Christmas Books. Mrs. Perkins's Ball. Our Street. Dr. Birch and his Young Friends. Rebecca and Rowena. The Kickleburys on the Rhine. The Rose and the Ring

Front matter

The New Library CHRISTMAS BOOKS WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY Born at Calcutta, 1S11 Died at Kensington, Dec. 24, iSbj mrs. Perkins's ball was issued as a CHRISTMAS BOOK, 1847 OUR STREET, 1 848 DR. BIRCH AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS, 1849 REBECCA AND ROWENA, 1 8 50 (REPRINTED FROM ERASER'S MAGAZINE) THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE, 1851 THE ROSE AND THE RING, 1 8 Christmas Books Mrs. Perkins's Ball Our Street Dr. Birch and his Young Friends Rebecca and Rowena The Kickleburys on the Rhine The Rose and the Ring BY WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY LONDON GEORGE NEWNES, LIMITED SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND l897 CONTENTS PAGE Mrs. Perkins's Ball i Our Street 27 Dr. Birch and his Young Friends 63 Rebecca and Rowena, a Romance upon Romance 93 The Kickleburys on the Rhine . .163 The Rose and the Ring .... i.v Mr. M. A. TITMARSH MRS. PERKINS'S BALL THE MULLIGAN {OF BALLY MULLIGAN), AND HOW WE WENT TO MRS. PERKINS'S BALL V I DO not know where Ballymulligan is, and never knew anybody who did.

Once I asked the Mulligan the question, when that chieftain assumed a look of dignity so ferocious, and spoke of " Saxon curiawsitee " in a tone of such evident displeasure, that, as after all it can matter very little to me whereabouts lies the Celtic principality in question, I have never pressed the inquiry any farther. I don't know even the Mulligan's town residence. One night, as he bade us adieu in Oxford Street, — " I live there," says he, pointing down towards Uxbridge, with the big stick he carries — so his abode is in that direction, at anyrate. He has his letters addressed to several of his friends' houses, and his parcels, &c, are left for him at various taverns which he frequents. That pair of checked trousers, in which you see him attired, he did me the favour of ordering from my own tailor, who is quite as anxious as anybody to know the address of the wearer.

In like manner my hatter asked me, " Oo was the Hirish gent as 'ad ordered four 'ats and a sable boar to be sent to my lodgings ? " As I did not know (however I might guess), the articles have never been sent, and the Mulligan has withdrawn his custom from the " infernal four-and nine-penny scoundthrel," as he calls him. The hatter has not shut up shop in consequence. A I became acquainted with the Mulligan through a distinguished countryman of his, who, strange to say, did not know the chieftain himself. But dining with my friend Fred Clancy, of the Irish bar, at Greenwich, the Mulligan came up, " inthrojuiced " himself to Clancy as he said, claimed relationship with him on the side of Brian Boroo, and drawing his chair to our table, quickly became intimate with us. He took a great liking to me, was good enough to find out my address and pay me a visit ; since which period often and often on coming to breakfast in the morning I have found him in my sitting-room on the sofa engaged with the rolls and morning papers ; and many a time, on returning home at night for an evening's quiet reading, I have discovered this honest fellow in the arm-chair before the fire, perfuming the apartment with my cigars and trying the quality of such liquors as might be found on the sideboard.

Epilogue

The play is done ; the curtain drops, Slow falling*, to the prompter's bell : A moment yet the actor stops, And looks around, to say farewell. It is an irksome word and task ; And when he's laughed and said his say, He shows, as he removes the mask, A face that's anything but gay. One word, ere yet the evening ends, Let's close it with a parting rhyme, And pledge a hand to all young friends, As fits the merry Christmas time. On life's wide scene you, too, have parts, That Fate ere long shall bid you play ; Good night ! with honest gentle hearts A kindly greeting go alway ! Good night ! I'd say the griefs, the joys, Just hinted in this mimic page, The triumphs and defeats of boys, Are but repeated in our age. I'd say, your woes were not less keen, Your hopes more vain, than those of men ; Your pangs or pleasures of fifteen, At forty-five played o'er again.

