The Chronicles of the Crutch

Front matter

THE CHRONICLES OF THE CRUTCH BY BLANOHARJ) JERROLD. AUTHOR OP " IHB LIFE AND BEMAI-NS O-F DOUGLAS JERROLD ;" " rjIPERrAL PARIS ; " " THE FRENCH UXDER ARMS ; " etc., etc. LONDON: WILLIAM TINSLEY, 314, STRAND. MDCCCLX. DEDICATION. THESE CHRONICLES ARE INSCRIBED TO ALDEEMAN W. A. MATTHEWS (OF SHEFFIELD), IN GRATEFUL RE5IESIBR ANC E OF HIS GRACEFUL HOSPITALITY, AND HIS CORDIAL SERVICES ; BT HIS FRIEND, B. J. PRELIMINARY WORD. Nearly ah the papers included in these " Chronicles" have appeared in the pages of " Household Words ;" while some are printed for the first time. For those not hitherto printed, the author ventures to bespeak the indulgence with which his "Household Words" papers have been received. October, 18G0. CONTENTS.

Chapter II

Brother Lebord's gossip about Paris Lamps ; together with his account of "A Dinner with a Mystery." — Brother Hartopp adds some gossip about the Buonapartes. . . . . . . 27

Chapter III

Old Creighton's story of " The World's Common Verdict." — Brother Sands ventures to ask, "What is Life? " — The Master, tempted by the success of the Brothers, and delighted -with some extraordinary Cavendish, talks about " Pipes !"

Chapter VII

Page Brother Horrocks takes the Brethren on an Atlantic Cruise. — " Eyes Made to Order." — Babbycombe's " Methuselah Pill." — Mr. Seesaw on "Bubbles." 114 CHAPTER Vin. Brother Enough addresses " Persons about to Marry. Brother Sands, on " Smithfield Races." — A yarn over some "Ruins with Silver Keys." — The old men hover over " Protected Cradles." . . . . . . . . . . ' . . 145

Chapter IX

Brother Frowde discourses on the " Efforts of a Gentleman in Search of Despair." — The Master dissects "A Subscription List." — And Brother Sands reads a biography of the "Constant Reader." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Chapter X

"The Queen's Bazaar" visited by Brother Phœnix. — Brother Seesaw is learned on " Spiders' Silk." — The Master suggests a Nightcap. 198

CHAPTER XL

Hon-ocks gives " Some Experiments made at Sea, by a Landlubber." — Lebord discourses on "An Old Dutch Por trait ; " and on " A Milky-and- Watery Way." — Brother Hartopp, on " Fate Days." . . . . . . . . . . 215

Chapter XII

The Master announces three papers : — " The Iron Seamstress;" "The Budding Chathams ; " and, it being Christmas, "Christmas in Lodgings."— The Brothers' Christmas Bowl.

Chapter I. The Brethren Of The Crutch

The Brethren of the Crutch were tired of the lagging hours. Wearily to them the sun passed over the heavens. Sitting in the cool cloisters, on summer afternoons, they puffed the blue fumes of their bird's-eye into the air ; and dozed and yawned. They were each familiar with the other. Every experience of the world (stdl humming without, careless of their withdrawal, and stbl preparing new brothers for the coming years) had been told over and over again. There was not a rent in a brother's garment upon which the feeble eyes of his comrades had not rested. No brother had a relation whose name and fortune were not famibaf to the minds of the rest. In this asylum for the vanquished soldiers of the world — this " chapel of ease for ad men's wearied miseries" — there was a pervading, unbroken quiet, that befitted, it was said, the ante-room to the sepulchre.

These vanquished soldiers were here gathered together — waiting for their sentence. The world gave them the needful crust and the comforting pipe — as the French lately gave caporal and wine to the captured Austrians. B Vast, sobdly-budt — capable of giving comfort to rheu matic limbs — was the venerable Crutch. Tire lichen had greyed its wads, the weather had rounded its gables : the robing years had well nigh fibed its little cemetery. Some few kings had reigned since masons were busy in the foundations, under the bst slippers of these weary brothers into whose company we have crept. There was ivy, and enough, over the wad-ends when the first Charles suffered at Wbitehab. This roomy refectory was musical with wooden platters when the Vbgin Queen, of the shadowless face, was expecting the Spanish Armada.

