Buckland, at Kelmscott. But the place refuses to be identified, and we must be content to conclude that Mistress Cherry’s geography was at fault.

Having chosen a striking setting for her characters, Miss Manning knew well how to give them life. She had a quiet humour, and a kindly knowledge of human nature, which made her draw true portraits. Different readers will have their favourites, but I think few will fail to be drawn to honest Nathaniel Blower, priest and scholar, who, after days of poverty such as we may read many a true history of in Walker’s “Sufferings of the Clergy,” and a sore struggle with the Plague, lived to be Rector of Whitechapel, and better still, after the crowning misfortune of the Fire, to end his days quietly among the country folk at Bucklands with his good wife by his side. Master Blower is indeed drawn with Miss Manning’s happiest touches: we do not readily forget the figure he presents in bed, or how he “in his Deliration went through the whole Book of Job in his head.”

Whether most lads would not fall in love with Violet we cannot tell, but certainly quiet Cherry is a good woman, worthy of the hand of Mary Wilkins. We may sometimes feel that she is a damsel of the nineteenth century at masquerade in the dress of two centuries before; but we like her none the less if we fancy she is good Miss Manning in disguise.

And so we leave her and Master Blower happy in their home at Bucklands. Good man, we doubt not he tilled his garden and tended his parish well, like the Berkshire priest and poet of to-day, and, it may be, with the same thought.

“In all my borders I my true love seek

By flowery signs to set:

Praising the rose-carnation for her cheek,

Her hair the violet;

Flowers that with sweet returns each season bloom,

As each its impulse wakes,

Making air fragrant with a purple gloom,

Or whorl of crimson flakes.

And ye who blanch your glow, violets more rare,

Carnation, foam of light;

Be pledges of a beauty still more fair

When hair and cheek are white.”

All’s well that ends well. After prim Puritanism and roystering Restoration revels, after Plague and Fire, comes the quiet ending in the country’s peace.

W. H. HUTTON.

The Great House, Burford,

June 26, 1896.

CHERRY AND VIOLET

CHERRY AND VIOLET

CHAPTER I

The Reminiscences of Mistress Cherry.—The Fire, & Double Tide.—Mal-conversation.

I WONDER whether many People, on reviewing their past Lives, feel as I do on looking back on mine; that, had they had the ordering the outward Circumstances connected with them beforehand, such as Time, Place, Health, Sickness, Friends, Acquaintances, and such-like Conditions, they could not have arranged them half so well as they have been disposed for them. When I fall into a Muse on the Past, the Moments fly so swiftly that I am lost in Amazement when I find how the Time has slipped by while thus pleasantly employed. And yet many of the Arrangements which were made for me by a greater Wisdom than mine, were such as at the Time were far from agreeable to me; nay, were sometimes so repugnant to Flesh and Blood as to nourish rebellious Thoughts, and call forth Showers of Tears. And still the Process went on; as I now see, all for my Good.

My Father married my Mother in the Spring of the Year 1632: being then in the Prime of Life, a personable, charming-looking Man, though small of Stature, and with a Nose somewhat awry. In his Conditions he was ever most lovely; of a sweet Temper, shrewd Observance, stout Heart, and lively Wit. Many, no Doubt, had read more, by reason of their Opportunities; but what few Books he knew, he turned to Profit, and perhaps no Man concocted his Reading into Judgment better than he; by which he became so judicious and oracular, as that though he could not indeed prophesy, he could presage; and some of his Presages came true and others not, but might have done so, had Events taken but in a very slight Degree a different Course. He knew how to sound his Customers, and suck the Marrow of their Knowledge, while keeping his own Counsel: but this was his Prudence, not Pusillanimity, for I have heard it remarked by one who knew him well, that the Trojan Horse was not more full of Valour than he, for so small a Man. Being a Hair-dresser, this was not so evident in him as if he had been a Soldier; but yet every Man’s Life affords Occasions, as my Father’s certainly did, of showing what is in him and what is not.

In Dress, his Taste was excessive neat, and yet gaudy; so that on Sundays, when he appeared in what he called his Marigold-and-Poppy, with his Hair, which Men then wore very long, combed down in large smooth Curls, his laced Collar nicely ironed, his Beaver well brushed, and his Shoes shining like Coals ... it would have been difficult to find a Grain of Fault with him, save that, as my Cousin Mark was wont to say, the Colours of his Suit did too much swear at one another. For my own Part, I always had an Impression that he was an excessive well-looking Man, not out of any Prejudice, but downright Prepossession; and yet my dear Mother, who I am sure loved him truly, always said to me when I alluded to the Subject, “My Dear, the Qualities of his Person were always far exceeded by those of his Mind.”

Of my Cousin Mark, who was my Father’s Apprentice, there could not be two Opinions. He was winsome, lightsome, debonair; of most comely Person and Aspect: we were all very proud of him, and he of himself. If he had a Fault, it was thinking too much of himself and too little of others; but this is so common that I do not know I am justified in particularizing it. Also he was somewhat of a Coward, not in respect of personal, animal Courage, of which I suppose he had as much as the aforesaid Trojan Horse, whatever that might be; but morally cowardly, as to what would be thought of him by others, and dreading the Evil of the present Moment, and so forth; which Men don’t think so bad a kind of Cowardice as the other, but I do.

But his Temper was most sweet: his Manners most engaging. Oh! how much he came to be thought of, at length, all along the Bridge! I have no other Fault to find in him besides those already reckoned; unless it were a general Want of Principle, which was less apparent than it would have been, had it not been covered rather than supplied by good Feeling. But ’tis ill reckoning the Faults of one’s Friends.

Of my Mother, how shall I say enough? She was tall, slender, and comely to look upon, with sweet and quick grey Eyes. She was naturally of a high Spirit, which had been brought under a Curb by Divine Grace. She was kind and obliging to all, stirring and thrifty, yet not niggardly; soft-hearted to the Poor, of wonderful Propriety without the least Priggishness, loved by her Friends, and especially in her own Family. Now I have counted up the whole House except our Lodger, Master Blower, and Dolly, the Cook.