I'd say, we suffer and we strive Not less nor more as men than boys ; With grizzled beards at forty-five, As erst at twelve, in corduroys. And if, in time of sacred youth, We learned at home to love and pray, Pray heaven, that early love and truth May never wholly pass away. And in the world, as in the school, I'd say, how fate may change and shift ; The prize be sometimes with the fool, The race not always to the swift. The strong may yield, the good may fall, The great man be a vulgar clown, The knave be lifted over all, The kind cast pitilessly down. Who knows the inscrutable design ? Blessed be He who took and gave : Why should your mother, Charles, not mine, Be weeping at her darling's grave?1 We bow to heaven that willed it so, That darkly rules the fate of all, That sends the respite or the blow, That's free to give or to recall.

This crowns his feast with wine and wit : Who brought him to that mirth and state ? His betters, see, below him sit, Or hunger hopeless at the gate. AVho bade the mud from Dives' wheel To spurn the rags of Lazarus ? Come, brother, in that dust we'll kneel, Confessing heaven that ruled it thus. So each shall mourn in life's advance, Dear hopes, dear friends, untimely killed ; Shall grieve for many a forfeit chance, A longing passion unfulfilled. 1 C. B., ob. Dec. 1843, æt. 42. Amen : whatever Fate be sent, — Pray God the heart may kindly glow, Although the head with cares be bent, And whitened with the winter snow. Come wealth or want, come good or ill, Let young and old accept their part, And bow before the Awful Will, And bear it with an honest heart. Who misses, or who wins the prize ? Go, lose or conquer as you can : But if you fail, or if you rise, Be each, pray God, a gentleman.

A gentleman, or old or young : (Bear kindly with my humble lays), The sacred chorus first was sung Upon the first of Christmas days. The shepherds heard it overhead — The joyful angels raised it then : Glory to heaven on high, it said, And peace on earth to gentle men. My song, save this, is little worth ; I lay the weary pen aside, And wish you health, and love, and mirth, As fits the solemn Christmas tide. As fits the holy Christmas birth, Be this, good friends, our carol still — Be peace on earth, be peace on earth, To men of gentle will. END OF DR. BIRCH AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS ROMANCE UPON ROMANCE BY Mr. MICHAEL ANGELO TITMARSH

Chapter I The Overture

— COMMENCEMENT OF THE BUSINESS WELL-BELOVED novel-readers and gentle patronesses of romance, assuredly it has often occurred to every one of you, that the books we delight in have very unsatisfactory conclusions, and end quite prematurely with page 320 of the third volume. At that epoch of the history it is well known that the hero is seldom more than thirty years old, and the heroine by consequence some seven or eight years younger ; and I would ask any of you whether it is fair to suppose that people after the above age have nothing worthy of note in their lives, and cease to exist as they drive away from Saint George's, Hanover Square ? You, dear young ladies, who get your knowledge of life from the circulating library, may be led to imagine that when the marriage business is done, and Emilia is whisked off in the new travelling carriage, by the side of the enraptured Earl; or Belinda, breaking away from the tearful embraces of her excellent mother, dries her own lovely eyes upon the throbbing waistcoat of her bridegroom — you may be apt, I say, to suppose that all is over then ; that Emilia and the Earl are going to be happy for the rest of their lives in his lordship's romantic castle in the North, and Belinda and her young clergyman to enjoy uninterrupted bliss in their rose-trellised parsonage in the West of England : but some there be among the novel-reading classes — old experienced Roaa'ena folks — who know better than this.

Some there be who have been married, and found that they have still some thing to see and to do, and to suffer mayhap; and that adventures, and pains, and pleasures, and taxes, and sun rises and settings, and the business and joys and griefs of life go on after, as before the nuptial ceremony. Therefore I say, it is an unfair advantage which the novelist takes of hero and heroine, as of his inexperienced reader, to say good-bye to the two former, as soon as ever they are made husband and wife ; and I have often wished that additions should be made to all works of fiction which have been brought to abrupt terminations in the manner described, and that we should hear what occurs to the sober married man, as well as to the ardent bachelor ; to the matron, as well as to the blushing spinster. And in this respect I admire (and would desire to imitate) the noble and prolific French author, Alexandre Dumas, who carries his heroes from early youth down to the most venerable old age, and does not let them rest until they are so old that it is full time the poor fellows should get a little peace and quiet.