We never cut wood solidly now, nor hammer iron roughly, as these beams are cut and these bolts are hammered. They are of a more muscular age than ours. There is dust in the chinks of the cloister pavement, we make bold to assert, from the boots of Sir Walter Raleigh. The windows through which the brothers look out upon the fading sky, are diamond panes. There are leather stoups in the master's room : and in the great, dark hall nray be seen the place where the rude brothers of the good old times bt their fire, and consumed the smoke thereof. No better place than this could be found for tired man to fill up the list of his years. Gentle Charity spreads her wings over it, and her smde is there to warm the blood of torpid age. The need of rest presses upon the man who has done his fifty years of work : — The sunne, that measures heaven all day long, At nighte doth baite his steedes the ocean waves emong.' But there are vanquished workmen, who bear their scars lightly as ribbons.

There remains a hearty kernel in the split sheb, sometimes. Weary then were the monotonous hours to the old men whose eyes beamed still, and who had not had enough of the world. The unbroken round of morning chapel, afternoon dinners, and early supper ; the irksome gowning ; the inevitable silence, feb heavdy upon them. And stih they sate at their little doors under the cloisters, and weardy blew their bird's-eye smoke into the air ; and, as they dipped theb fingers into the hot pipe bowl from time to time, sighed faintly. One summer's evening, whde the cloisters were fragrant with the smoke from the Brethren's pipes, the sundown bed toded. Every brother took his pipe from his mouth at the first stroke. Some drew their hands to their ears to catch the sound ; others raised themselves and turned towards the belfry: but ab muttered, " One ! two ! three !" and so on, while the bed tolled.

When it stopped, the Brothers looked at one another. " Twenty-one only ! — only twenty-one !" passed from lip to lip. There were twenty-two Brothers yesterday — and the bed cabs the number of the aged men whose silver heads the Crutch protects ! There was a stir in the cloisters — the pipes were laid aside — and " Peace be with him !" said the old men. Brother Creighton had passed away, in the night. Brother Lebord was elected in the dead man's stead, and took up his quarters in the late Brother Creighton's rooms. In this way every Brother stood in dead men's shoes. Lebord was a very brisk brother. He was as spare as a hop-pole ; and when he went to church of mornings, in his rusty black velvet gown, the folds of it hung wofully about him. But he had sparkling grey eyes, deep sunk under his skud and behind his high cheek-bones — but sparkling, we repeat.

He smoked cigarettes; and he chattered as he made them, with a freshness that gave new b2 life to the brotherhood. Now, under the cloisters, there were a few merry laughs, and a little animation. Brother Lebord was indeed a welcome addition to the circle. He had seen much. He had paid Louis Phbippe his abowance (before 1830): he had spoken to the hero of Austerlitz. Tabeyrand had bowed to him. He had been head cashier in a great Paris bank, tid the Revolution of July broke out ; when he took his savings to Brussels, where he lost them in the turmod which gave Leopold a throne. This turmoil was indeed an unfortunate one for him ; for it not only beggared him, but it cost him also a bayonet wound in the back. To be wounded is unpleasant under any circumstances ; but to be probed in the back !

This wound was not only a source of perpetual pain to poor Lebord — it was, in addition, a subject on which his comrades would raby him by the hour together. He bore both the pain and the pleasantry with grace. He had all the polish of the old French school. His bow to a lady was one of those graceful movements of dignified respect, which look almost grotesque, in these rough days, when a man addresses a lady with bis bat on. Lebord looked down with contempt upon the fast manners wdrich marked his latter day. He had bowed his way, under the elder Bourbons, through the most exclusive salons of the Fau bourg St. Germain. Could he then look patiently upon the young sprig of 1855, who told his sister that he was " tol-lol," and described an invitation to pass a quiet even ing in the company of honest and accompbshed women, as " a slow tea-fight?"