My Father’s shop was on the east side of London Bridge

My Father’s Shop was on the east Side of London Bridge. Over his Door hung his Sign of “The Lock of Hair;” and over the Shop-front was painted in yellow Letters the following Inscription,—

“Peter Curling sells all Sorts of Hair, Curled or Uncurled, Roses, Braids, Cauls, Ribbons, Weaving, Sewing-silk, Cards, and Blocks. Together with Combs, Crisping-pins, Perfumery, and all other Goods made use of by Tonsors and Hairdressers, at the Lowest Prices.”

On the opposite Side of the Way, was a Vintner’s, by the Name of Abel, who had humorously set up a Bell for his Sign, and painted beneath it, “Quoth the Wag, I am Abel.”

Next Door to us on one Side, lived a Bookseller and Stationer named Benskin, whose Sign was the Bible and Star; and next Door to us on the other Side was a Glover named Hugh Braidfoot, a jolly, good-tempered Bachelor, black-haired, fresh-coloured, and six Feet high, whose Sign was the Roebuck.

A few Weeks after my Birth, which was in February, 1633, in the Midst of a notable hard Frost, there broke out a most dreadful Fire at the north End of the Bridge, which consumed all the Houses on both Sides, from St. Magnus’ Church to the first open Space on the Bridge. There was, I have heard tell, much bodily Hurt as well as Destruction of Property; many Persons in precipitating themselves from upper Stories, getting their Limbs broken. “Water! Water!” was the Cry, and all in vain, for though the Thames lay right under the Houses, ’twas one great Cake of Ice, and the only Resource was to break the Conduit Pipes that ran through the Streets leading to the Bridge, and sweep the Water down with Brooms, to supply the three Engines that every one had thought would be such Helps in Time of Need, but which proved very sorry Helps indeed. In the Midst of the Tumult and Danger, some Neighbours of ours that were burned out of House and Home, took Refuge with us; to wit, the Wife and infant Daughter of Master Samuel Armytage, Haberdasher of small Wares; the Infant being, like myself, a Nursling of only a few Weeks old. These homeless Strangers did my Mother hospitably and Christianly entertain, bestirring herself more in her Care for them than in her tender Case it was fit she should have done, and putting us two Infants into one and the same Cradle. With our little Arms locked about one another, in an Atmosphere of Christian Love, ’twas no Wonder that little Violet and I conceived a Tenderness for each other, e’en while Sucklings, that grew with our Growth, and strengthened with our Strength. As for the elder Parties, Hospitality on the one Side and Thankfulness on the other caused a more than common Friendliness to spring up between them from that Time forth. And when the Fugitives were re-established in their re-built Houses, they long had an impressive and solemnifying Remembrance of their narrow Escape from an awful and terrible Death.

Now, though I cannot, of course, remember Anything of the Fire, I have a perfect Recollection of the next notable Occurrence among us, of the Double Tide, which happened in my eighth Year; and how the River, after lying as still as a Stone for more than an Hour, suddenly came foaming up from Greenwich, roaring, boiling, and splashing to that Degree that it was Horror to look upon. And my Father, after contemplating the Prodigy along with all the rest, exclaimed, “Well, Friends! you may say what you will; but I, though not a superstitious Man, think Something will come of it.” And did not Something come of it ... or, at any Rate, after it? and were not we, that had previously been sleeping on the still Waters of a settled Government, horribly overwhelmed with a Tide of Rebellion, Anarchy, and Republicanism?

The Year before the Double Tide, there had been much Talk in my Father’s Shop, about the Earl of Strafford being given over to the Black Rod, which I, being of such tender Years, could not well make out, but it seemed to carry an ill Sound with it. After that, he was taken to his Trial; and passed from his Prison in the Tower to Westminster, under our Bridge. We looked forth of our Windows, and discerned him plainly in one of the Barges, guarded by Soldiers with Partizans; and there was much Yelling and Hooting as he went through the Arch, which I for my Part was sorry for, he was so handsome and personable a Gentleman. The People, however, were much incensed against him; and, about three Months after the Double Tide, there was what I may call a Double Tide of ’Prentices and tumultuous Citizens, to the Number of about six Thousand, (my Cousin, Mark Blenkinsop, being among them,) who assembled themselves in an intimidating Manner at Westminster, many of them armed with Swords and Staves, and demanded Lord Strafford’s Death of the Peers as they went to the House.

I remember my Father, for as small a Man as he was, collaring Mark when he came back, and dealing him one or two Blows, which made me begin to cry, and run in between them. And Mark, though a great, tall Lad of his Years, began to whimper too, which reminds me again of the Trojan Horse, and the Valour that may dwell in a little Body, and the Pusillanimity that may be in a large one. And, “sure, Uncle,” says Mark, “the Earl deserves to die, for his” ... Mal-conversation, or Malministration, I forget which. And my Father replied, “Never trouble your Head with that. Leave the Powers that be to settle their own Affairs. Fine Times, indeed, when Barbers’ ’Prentices must be meddling in State-politics! To his own Master, the Earl standeth or falleth.”

Had all Men been of my Father’s equable and temperate Mind, we should not have fallen into the Disorders we presently did; wherein, no Doubt, there was much Wrong on both Sides. One Night we were roused from Sleep by Cries in the Street that “the King and his Papists were coming to fire the City and cut our Throats in our Beds;” but my Father, after putting his Head forth to learn the Nature of the Tumult, drew it in again and closed the Window, allaying our somewhat ungoverned Fears with that Composure which it behoves every Master of a Family to assume when he can, in Seasons of Danger or the Apprehension of it.

Soon there was open War between King and Parliament, which went on increasing till the whole Country was filled with Bloodshed and Confusion, and only ended in a total Change of Government. We were now in a State of Fortification; for the Lords and Commons had directed that the whole City should be put in a State of Defence, and that the Lord Mayor and Citizens should trench, stop, and fortify all Highways leading thereunto. Wherefore, all Entrances into London except five, were stoned and bricked up altogether; and those five were made as strong as could be, with Breast-works and Turn-pikes, Musket-proof. And all Sheds and Out-buildings outside London Wall, that were near enough to be advantageous to an Enemy, were taken down; and this gave a great deal of Work to do that behoved to be done quickly; wherefore even Women and Children helped the Men in carrying Earth, Stones, &c., for, by this Time, there was in the City a pretty general Disaffection towards the King; and those that wished him well and could not get to him, found it best to hold their Peace.