A hero is much too valuable a gentleman to be put upon the retired list in the prime and vigour of his youth ; and I wish to know what lady among us would like to be put on the shelf, and thought no longer interesting, because she has a family growing up, and is four or five and thirty years of age. I have known ladies at sixty, with hearts as tender and ideas as romantic as any young misses of sixteen. Let us have middle-aged novels then as well as your extremely juvenile legends; let the young ones be warned that the old folks have a right to be interesting, and that a lady may continue to have a heart, although she is somewhat stouter than she was when a school-girl, and a man his feelings, although he gets his hair from Truefitt's. Thus I would desire that the biographies of many of our most illustrious personages of romance should be con tinued by fitting hands, and that they should be heard of until at least a decent age.

Look at Mr. James's heroes : they invariably marry young. Look at Mr. Dickens's : they disappear from the scene when they are mere chits. I trust these authors, who are still alive, will see the propriety of telling us something more about people in whom we took a considerable interest, and who must be at present strong and hearty, and in the full vigour of health and intellect. And in the tales of the great Sir Walter (may honour be to his name), I am sure there are a number of people who are untimely carried away from us, and of whom we ought to hear more. My dear Rebecca, daughter of Isaac of York, has always, in my mind, been one of these ; nor can I ever believe that such a woman, so admirable, so tender, so heroic, so beauti ful, could disappear altogether before such another woman as Rowena, that vapid, flaxen-headed creature, who is, in my humble opinion, unworthy of Ivanhoe, and unworthy of her place as heroine.

Had both of them got their rights, it ever seemed to me that Rebecca would have had the husband, and Rowena would have gone off to a convent and shut herself up, where I, for one, would never have taken the trouble of inquiring for her. But after all she married Ivanhoe. What is to be done ? There is no help for it. There it is in black and white at the end of the third volume of Sir Walter Scott's chronicle, that the couple were joined together in matrimony. And must the Disinherited Knight, whose blood has been fired by the suns of Palestine, and whose heart has been warmed in the company of the tender and beautiful Rebecca, sit down contented for life by the side of such a frigid piece of propriety as that icy, faultless, prim, niminy-piminy Rowena ? Forbid it fate, forbid it poetical justice !

There is a simple plan for setting matters right, and giving all parties their due, which is here submitted to the novel-reader. Ivanhoe' s history must have had a continuation ; and it is this which ensues. I may be wrong in some particulars of the narrative — as what writer will not be ? — but of the main incidents of the history, I have in my own mind no sort of doubt, and confidently submit them to that generous public which 97 G likes to see virtue righted, true love rewarded, and the brilliant Fairy descend out of the blazing chariot at the end of the pantomime, and make Harlequin and Columbine happy. What, if reality be not so, gentlemen and ladies ; and if, after dancing a variety of jigs and antics, and jumping in and out of endless trap-doors and windows, through life's shifting scenes, no fairy comes down to make us comfortable at the close of the performance ?

Ah ! let us give our honest novel-folks the benefit of their position, and not be envious of their good luck. No person who has read the preceding volumes of this history, as the famous chronicler of Abbotsford has recorded them, can doubt for a moment what was the result of the marriage between Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe and Lady Rowena. Those who have marked her conduct during her maiden hood, her distinguished politeness, her spotless modesty of demeanour, her unalterable coolness under all circumstances, and her lofty and gentlewomanlike bearing, must be sure that her married conduct would equal her spinster behaviour, and that Rowena the wife would be a pattern of correctness for all the matrons of England. Such was the fact. For miles around Rotherwood her character for piety was known. Her castle was a rendez vous for all the clergy and monks of the district, whom she fed with the richest viands, while she pinched herself upon pulse and water.

There was not an invalid in the three Ridings, Saxon or Norman, but the palfrey of the Lady Rowena might be seen journeying to his door, in company with Father Glauber, her almoner, and Brother Thomas of Epsom, her leech. She lighted up all the churches in Yorkshire with wax-candles, the offerings of her piety. The bells of her chapel began to ring at two o'clock in the morning; and all the domestics of Rotherwood were called upon to attend at matins, at compline, at nones, at vespers, and at sermon. I need not say that fasting was observed with all the rigours of the Church ; and that those of the servants of the Lady Rowena were looked upon with most favour whose hair-shirts were the roughest and who flagellated themselves with the most becoming perseverance. Whether it was that this discipline cleared poor Wamba's wits or cooled his humour, it is certain that he became the most melancholy fool in England, and if ever he ventured upon a pun to the shuddering poor servitors, who were mumbling their dry crusts below the salt, it was such a faint and stale joke that nobody dared to laugh at the innuendoes of the unfortunate wag, and a sickly smile was the best applause he could muster.