Brother Horrocks laughed, with a laugh as loud as the roar of a bud, at Lebord's ceremoni ous ways; and Lebord put down the old sailor with a winning smile, and dominated him by his superior courtesy. Lebord was, in many things, a benefactor to the Crutch. He taught his companions how to make coffee ; and he bebeved to his dying day that he, among ad men on the earth, knew how to make perfect mustard. He was an epicure in his humble way, and was at considerable pains to humour his educated palate. The old gentleman was a bttle inclined to hght stories, and thought very poorly of the reputation of Josephine. He treasured a bttle greasy almanac, which appeared in the birth-year of Napoleon and Welbngton. He had an odd volume of the writings of Charles Nodier, the leaves of which he kept together by the clumsy appbcation of a gutta-percha back.

He had also heaps of very worn documents, which included the story of a horrible mystery. This mystery was con nected with the ruin of his father ; and, somehow, the Prince Regent was mixed up with the said mystery, and appears to have played a shabby part hi it. Many winter evenings did Brother Lebord beguile over these yebow documents, and many stories did they suggest to him ; indeed, they became rebcs so interesting to ad the brothers, that one or two — as Brother Horrocks and Brother Hartopp (a very sour brother as a rule) — begged that Lebord would set forth explanations of them upon paper. " But why should / take ab this trouble, Brother Har topp ? You, who have travebed ab over the world, and have spun us yarns (I think that is the nautical phrase) by the hour together, don't appear anxious to rub your sdver spectacles, and set a quire or two of blank paper before you !

There's the doctor again — mdd, kind Babbycomb — he has been in hundreds of houses of mourning : wail ing and gnashing of teeth have been household sounds to him — yet, devil a word does he write! Hartopp and Phœnix have stories behbid them ; but they only smoke, and look languidly at the clock. Even Seesaw hasn't enough speculation in him to tempt a publisher with some account of the castles in the air he has built in his time. Then why should I dip my fingers in ink, and strain my poor eyes ?" A laugh was Brother Horrocks' answer — a laugh, and a prodigious puff of smoke. " Somebody must begin," quoth Hartopp, who was great in platitudes. " I've an idea," said Brother Seesaw, who had not spoken up to this time — " yes, I've an idea." Brother Seesaw had had many ideas — in his time. He had been the boldest speculator of his day ; and he was at his boldest flights when his pockets were light.

The rad way panic was bis end ; and from Capel-court he repaired direct to the Crutch, in which he obtained rooms through the kind influence of a friend whose fortune he had made. Here he had beguiled the weary hours planning a joint stock company, for life assurance on a new principle — the principle being that the premiums were paid by the com pany, and that not one farthing was to be drawn from the pockets of the pobcy-holders. He was hard at work upon the very original tables by which he intended to prove that his principle of gratuitous pobcies would return twenty per cent, per annum, clear of income-tax, to the share holders, when the new idea dawned upon him. " Let us have it !" cried Brother Horrocks. " Are you ad ready ?" The Brothers nodded, and smded. " Well, neither Lebord nor Horrocks shall have it all to themselves.

Let each of us write about something that we have seen. We can meet now and then, as the fit takes us, and read the results to one another." " Capital ! and I'd begin with " cried Babbycomb, starting up. " Wait a minute," Seesaw interrupted ; " I've not quite finished yet. I propose that we codect our papers, and seb them to a publisher." " Ay, ay, mate," Horrocks chimed hi — " and give the money to the Greenwich pensioners." " The Consumption Hospital, I should respectfudy sub mit," simpered Brother Babbycomb." " Or, say we pay the national debt with it," cabed out a Brother — and then a roar of laughter.

Chapter II

There were now busy days and evenings in the Crutch. The old porter wondered what the Brothers could be about. Every old gentleman returned home with quids protruding from bis pocket, or with a book under his arm. Brother Lebord borrowed his inkstand : Brother Horrocks had been heard discharging broadsides of oaths over Bath post, in his quarters. But the porter's wonder was brought to a painful intensity when, on a certain November night, lights were ordered by the master, in the sombre hall ; and the great fire was stirred, and there was a report among the female servants that hot ale was to be spiced at eight o'clock. The master of the Crutch — a man who was blessed with the kindest face upon which our eyes have ever rested — sank upon the black leather cushion of the high-backed oak chair, at the end of the table, and the Brothers took their seats around him.