CHAPTER II

Cherry endeavours to remember if she were pretty.—A Water-party.

AND now my Memory flies on to the Time when, I suppose, I was as happy a Girl as any on the Bridge. I know not whether I were pretty or not,—I rather suppose I was, but my Father praised me too much, and my dear Mother never praised me at all, so that I have no Clue to what was really thought of me. There’s an old Saying, “Even a little Beetle is a Beauty in the Eyes of its Mother,”—I am bold to think that if I had been a little Black-beetle, I should still have been a Beauty in the Eyes of my Father. My Mother used to tell him “all his Geese were Swans,” which was as much as to say that hers were not: be that as it may, if she praised me less, I always felt she loved me as much as he did; and I loved her to the full as much as I loved him.

I remember coming down Stairs one Sunday Morning, dressed for Church,—(we had no Liturgy, nor Church of England Clergymen then, such was the Will of Parliament,)—dressed in a primrose Petticoat and grass-green Mantua neatly bundled up behind; black Mits without a Crease in them for Tightness, white Pinners starched and crimped, and a small steeple-crowned Hat,—when Mark, meeting me at the Stair-foot, stepped out of my Way with a sliding Bow, said, “Bless me, how pretty we are!” and looked attentively after me. I felt ashamed and yet elated; and thought somewhat more of myself and of him after that; yet I am not quite sure, now, that his Speech was not ironical, after all.

Of my Friend and Schoolfellow, Violet Armytage, there could not be two Opinions. She was excessively pretty, and knew it too well: which was partly the Fault of her Father, who was always calling her his “sweet Wi-let;” and yet, even if he had not, I think she would have found it out, for all that. My Father called me his rosy Cherry, but I knew it for his Manner of Speaking. But Violet always believed Everything that was said in her Praise. She was fond of me by Fits and Starts; and when the affectionate Fit was on, she would bring her Work and sit with me in the Arbour at the Top of our House, by the Hour together. Sometimes my Father and Mother would join us there in the long Summer Evenings, and we would sup in the open Air; no one objecting to it but Dolly, who had to carry the Things up so many Pair of Stairs.

At other Times, when my Father and Mother were otherwise engaged, Mark would come up to us; and sit upon the Roller or Watering-pot, and say ever so many funny Things to us both; which we thought very pleasant. Sometimes Violet would let her Ball of Thread roll through the Rails and drop down into the Street, and send him to fetch it; and when he had brought it she would do the same Thing again; which he said was too bad, but I don’t think he minded it. I never played him such Tricks myself; for, what was singular, though we lived in the same House together, I was shyer of him than she was.

Our first Floor was let to a very learned and excellent Man, though a very singular one, the Reverend Nathanael Blower, who had been Curate of St. Magnus till the Form of Religion changed. Then he was hard put to it, where to lay his Head without fleeing the Country or getting into Trouble; for the Independents were mighty intolerant; and he whom we used to think it a great Honour to get a passing Word and a Smile from, was now thankful to take up his Rest among us. Holy Writ tells us that some have entertained Angels unawares: if we entertained an Angel, it was not unawares, though he was a very eccentric and untidy one. He said he would have called my Mother the good Shunammite if it had not been a Shame to provoke Comparison between himself and the Prophet Elijah. Indeed his was somewhat like the “Chamber on the Wall,” for the Back-room in which he slept was a Lean-to that stuck against the main Wall like a Swallow’s Nest, and hung perilously over the foaming River, trembling at every half-ebb Tide; but Use inures us to Everything, and he said he slept as well in his Nest as a Sailor in his Hammock. As to his Sitting-chamber, it was soon a perfect Pig-sty (if Pigs ever had Books) of Papers, Parchments, Books, Pamphlets, old Shoes, Hats and Coats, Medicines, Cordials, Snuff-boxes, Pipes, Walking-sticks, and Everything that is untidy. After a Time he began to think whether he might not, by a conscientious Conformity, be a Working-bee rather than a Drone in the Hive; and, having some Acquaintance with Master John Howe, the Whitehall Preacher, who was known to be forward in assisting the Royalists and Episcopalians in Distress, if they were but Men of Merit, he went and took his Advice on the Subject before he presented himself before the Triers, that is to say, those who tried the ejected Ministers whether they might be allowed to officiate again in Public or not. Along with him went Doctor Fuller, so well known by his wise and witty Books; who was generally upon the merry Pin, for as pious a Man as he was. He, presenting himself before Master Howe, said,

The Back-room in which he slept was a Lean-to that stuck against the Main Wall

“Sir, you may observe I am a pretty corpulent Man, and I am to go through a Passage that is very strait. I beg you would be so kind as to give me a Shove, and help me through!”

Master Howe smiled, and frankly debated the Subject with him and Master Blower; and the End of it was, that when the Triers put it to Master Fuller whether he had ever had any Experience of a Work of Grace upon his Heart, he made Answer, that he could appeal to the Searcher of Hearts, that he made Conscience of his very Thoughts; and Master Blower said in other Words what amounted to the same Thing; howbeit, like Pharaoh’s Butler and Baker, one was accepted—the other not.

And the Reason was, that they got upon the Question of particular Faith, which was very prevalent in Oliver Cromwell’s Court, and put it to him whether he did not believe that all who asked for Anything in Faith would have it granted them, as well as have an Assurance on the Spot that it would be so. Which he said, in that large, unqualified Sense, he did not, for that he believed many timid Believers had the Faith of Adherence who had not the Faith of Assurance; and that if Prayer were made for some unreasonable Thing, however fervently, he did not think it would be granted. That would not stand Master Blower; so he had to come back to his Swallow’s Nest.

“But is it not an extraordinary Thing, now,” saith he to my Mother, “that they should, except for the Sake of catching a Man in his Talk, so hardly insist on the literal Acceptance of a Dogma which they themselves must know they overstrain? For would one of them dare to pray that his Father or Mother might come to Life again in this present World, however much he might long to see them in the Body? Or that all Jews, Infidels, and Heretics, might be converted this very Moment, however desirable a Thing it might be? We do the Word of God Dishonour and make it of none Effect when we interpret by the Letter instead of the Spirit.”

