The Complete Christmas Books and Stories. Charles Dickens

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СКАЧАТЬ for me. Can you be quick? You’re an old man.’

      Toby, who had been looking after Meg, quite stupidly, made shift to murmur out that he was very quick, and very strong.

      ‘How old are you?’ inquired the Alderman.

      ‘I’m over sixty, sir,’ said Toby.

      ‘O! This man’s a great deal past the average age, you know,’ cried Mr. Filer breaking in as if his patience would bear some trying, but this really was carrying matters a little too far.

      ‘I feel I’m intruding, sir,’ said Toby. ‘I— I misdoubted it this morning. Oh dear me!’

      The Alderman cut him short by giving him the letter from his pocket. Toby would have got a shilling too; but Mr. Filer clearly showing that in that case he would rob a certain given number of persons of ninepence-halfpenny a-piece, he only got sixpence; and thought himself very well off to get that.

      Then the Alderman gave an arm to each of his friends, and walked off in high feather; but, he immediately came hurrying back alone, as if he had forgotten something.

      ‘Porter!’ said the Alderman.

      ‘Sir!’ said Toby.

      ‘Take care of that daughter of yours. She’s much too handsome.’

      ‘Even her good looks are stolen from somebody or other, I suppose,’ thought Toby, looking at the sixpence in his hand, and thinking of the tripe. ‘She’s been and robbed five hundred ladies of a bloom a-piece, I shouldn’t wonder. It’s very dreadful!’

      ‘She’s much too handsome, my man,’ repeated the Alderman. ‘The chances are, that she’ll come to no good, I clearly see. Observe what I say. Take care of her!’ With which, he hurried off again.

      ‘Wrong every way. Wrong every way!’ said Trotty, clasping his hands. ‘Born bad. No business here!’

      The Chimes came clashing in upon him as he said the words. Full, loud, and sounding — but with no encouragement. No, not a drop.

      ‘The tune’s changed,’ cried the old man, as he listened. ‘There’s not a word of all that fancy in it. Why should there be? I have no business with the New Year nor with the old one neither. Let me die!’

      Still the Bells, pealing forth their changes, made the very air spin. Put ’em down, Put ’em down! Good old Times, Good old Times! Facts and Figures, Facts and Figures! Put ’em down, Put ’em down! If they said anything they said this, until the brain of Toby reeled.

      He pressed his bewildered head between his hands, as if to keep it from splitting asunder. A well-timed action, as it happened; for finding the letter in one of them, and being by that means reminded of his charge, he fell, mechanically, into his usual trot, and trotted off.

The Second Quarter

      The letter Toby had received from Alderman Cute, was addressed to a great man in the great district of the town. The greatest district of the town. It must have been the greatest district of the town, because it was commonly called ‘the world’ by its inhabitants. The letter positively seemed heavier in Toby’s hand, than another letter. Not because the Alderman had sealed it with a very large coat of arms and no end of wax, but because of the weighty name on the superscription, and the ponderous amount of gold and silver with which it was associated.

      ‘How different from us!’ thought Toby, in all simplicity and earnestness, as he looked at the direction. ‘Divide the lively turtles in the bills of mortality, by the number of gentlefolks able to buy ’em; and whose share does he take but his own! As to snatching tripe from anybody’s mouth — he’d scorn it!’

      With the involuntary homage due to such an exalted character, Toby interposed a corner of his apron between the letter and his fingers.

      ‘His children,’ said Trotty, and a mist rose before his eyes; ‘his daughters — Gentlemen may win their hearts and marry them; they may be happy wives and mothers; they may be handsome like my darling M-e–’.

      He couldn’t finish the name. The final letter swelled in his throat, to the size of the whole alphabet.

      ‘Never mind,’ thought Trotty. ‘I know what I mean. That’s more than enough for me.’ And with this consolatory rumination, trotted on.

      It was a hard frost, that day. The air was bracing, crisp, and clear. The wintry sun, though powerless for warmth, looked brightly down upon the ice it was too weak to melt, and set a radiant glory there. At other times, Trotty might have learned a poor man’s lesson from the wintry sun; but, he was past that, now.

      The Year was Old, that day. The patient Year had lived through the reproaches and misuses of its slanderers, and faithfully performed its work. Spring, summer, autumn, winter. It had laboured through the destined round, and now laid down its weary head to die. Shut out from hope, high impulse, active happiness, itself, but active messenger of many joys to others, it made appeal in its decline to have its toiling days and patient hours remembered, and to die in peace. Trotty might have read a poor man’s allegory in the fading year; but he was past that, now.

      And only he? Or has the like appeal been ever made, by seventy years at once upon an English labourer’s head, and made in vain!

      The streets were full of motion, and the shops were decked out gaily. The New Year, like an Infant Heir to the whole world, was waited for, with welcomes, presents, and rejoicings. There were books and toys for the New Year, glittering trinkets for the New Year, dresses for the New Year, schemes of fortune for the New Year; new inventions to beguile it. Its life was parcelled out in almanacks and pocket-books; the coming of its moons, and stars, and tides, was known beforehand to the moment; all the workings of its seasons in their days and nights, were calculated with as much precision as Mr. Filer could work sums in men and women.

      The New Year, the New Year. Everywhere the New Year! The Old Year was already looked upon as dead; and its effects were selling cheap, like some drowned mariner’s aboardship. Its patterns were Last Year’s, and going at a sacrifice, before its breath was gone. Its treasures were mere dirt, beside the riches of its unborn successor!

      Trotty had no portion, to his thinking, in the New Year or the Old.

      ‘Put ’em down, Put ’em down! Facts and Figures, Facts and Figures! Good old Times, Good old Times! Put ’em down, Put ’em down!’— his trot went to that measure, and would fit itself to nothing else.

      But, even that one, melancholy as it was, brought him, in due time, to the end of his journey. To the mansion of Sir Joseph Bowley, Member of Parliament.

      The door was opened by a Porter. Such a Porter! Not of Toby’s order. Quite another thing. His place was the ticket though; not Toby’s.

      This Porter underwent some hard panting before he could speak; having breathed himself by coming incautiously out of his chair, without first taking time to think about it and compose his mind. When he had found his voice — which it took him a long time to do, for it was a long way off, and hidden under a load of meat — he said in a fat whisper,

      ‘Who’s it from?’

      Toby told him.

      ‘You’re СКАЧАТЬ