" Gentlemen, " said the good master ; and the Brothers smbed. How blessed is the man who, when he rises among his febows, and having said " Gentlemen," has already warmed their hearts ! " Gentlemen," said the master, " do me the honor to try this tobacco : I am told it is very fine. If it is too mdd for Brother Horrocks, I think I can suit him from another pocket." A brown leather pouch of comfortable proportions, and a cake of Cavendish tobacco, were pushed along the table. The master whispered the porter wdien to bring the ale, and then cadet upon Brother Lebord to address the gentlemen. The Brother rose to make a few remarks before he began his reading. He was proud to know that his companions had chosen him to open their readings. He would do his best ; but he must warn them that nearly ab his experi ences had France or Belgium for their scene.

He must ask their kind consideration if he read slowly, for the wound in his back affected him when he exerted his voice much. Before he launched, however, into the curious story which he had prepared, and which related to Paris of the present day, he might perhaps be permitted to draw their attention to a quaint bttle book which he held in his hand, and which an old friend of his (whom he used to meet at the Cafe de la Regence, in 1817 and 1818) had sent him. It was nothing less curious than a History of the Old Methods of Lighting Paris, and was written by M. Edouard Fournier. He would, with theb permission, (here the master bowed and smiled) make a few observations on it, where he had marked it. " I anticipated," the Brother began, "from the first title of M. Fournier's book, a vivid street-view of the First Revolution — a terrible list of impromptu executions carried out by the grandfathers of our present alhes, under the exciting influences of a popular revolt.

But fear was un necessary. M. Fournier has nothing to say about the revolutionary episodes enacted under the old lanterns of Paris. He deals with the real history of Paris by night. He even glances at the endeavours of the ancients to con trive substitutes for the sun. Diogenes is not too far off to escape the searching eye of the author. The result is, gentlemen, an amusing, if not a very useful, book. " The author arrives at Paris, after ha#ing glanced at Caligula's ibumination of Rome — at the nocturnal f£tes in honor of Minerva, applauded by Tacitus, as tending to preserve pubbc morals — at the night-fires burned in the open places of Antioch — and at the facetious essay on the origin of lanterns, pubbshedby Dreux du Rudier, in 1755. He halts in Paris in the fourteenth century, to find the good city stib one of impenetrable gloom at night.

His description of Paris streets, after sunset, at this epoch, is vivid." Here the Brother translated the passage : — ' When the bells of Saint-Merry or of Sainte-Opportune, or of the Soi-bonne, which, according to Villon — Tonjoure a neuf heures sonne, have announced the evening angelus, and the same strokes have given the signal of the couvre-feu or gare-fou, Paris falls into complete darkness. The shops are shut, the lights disappear from behind the leaden windows ; from that, large and ornamented, which is placed above the roof of the shop, to that, narrow and long, which peers down like a cyclop's eye from a high and black gable end. If all lights in the street are put out, nothing bums in the houses. The great city, the horrible paving of which makes its streets positive sewers of pestilent mud, becomes from this hour the immense domain of cut-throats.

The benighted man runs the double chance of being imbedded in mud and assassinated. Sometimes he has just got out of a quagmire when he finds himself in the hands of some of those eternal bandits, whom we shall discover — even three centuries later — marauding by favour of the darkness. Frightened — but not driven away — at first by the lanterns, then by the reverberes, and at last by gas, they long carried on their nocturnal industry with impu nity. But at the time to which we now refer, these robbers often waited long for their prey. The quagmire was a solitude, the cut throat's domain had become a desert. Nobody ventured out. After the disappearance of the hawkers, who, at nightfall, hastened through the streets, some crying oublies, others common candles, (which they carried in packets, piled up upon baskets), pressing for ward to the distant sound of the gare-fou, the streets became silent solitudes.