In this Fashion would the excellent Master Blower vouchsafe to converse with my Mother in my Hearing, much to her Edification and mine. Meantime Violet Armytage was much more given to Flirting than Preaching; and had more Admirers than any Girl on the Bridge; but the Man whom she and her Mother were chiefly desirous she should captivate was no Admirer of hers at all. This was Hugh Braidfoot, the Glover, who lived next Door to us; and who talked the Matter over with my Father very freely when they had the Shop to themselves; I sewing in the Parlour behind.

“I can see quite plainly through the old Lady,” quoth he, as he sate on his favourite Seat, the Counter, with his Feet easily reaching the Floor, “I can see what she’s driving at, and don’t respect her for it a bit. Why should she always be buying Gloves three or four Sizes too small for her broad red Hand, and then be sending Violet over to change them again and again till they fit? I’ve a dozen Pair wasted that she has stretched. And where is the other Daughter, and why is she always in the Background?”

“Kitty is sickly and a little lame,” says my Father, “and has her Health better in the Country.”

“I don’t believe she’s either sickly or lame,” says Hugh Braidfoot, “only the Mother wants to get this Daughter off first—and stands in her own Light by her Manœuvres, I can tell her. Defend me from a managing Mother!”

About this Time, my Father’s Trade had a short but surprising Impetus, which, as he said to my Mother, “was but the Flaring up of a Candle in the Socket, just before it goes out.” Cropped Heads and long Curls being now the Signs of different Parties, and the Round-heads having the uppermost, numerous Persons that had hitherto been vain enough of their long and graceful Tresses, which brought no small Gain to the Hairdressers, were now anxious to be shorn as close as French Poodles, for Fear of getting into Scrapes with the reigning Power. And as, like the Sheep after Shearing, they left their Fleeces behind them, which were in many Cases exceeding valuable, my Father and Mark were busied from Morning to Night, in washing, baking, and weaving beautiful Sets of Hair, which were carefully reserved for future Occasion.

“For you will see,” quoth my Father, “there will sooner or later be a Reaction; I may not live to see it, but you Youngsters will; People will be tired of Puritanism and Rebellion some of these Days, and then the old State of Things will come back; and the Croppies will be as ashamed of their Stubble Heads as the Cavaliers are of their Love-locks now; and, as Hair won’t grow as fast as green Peas, they will then be constrained to wear Wigs, and then will come a rare Time for the Barbers!” Every Word of which, like so many other of his Prophesyings and Presages, in due Season proved strictly true!

Meantime, though this Fury for cropping filled the Till as long as there was any long Hair to cut off, yet, this being presently done, a great Stagnation of Business ensued; for, whereas the curled Locks had required constant curling, brushing, and trimming, the round Heads were easily kept short, and brought only Pence where the others had brought Shillings. My Father kept his Hair long to the last; and, to express his Opinion of the Times so as e’en they who ran might read, he set up two waxen Effigies in his Window, not merely Heads, but half Lengths; the one representing an exceeding comely and handsome young Man, (very much like my Cousin Mark,) with long, fair Tresses most beautifully crimped, falling over his Vandyke Collar and black Velvet Coat: the other, with as red a Nose as old Noll, close cropped, so as to show his large Ears sticking out on each Side. And to make the Satire more pungent, the Round-head made as though pointing to the Cavalier, with a small Label superscribed, “See what I was!”—and the Cavalier, with a Look of silent Disgust, was signing at the Round-head and saying, “See what I shall be!”

This Comicality, which had cost my Father and Mark sundry Hours of evening Labour,—(I had made the Dresses,) drew Crowds of People to the Window, so as even to obstruct the Passage along the Bridge; and excited Peals of ironical Laughter; till, at length, Mirth proceeding to Mischief, Blows began to ensue among those who favoured opposite Sides. Then the Bridgewardens came with Constables and Weapons to quell the Disturbance, and an idle Fellow was set in the Cage, and another, with long Hair, put in the Stocks; and one or two of our Panes of Glass were broken; so that what began in Sport ended much too seriously; and my Father, finding he must yield to the Times, changed the Cavalier’s Placard into “See what you had better be,” and finally removed it altogether, saying he was nauseated with time-serving. But he persisted in wearing his own long Hair, come what would; which drew from the Reverend Master Blower that Similitude about the Trojan Horse, who, I suppose, persisted in wearing his Mane and long Tail after they had become Types of a Party. And when my Father was called in question for it by one of the Bridgewardens, and asked why he persevered in troubling Israel, he with his usual Spirit retorted upon him with, “How can a Tonsor be expected to hold with a Party that puts Pence into his Till instead of Shillings?” Whereupon the Bridgewarden called him a self-interested Demas, and said no more to him.

Hugh Braidfoot upheld him through thick and thin, laughing all the while; though he kept his own bushy Head as short as a Blacking-brush. Indeed, this Man, though the Essence of Mirth and Good-humour, strongly built, and six Foot high, had not a Quarter of my Father’s Valour.

As for Master Blower, he made a wry Face on it, saying that Magnasheh Miksheh (which I afterwards heard was Hebrew for well-set Hair) was now of no Account.

—One Evening,—I have good Reason to remember it,—the Days being sultry and at their longest,—we made a Pleasure-party to Greenwich, and took Water below the Bridge. Coming back just as the Moon was rising, a Boat-full of uproarious and half-intoxicated young Men fell foul of us and upset us. I shall never forget my Sensations as I went into the Water!—The next Minute, I was half out of it again, and found Mark’s Arm close round me, while with the other he struck out, and presently brought me ashore. My dear Father also rescued my Mother; and Hugh Braidfoot’s long Legs helped him more in wading out like a Heron, I think, than his Arms in swimming, for he, too, presently came aland, covered with Mud. My Mother and I cried, and felt very grateful to Mark, who stood panting and colouring, and looking very much pleased with himself; and presently we were all in another Boat on our Way to the Bridge Stairs, drenched, quiet, and thankful for our providential Escape.... I, especially, feeling, oh! how happy!—Yet, in after Days, there was a Time when I was ready to wish Mark had left me in the River—.

CHAPTER III

Result of the Water-Party.

THE only Person in the Boat, who was left for the Boatman to save, was Mistress Glossop, the Widow of a Cheapside Hairdresser in a much larger Way of Business than my Father, with whom we were on very intimate Terms. She was a Woman of about forty-five, tall, bulky, and with a very heated Face, which was the Result of Intemperance, not in drinking, but eating, as I have often heard her acknowledge. She was fond of Everything nice, and had a Habit of saying, “Oh, I can’t resist this!” “I never can resist that!” which used to disgust me with her; and make me ready to say, “More Shame for you if you cannot.” She and her Husband had always been well to do; and now she was Mistress of a large Business, with Court-patronage, such as it was, and a Foreman and three ’Prentices under her; besides keeping a professed Cook, Housemaid, and Scullion. And whereas she and Master Glossop had always been Companions and Gossips of my Father and Mother, whose Ages were suitable to them, yet, now she had cast off her Weeds, she went mighty fine; and Mark, who thought her sufficiently unagreeable, though he often went on Errands to her, said he was sure she was casting about for a second. To a Woman of her Habit, the Ducking she got was unlikely to be of much Good; and as for her flame-coloured Mantua, and pea-green Mantle, they were ruined outright: however, she was very merry about it, and as we were all engaged to sup with her, would hear of no excuse. Howbeit, my Mother was too wet for doing Anything but going Home and to Bed: my Father would not leave her; Hugh Braidfoot said he would join us, but did not; and the End was, that Mark and I, when we had dressed ourselves afresh and kept our Engagement, found Nobody to meet us but some Cheapside Shop-keepers who had not been on the Water. And though they made very merry, and though there were Lobsters, and Pound-cake, and Ducks, and green Peas, and fried Plum-pudding, and Gooseberry Pie, and other Delicacies too numerous to mention, I had no Mind to eat, but sat shivering, and scorching, and thinking of the Water closing over me; and at length, before any one else was ready to leave, begged Mistress Glossop to let me wish her Good-night.

Mark, though he was in high Spirits, came away with me, and very kindly said he feared I was the worse for the Accident. And though he had been very talkative at the Supper-table, yet as soon as we got into the open Air we became as quiet as two Judges, and walked Home scarcely speaking a Word, till we came to that last one, “Good-night.”

I had taken Cold, which, with a good deal of Fever attending it, made me very poorly for some Days; and my dear Mother, who did not show it so much at first, had in fact taken her Death-chill, though we knew it not till long afterwards. Meantime, she kept about; I seeming at first the worst of the two, and sitting by the Fire in a Cloke, very chilly, though ’twas close upon the Dog-days. Violet Armytage came over the Way to see me; and saith she, “Dear Cherry, how well Mark behaved! I shall think the better of him for it as long as I live!”

I felt I should do so too, but had no Mind to speak much about it; and, my Cold being heavy, and making me indisposed to talk, she soon went away. Almost daily, however, she came across; and, when she did not, Mark went at her Desire to tell her how I was.

And so I got well; and just as I was fit for going out again, my dear Mother’s Illness became so apparent that I kept wholly to the House. At first we thought it troublesome rather than dangerous, and were not frightened; and, though I sat by her Bed almost all Day long, she would sometimes send me down to work below and keep an Eye to the House. Her Illness subdued me a good deal; and Mark was become unwontedly gentle and silent; so that, though we scarce saw each other save at Meals, we said little; and yet I never felt him to be better Company.

Violet sent me Word that unusual Press of Business in the Shop kept her from coming over, but begged I would never let a Day pass without sending her Word how my Mother was; which I did, though thinking, now and then, she might have just run over, if but for a Minute.

One sultry Evening, my Mother being ready to compose herself to Sleep, bade me sit below till she rang for me, as she was sure the Room must be warm and close. It was so, in fact, and I was feeling a little faint, therefore was glad to sit at the open Casement of our Parlour behind the Shop. The Business of the Day was done; my Father was gossiping with Hugh Braidfoot next Door; there was a pleasing Confusion of distant Sounds from the City and along the Water; Boatmen calling “Yo, heave ho,” and singing Snatches of Boat-songs; the Water trembling and murmuring among the Arches, and the Evening Air feeling soft and reviving.

While I was thus sitting, all alone save for Dolly in the Kitchen, and Master Blower on the first Story, Mark comes in and gives me a Posy, saying, “Violet sends you these Flowers:” and then remained, with his Hand resting on the Back of my Chair.

I know not how long we thus remained, quite silent, and I conscious of great Pleasure in his Presence; till at last, for want of Anything more important to say, I observed, “How pleasant the Evening Air is coming over the Water!”

“Very,” said he, without seeming to be thinking much about it: and again we were both quiet.

“Cousin,” said he at length, in a very gentle Voice,—which was not his usual Way of addressing me, for in common he called me Cherry,—

—“Dear Cousin, I have something to say to you”—and stopped.

“What is it, Mark?” said I, softly.

“We have lived long together,” began he again, faintly laughing, “and I never felt afraid of speaking to you, before—How odd it is that I should feel so, now!”

“What have you to be afraid about?” said I, looking up at him: on which he coloured and looked away; and I did the same, without knowing why.

“You have always been my Friend,” resumed he, taking Courage; “you will not be angry with me?”

“Why should I?” said I. “Is there Anything to be angry about?”

“Perhaps you may think so,” said he, “when you come to know all. Dear Cherry, I’m in Love!” And laughed, and then was silent.

I never felt so perplexed what to say next. “I don’t see that is any Matter of mine,” said I at length.

“Don’t you, though? But that depends upon whom I’m in Love with!” said he, smiling. “If it were with Anybody a hundred Miles off, that you had never seen or heard of, you might say it was no Matter of yours; but, Cherry, she’s not one Mile off! She’s the prettiest Girl on the Bridge!”

“Then,” said I, turning scarlet as I spoke, “it must certainly be Violet Armytage!”

“It is!” cried he rapturously. “What a Guesser you are!—Dear Cherry!”

Oh! what a Bound my Heart gave; and then seemed to stop! For,—I’m only speaking to myself; to myself I may own the Truth—I had not thought he meant Violet!