The great city, hushed to rest by the last cries of the oblayer, awoke only to the shrill cries of the bran-devinier, who, at the break of day, began to move in the direction of the Halles and the Grand-Chatelet. At long intervals some accidental noise might break upon this silent night— some rapid rays of light nicker through this gloom. Here came the watchman of the dead, whose white CRUTCn. robe, ornamented with skulls and crossbones, Saint-Armand cursed in the seventeenth century, ringing and crying aloud — Reveillez-vous, gens qui dormez, Priez Dieu pour les trespasses. Then came the chevalier of the watch, followed by Ms archers. They marched with a great display of torches and halberds ; but their prudence — their caution — almost resembled fear. The bandits, how ever, went in strong bodies, so that the gentlemen of the guard, buried in all this mud, would have found it difficult to be brave.

Still they did their business as well as they were able ; and strutted noisily on their way, seeming to say to the good bourgeois — ' Here we are : be at rest.' But they did not conceal from one another that they themselves were far from tranquil.' " Of these watchmen, M. Fournier has some pleasant anecdotes. Especially ridiculous is the story of Gaulthier Tallart, chevalier of the watch in 1418, who added some musicians to his troop, that the bandits might get out of the way of his steel. But the Parisians were not the dupes of this artifice ; and the pleasantries of the people he pre tended to protect, made at his expense, soon compelled him to send away his artists. I shad not fobow the his torian of Paris lanterns through the Middle Ages and all subsequent epochs down to the present hour.

Stbl his pictures of Paris lighted by the religious bodies of the capital in the Middle Ages — of the expiatory candles which criminals were compebed to burn on the spot where they had committed a crime — have a certain interest. The subject is perhaps not important in itself; but its study may be of use to men who deal with historical points of greater moment. Elaborate historical treatises have been written on pastry — on boots and shoes — not of importance in themselves, perhaps, but, I repeat, presenting useful matter for the historical picture-painter. It may not be of great use to know the exact form of pastry con sumed by Henry the Fourth ; but in a general picture of his reign — in a description of a banquet given in his time — such a point might fab into the narrative with effect.

In the same way, the 'History of Lanterns,' although not, I repeat, an important work, may be useful to historical painters and writers, for the minuteness of its detads." Here Brother Lebord put the odd volume upon the table ; adding that it was at the service of any gentleman who might wish to read it. He then lifted his paper, and firmly adjusted his spectacles. Short nervous coughs echoed through the old hall. The manuscript was neatly arranged, and tied at one corner with a white riband — spotless, said the old gentleman, as the fleur-de-lis. The master begged the Brothers not to spare his tobacco pouch ; asked whether they were ab quite comfortable ; bade the porter stir the blazing fire, and draw the heavy screen more comfortably for Captain Horrocks — then, gently tapping the table with the bowl of his pipe, nodded benignly to Brother Lebord.

"Here," said the Brother, "is a story which happened to a brother of mine. I make him ted it, as he told it to me. I cab it — A DINNER WITH A MYSTERY. "Even in Normandy, where the sunny valleys, dear to high-capped girls, are bounded by richlywooded bibs ; and where the gentle curves of dancing streams break the rigid outbnes of cultivated fields — yes, even here, a journey in a ddigence was no enviable pastime. The jarring cries of the driver, the monotonous jingle of the beds upon the horses, the parching dust, the interminable rows of poplars, and the plaintive whine of the roadside beggars hi their ragged blue — all tended to depress you. The convulsive heaving of the lumbering vehicle only served to deepen your melancholy. Strange that up to the very time when the first French radway was opened, our neighbours had traveded hi these moveable houses — that they remained always strangers to the hght and swift stage-coach.