“Ah,” said he, after a long Silence, which I was as unable as he was disinclined to break, “I dare say you’ve seen it all along—I may have told you no News—you are such a good Secret-keeper, Cherry!”

I could not yet say a Word—He had taken my Hand and wrung it; and I gently pressed his in Sign of Sympathy; it was all I could do, but it was quite enough.

“How kind you are!” said he. “What do you think my Uncle will say?”

“What do you think her Father will say?” said I faintly.

“We are not going to tell him just yet,” returned he, “nor yet her Mother.”

“That sounds bad, Mark——”

“Nay, Cherry, you know how crazy the old Lady is to have Braidfoot for her Son-in-law; she’ll find in Time he won’t come forward, and Violet will take care he shall not, for she will give him no Encouragement; but, till her Mother finds it won’t do, there’s no Use in my speaking, for you know I have nothing to marry upon, yet.”

“When shall you have?” said I.

“When?” repeated he, looking a little annoyed. “Why, some of these Days, as the Saying is. You know I am thorough Master of my Business now, have served my time, receive good Wages, and am very useful to your Father. Who knows but that, as Time goes on, he’ll take me for a Partner, and finally retire from Business?”

“Ah, Mark, so little comes in now, that he will have nothing to retire upon. We can but just go on as we do.”

“Well,” said he, laughing, with a little Embarrassment, “perhaps Mistress Glossop will take me into Partnership. I’m a Favourite in that Quarter.”

“Mistress Glossop! Oh, Mark!”

“Nay, Cherry, don’t you see, if old Master Armytage takes a Fancy to me, he may make it worth her while to do so, for the Sake of his ‘sweet Wi-let’?”

“Ah, Mark, Master Armytage is himself in a very small Way of Business—nothing at all to compare with Mistress Glossop’s. We love and esteem them for old Acquaintance sake, but she looks quite down upon them. There are so many small Haberdashers on the Bridge!”

“Well, the smaller he is, the less Reason he will have to look down upon me. I suppose you don’t mean to say, Cherry, that no young Man thinks of Marriage unless he is better off than I am?”

“So far from it, Mark, that I cannot see what Right the Armytages have to expect a better Match for their Daughter; and therefore I think it a Pity there should be any Concealment.”

“Marry come up!” cries he, “I would rather draw a Double-tooth for a fiery Dragon than tell Master Armytage I was Suitor for his sweet Wi-let!”

“Why, you will have to tell him sooner or later,” said I.

“Not ... not if we wait till he dies,” said Mark.

“Dies! oh, Mark!”——

“It’s ill, reckoning on dead Men’s Shoes, I own,” said he, looking rather ashamed.

“It’s unfeeling and indelicate in the highest Degree,” said I. “Why should not Violet tell her Father?”

“Ah, Cherry, she will not; and what’s more, she has made me solemnly promise that I will not, at present; so you see there’s no more to be said. We must just go on, hoping and waiting, as many young Couples have done before us; knowing that we love one another—and is not that, for a While at least, enough?”

I faintly said, “Yes.”

“You don’t speak so heartily, though, as I thought you would,” said he. “Don’t you sympathize with us, Cherry?”

I looked up at him with a Smile, though my Lip quivered, and said fervently, “Oh, yes!”

“That’s right!” said he gladly. “Now I shall feel that, whether Things go rough or smooth with me, you take cordial Part in them. God bless you, Cherry! And if ever I’m in any little Difficulty with Violet, I shall come to you for Advice and Help, rely upon it!—Hark, there is your Mother’s Bell.”

I ran off, glad to leave him; and found my Mother coughing, and in want of some Water. When she had recovered herself, and composed herself again to Sleep, I sat by her Casement, looking out on the same Scene I had been gazing on an Hour before; but oh! with what different Feelings!

The Trouble of my Soul taught me how much I had cared for him, what Expectations I had nourished of him, what Disappointment I felt in him. All was changed, all was shivered: never to be built up again! And yet no one knew what Hopes were wrecked within me.—The World was going on just the same!

I thought how kind my Father and Mother had been to him, and how likely it was they had hoped he would marry me, and how certainly, in that case, my Father would have shared his Business with him.

I thought how dull and forlorn a Place the World would now seem to me, but resolved they should never know it. I would go on, in all Respects, just the same.

Large Tears were flowing unrestrained down my Cheeks, when Master Blower’s Bell, having been once rung already, was now pulled again with some Impatience; and as Dolly had stepped out, I answered it myself, and found he wanted his Supper, which he took at no particular Time, but just whenever he was inclined to lay aside his Reading or Writing. I might have spread the Table for him nineteen Times out of twenty, without his ever looking at me; however, on this Occasion he happened to have nothing better to do, and observed I was in trouble.

“Child,” said he, “is thy Mother worse?”

“No, Sir, I humbly thank you.”

“Then,” says he, “Something else has happened to grieve thee, for thine Eyes are red with weeping. What is it?”

But I could not tell him.

“Well,” said he, after a Pause, “young Girls may have their Griefs that they don’t care to tell about.—Man is born to Trouble, as the Sparks fly upward. And sometimes those Griefs we show least, we feel most. But remember, my good Girl, (for a good Girl, Cherry, thou art!) that there is One to whom we may always carry our Burthens; One who can ease them, too, either by giving us Strength to bear them, or by removing them altogether.—Go pray, my Child, go pray!”

And I did as he bade me, and found Balm for a bleeding Heart. He was a good and wise Man, was Master Blower.

When my Mother awoke, she said, “Cherry, I don’t know what has come over me, but I feel a Peace and a Quiet past expressing ... I should not wonder if you have been praying for me, my Child.”

I pressed her Hand and said, “Yes, Mother, I have ... and for myself too.”

“This Illness of mine may be a Blessing in Disguise to us both,” said she after a Pause—“it has taught me your Value, Cherry.”

“What a funny Story,” resumed she presently, quietly smiling, “might be written by a clever Hand about a Person who always fancied herself undervalued! ‘The Undervalued Woman!’—There are a good many such in the World, I fancy; poor Things, it seems no Joke to them. People who have that Impression of themselves generally take such silly Methods to prevent their being overlooked! They had better make themselves of real Importance, by being useful and thoughtful for others. They had better take Pattern by you, Cherry!”

How dear, a Mother’s Praise! Especially when so seldom bestowed!

CHAPTER IV

Chelsea Buns

VIOLET seemed afraid (and yet why should she be?) to come near me, after Mark’s Communication; and, as my dear Mother could ill spare me, I kept close House. We now felt the Blessing of having a discreet and godly Minister for our Inmate; for Master Blower read and prayed much with my Mother, and comforted her greatly by his Discoursings. I likewise derived Benefit from the good Seed he scattered, which fell, as it were, into Ground much softened by heavy Rain.

When I was able and inclined to step across to Violet, I found only Master Armytage in the Shop; who said to me with some Shortness, “You will find my Daughters within,—I wish your Father would find Something more profitable for your Cousin to do, than to be always in our Parlour, a-hindering of Business.”

I knew Mark was not there just then, at any Rate, having left him at Home; and, stepping into Master Armytage’s Back-room, I only found there a pale, gentle-looking Girl, with large, brown Eyes, diligently putting Shop-marks to a Box of new Ribbons. I knew her for Kitty, though her return Home was News to me; and, having not much to say to a Stranger, I asked her how she liked the Bridge. She said, “Not at all; I have been used to look upon Trees and Fields, and miss the Green; the Noises make my Head ache, and my Mother keeps me so close to my Work, that I pine for fresh Air.” I said, “Sure there is enough of it blowing through that open Window from the River!”

“Do you call it fresh?” said she, rather contemptuously. “I do not, I can tell you! Instead of being scented with Cows’ Breath and new-mown Hay, it comes from Tan-yards and Butchers’ Shops.”

When Violet came in, she blushed very red, but we only spoke of indifferent Subjects: and, strange as it was of two such close Intimates, we never, from that Time forward, had any closer Communication. Perhaps it was her Fault, perhaps it was mine: or perhaps, no Fault of either, but a just and becoming Sense of what was best for two modest Girls in our new Relation. For, though it needed not to be supposed that she knew Anything of what was passing in my Mind, I am persuaded that she did.

And thus the Families fell apart; and Mark never renewed his Confidences to me after that first Evening; and, if he had Moments of keen Pleasure now and then, I am persuaded he had Hours of Pain he had never known before. For Violet was capricious and coquettish, and sometimes would vex him by being unreasonable and hard to please: at other Times, by laying herself out to please others, as Master Braidfoot, and their Lodger Master Clarke. And though she gave out to Mark that this was only for a Feint, to draw off the Attention of her Father and Mother from himself, yet sometimes it was certainly with no other Purpose than to plague him, and at other Times, I fear, with no better Purpose than to please herself; and I know it cost him many a Tear.

Poor Mark! how my Heart ached for him, and swelled against her, when I found him one Evening with his Arms on the Table, and his Head on his Arms, and saw, when he looked up, that he had been crying. He rose, and looked out of Window, and said, “Has it done raining yet? I think I have been asleep!” But I knew he had not.

All his Money now went in fine Clothes for himself, and Presents for her; so that if he needed a little Purse against his Marriage Day, he was not going the Way to fill it.

There was great Talk among the young People, about this Time, of an Excursion up the River, to eat Buns and drink Whey at Chelsea. I was invited to join them, but declined, on account of my Mother: but Mark was to go, and could think of Nothing else. I washed and starched his Collar and Bands myself, and sewed a new Lace on his Hat. He wore a plain silver-grey Cloth Suit, which was sober, but very becoming, for he never affected strong Contrasts, like my Father. Knowing he was fond of a Flower in his Button-hole, but was pressed for Time to get one, I gave a little Girl a Penny to run down to the Market for the best Moss-rose she could buy, and gave it him myself. He thanked me most pleasantly for it, and looked so comely and cheerful, that when he went forth, I could not help standing just behind the Window-blind, to look after him, and to see the gay Party set out from Master Armytage’s. First, a Boy was sent forward, with a great Basket full of Veal-pies and other Dainties; then came out Master Armytage, with Mistress Glossop, who had condescended to join the Party, and wore a peach-blossom Silk, with pea-green Ribbons. Then Mistress Armytage, with a little Basket covered up, no Doubt containing Something very precious; and Hugh Braidfoot by himself, with his Hands in his Pockets, as if he expected to be asked to carry it, and did not mean to offer, walking a little in Advance of her; then Violet, looking sweet! between Mark and Master Clarke—(I know she liked having two better than one, whatever might be her Value for either;) and then Kitty, who by Rights should have had one or other of them, slowly following with Master and Mistress Benskin. I observed her to be a very little lame, but Nothing to speak of.

Well! the Day was fine, the Water looked lovely, there was Nothing to prevent their having a most charming Party of Pleasure, unless it were their own Fault. I thought of them many Times, as I sat quietly weaving Hair at my Mother’s Bedside; and fancied them floating on the River, landing under tall Trees, rambling among Meadows, sitting on the Grass, eating and drinking in the Shade, and scattering in small Parties. I fancied what I should do and feel if I were Violet, and how Mark would comport himself, and what he would say: but, when I looked on my Mother’s pain-worn Face, I did not wish to change Places.

They did not come Home till very late; much too late. I had persuaded my Father to go to Bed, and let me sit up for Mark, for Fear of disturbing my Mother. He said Dolly might as well sit up too; however, she proved heavy to sleep, so I sent her to Bed.

And looked on the Bridge

Then I sat at my Window, which was over Master Blower’s Sitting-room, and looked out on the Bridge. The Harvest-moon, brightly shining, made our Side of the Way as light as Day, but Master Armytage’s Side was in deep Shade. I heard St. Magnus’s Clock, and St. Paul’s, and St. Mary Overy’s, strike Eleven. Then I saw some dark Figures coming along in the Shade, and stop at Master Armytage’s Door, and knock up the Maid, who, after long Delay, came sleepily to the Door with a Candle. Then the others, who had been talking, but not much, like People who were very tired after too long a Day’s Pleasure, said “Good-night;” and I saw Hugh Braidfoot shake Hands with the Girl on his Arm, and step across to his own Door in the broad Moonshine. Master and Mistress Benskin had gone Home before, and let themselves in with the House-key. I counted those that entered Master Armytage’s, and only made out his own Family. Mark had doubtless seen Mistress Glossop to her own Door, as was right and fitting. For him, then, I must expect to wait a good While longer: and I did wait a good While; till all the Clocks struck Twelve. Just as they had done striking, I heard and knew his Step, and opened the Door without his knocking.