Well, we were once robing towards Paris, having started from Caen, in one of these bright yellow dibgences, capped by a huge and dusty banquette, and we were fortunate in our travelling companion. He was not a hvely, but he was a most sensible and pleasant gentleman. We talked of the crops that lay ripening under the powerful rays of the sun on either side of us ; we touched upon many topics of the time ; we passed verdicts, all too hghtly, on pubbc men, ' sipping the foam of many bves,' as Emerson has it. And we grew very intimate. Two or three cigars ripen a travebing friendship wonderfully. We exchanged weeds, and described the knowing dodges by which we had respectively procured unapproachable havannahs at unheard-of prices. So that, on the evening after our departure from Caen, when we drew up in a long, strag gling vihage, before a huge whitewashed house, from the windows of which a strong odour of cabbage-soup and onions stole to -our nostrils, we were almost ready to tutoyer each other.

I clambered down from my elevated position in the banquette, aided by the vigorous arm of the conductor, and called to my companion to fobow me. Only half an hour was allowed for dinner ; and I, for one, was not inclined to lose a single second of the time. But my new friend decbned, and pleasantly compared himself to a hermit, as he expressed his determination to eat some bread and chocolate where he was. I had invited him to be my guest : his refusal was gracefuby but steathly given. I could ted by his voice that time would be completely lost in pressing him ; se I turned at once into the post house, and drank my scalding soup in sdence. When I returned to my seat in the banquette, I found my travebing companion asleep. The conductor, as he gained his perch near us, threw a light upon the sleeper's face.

There was a fretful expression upon it. We started onward, and the noise produced by a whip-thong and the yell of a French driver, the rumble of his vehicle, the clatter of his dingy horses' hoofs, and the jingbng of the bebs upon the animals' harness — a noise only too famihar to the ears of travellers in the departments of France — woke my friend. He rose quietly to his seat, gave me a pleasant look of recognition, and planting a cigar m his mouth, settled himself in the heavy folds of his cloak. I saw that, now and then, when his head was turned towards the road, and away from me, his eyes wandered round and stole a look at me. I remarked that the conductor, who wai a joby febow by nature, answered my companion's questions very coldly. I noticed that when my new friend took the said conductor's cigar, for a bght, the conductor, although his cigar was not half consumed, threw it away on its return to him.

My friend saw this sacrifice, and a cloud of anger passed swiftly over his features. Stih we feh into a gossiping mood once more, and I was pleased, as I had been throughout the morning, with my com panion's shrewd remarks on passing events, and the serious, not to say sad, view he took of most things. There was, reaby and truly, a charm in the man's melancholy. The time ran on. We no longer noticed the clatter of the stable men (with their lanterns flitting round the dark and bulky vehicle) who changed the horses at the post-stations ; we became deaf even to the shrib piping of the driver, and to the bebs of the horses. And so chattering, we saw at last, twinkbng far off, in a capacious vabey, bke a great nest of glow-worms, the wondrous city where we and our plung ing horses were to rest.

I had got up a real interest in my febow-traveller ; and as we swept down the winding road to the Barriere, I took out my card-case, gave him my name and address, and begged that he would cab upon me. To my surprise and mortification he abstained from returning the compliment; and when we turned into the courtyard of the Messageries, in the Rue St. Honore, or thereabouts, he hastdy cobected his cap and cloak and a little bag, and was, I believe, the first man to jump from the vehicle. He had disappeared in a moment. I said to myself, as I went towards my hotel, there is a secret locked up iri that 'man's heart. On the morrow the sights and pleasures of Paris drove his figure from my memory. Febow-travebers and the dead are soon forgotten. Like most men fresh from the provinces, I found myself always on the Boulevards.

When I had examined every brooch in the Palais Royal, when I had seen ab the notable equipages of the Champs Elysees, when I had spent some hours in the Louvre, or had penetrated to the more modest attractions of the Luxembourg — I still found myseh turning with an elastic step towards the Boulevards. The dramas of the Gymnase and the curious pleasantries of the Palais Royal Theatre had effaced the figure of my mysterious friend from me altogether ; and I should have forgotten his opinions and his manners for ever had they not been forcibly recabed to me, one afternoon, as I sat before the Cafe Veron, coohng myself, in anticipation of dinner, with a soda. A strange-looking man, neither well nor id-dressed, crossed the pavement and hurriedly took up his position at a corner table, apart from the rest of the company.