“Have you had a pleasant Day?” said I.

I looked at him as I spoke, and shall never forget his Face!

—“Good-night,” said he shortly; “we’ll talk it over to-morrow,”—

And impatiently took from my Hands his Candle, which I was trying to light for him at mine. But it had been snuffed too short, and would not light as readily as he wished; which made him curse it in a low, deep Voice. I had never heard him swear before.

“Mark,” said I, looking anxiously at him, “you are ill.”

“No, I’m not,” said he abruptly; “Good-night. Thank you for sitting up for me.”

“I’m not at all tired,” said I, “and there’s some Supper for you in the Kitchen. Let us go there, and have a little Chat over the Pleasures of the Day—you don’t look sleepy.”

From white he turned to deep red.

“The Day has not been so pleasant as you suppose,” said he huskily; “you have been better and happier at your Mother’s Bedside. I wish there were more such as you in the World. Good-night, dear, good Cherry!”

—And sprang up Stairs without another Word, taking two Steps at a Time. I went to Bed, but not to sleep; I could not get his strange Look and Manner out of my Head.

The next Morning, at Breakfast-time, Mark did not appear. Dolly said he had gone out early. My Father was angry, and sent across the Way for him, knowing he was but too often at Master Armytage’s. But Dolly brought back Word they had seen Nothing of him. Then we concluded he had gone for an early Walk, as was often his Custom, and had outstayed his Time. However, we breakfasted without him at length, and still he did not come back.

“Confound that Boy,” said my patient Father at last—(thus, the Fault of one Party provoked the Sin of another,)—“it’s plaguy tiresome of him to be playing Truant this Morning, of all Days in the Year, for I have pressing Business in Eastcheap.”

“Leave me in Charge of the Shop, Father,” said I,—“my Mother’s Cough is quiet, now she is dozing; and I shall hear her Bell.”

“Well, I suppose I must,” said he very reluctantly; “but I shall trounce Master Mark well for his Conduct when I see him next, he may rely upon it!”

So he left me in Charge; and my loved Mother being in a Kind of lethargic Slumber, which often lasted many Hours, I left the Doors open between us, and sat in the Shop. As Fate would have it, not a single Customer looked in the whole Time my Father was away; which was lucky, though we did not feel very thankful, in usual, for this Falling-off in Business. Before he returned, Mark came in, and beckoned me into the Parlour.

“What is the Matter?” said I, with a violently beating Heart.

“I’ve done it!” said he breathlessly.

“Done what?” said I.

“Married!” said he: and hid his Face in his Hands.

“Dear Mark, how imprudent!” I exclaimed affectionately; “what will the Armytages say?”

“What will they, indeed!” repeated he, “Violet especially! She drove me to it!”

“Violet? Drove you to marry her?” I cried.—It sounded so strange!

“Oh, Cherry! what will you say? It makes me shudder to tell you!” he rapidly said; “Nothing but that Girl’s incorrigible Coquetry could have made me break with her as I did; and then Reproaches led to Taunts, and Taunts to Threatenings, till bad led to worse, and she twitted me with my Poverty, and I told her I could be a richer Man in twenty-four Hours than her Father, and look down upon them all, and she dared me to it, and said a better Man than me was waiting for her, and so—Temptation to be revenged on her came in my Way, and—I’ve married Mistress Glossop!”

“Oh, Mark!”

—“Nay, Cherry, don’t give way so,” said he, beginning to shed Tears himself when he saw me weeping bitterly,—“Love is not a Man’s whole Life, and what I’ve tasted of it hasn’t made me very happy. I’ve stepped into a famous Business, and I shall have a quiet Fireside, and a capital Table, and kind Looks if not pretty ones, and—a done Thing can’t be undone: so there’s an End on’t!”

Then, fancying he heard my Father’s Step, though ’twas only Master Blower’s, he hastily exclaimed, “You must tell my Uncle—Good-bye, Cherry!” and hurried out of the House.

When he was gone, I sat in a Kind of Stupor.... Married? and to such a Wife!—How could he?—how could she? ... and this increased my Amazement, for he had been beside himself with Anger and Jealousy, and hardly knew what he was doing,—but that she, cool, collected, and at her Time of Life, could have closed with his Proposals without the Delay of a single Day!—how disgusting!—Ah, she was afraid of losing him!

—Immersed in these sad Thoughts, with my Hands clasped on my Lap, I was unaware of my Father’s Return till he stood before me. I started.

“Has Mark returned?” cried he.

“He came back, and is again gone,” said I.

“The young Rascal!” exclaimed my Father very passionately; “what does he mean by this outrageous Conduct? I’ve a great Mind to lock the Door against him when he comes back!”

“Father, he will never come back!—He is married! ... married to Mistress Glossop.”

And, trying to speak composedly, all would not do; the Tears rained from my Eyes.

My Father remained perfectly mute. I could understand his Amazement, his Vexation, by my own; accompanied, as I knew it must be in his Case, by great Anger. I expected every Moment to hear some violent Expression of Indignation: he had been so unusually displeased with him already for what was comparatively a Trifle.

All at once, I found myself folded in his Arms. He did not say a Word; but the longer he held me, the more and more I felt that his Hopes for me had been ruined as well as mine, that his Schemes and Visions of the Future were all dispersed and overclouded, that he knew Something of what was passing within me, and felt Sympathy without having the Power of expressing it.

“Well,—” said he, releasing me at last,—and I saw that his Eyes were wet,—“Man proposes, but God disposes. We’ve had an Escape from this young Man. Ungrateful young Fellow! And blind to his own Interest, too, for I could have done better for him, Cherry, than he knows of. But—he deserves his Fate. A miserable one it will be! He’ll never prosper!”

“Oh, Father! don’t prophesy against him! We need not wish him ill.”

“I don’t wish him ill,” returned he, “but he’ll come to no Good. He has done for himself in this Marriage. And so, Cherry, you’ll see!”