Once, indeed, when Guffo, the goose-boy (a half-witted poor wretch), laughed outright at a lamentably stale pun which Wamba palmed upon him at supper-time (it was dark, and the torches being brought in, AVamba said, " Guffo, they can't see their way in the argument, and are going to throw a little light upon the subject "), the Lady Rowena, being disturbed in a theological controversy with Father Willibald (afterwards canonised as St. Willibald, of Bareacres, hermit and con fessor), called out to know what was the cause of the unseemly interruption, and Guffo and Wamba being pointed out as the culprits, ordered them straightway into the courtyard, and three dozen to be administered to each of them. " I got you out of Front-de-Bœuf s castle," said poor Wamba piteously, appealing to Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, " and canst thou not save me from the lash ?

" " Yes, from Front-de-Bœuf s castle, where you were locked up with the fewess in the tower I " said Rowena, haughtily replying to the timid appeal of her husband. " Gurth, give him four dozen ! " And this was all poor Wamba got by applying for the mediation of his master. In fact, Rowena knew her own dignity so well as a princess of the royal blood of England, that Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, her consort, could scarcely call his life his own, and was made, in all things, to feel the inferiority of his station. And which of us is there acquainted with the sex that has not remarked this propensity in lovely woman, Roavena and how often the wisest in the council are made to be as fools at her board, and the boldest in the battlefield are craven when facing her distaff? " Where you were locked up with the f ewes s in the tower," was a remark, too, of which Wilfrid keenly felt, and perhaps the reader will understand, the significancy.

When the daughter of Isaac of York brought her diamonds and rubies — the poor, gentle victim ! — and, meekly laying them at the feet of the conquering Rowena, departed into foreign lands to tend the sick of her people, and to brood over the boot less passion which consumed her own pure heart, one would have thought that the heart of the royal lady would have melted before such beauty and humility, and that she would have been generous in the moment of her victory. But did you ever know a right-minded woman pardon another for being handsome and more loveworthy than herself? The Lady Rowena did certainly say with mighty magnanimity to the Jewish maiden, " Come and live with me as a sister," as the former part of this history shows ; but Rebecca knew in her heart that her ladyship's proposition was what is called bosh (in that noble Eastern language with which Wilfrid the Crusader was familiar), or fudge, in plain Saxon ; and retired with a broken, gentle spirit, neither able to bear the sight of her rival's happiness, nor willing to disturb it by the contrast of her own wretchedness.

Rowena, like the most high bred and virtuous of women, never forgave Isaac's daughter her beauty, nor her flirtation with Wilfrid (as the Saxon lady chose to term it) ; nor, above all, her admirable diamonds and jewels, although Rowena was actually in possession of them. In a word, she was always flinging Rebecca into Ivanhoe's teeth. There was not a day in his life but that unhappy warrior was made to remember that a Hebrew damsel had been in love with him, and that a Christian lady of fashion could never forgive the insult. For instance, if Gurth, the swineherd, who was now pro moted to be a gamekeeper and verderer, brought the account of a famous wild-boar in the wood, and proposed a hunt, Rowena would say, " Do, Sir Wilfrid, persecute these poor pigs : you know your friends the Jews can't abide them !

" Or when, as it oft would happen, our lion-hearted monarch, Richard, in order to get a loan or a benevolence from the Jews, would roast a few of the Hebrew capitalists, or extract some of the principal rabbis' teeth, Rowena would exult and say, " Serve them right, the misbelieving wretches ! England can never be a happy country until every one of these monsters is exterminated ! " — or else, adopting a strain of still more savage sarcasm, would exclaim, " Ivanhoe, my dear, more persecution for the Jews ! Hadn't you better interfere, my love? His Majesty would do anything for you; and, you know, the Jews were always such favourites of yours" or words to that effect. But, nevertheless, her ladyship never lost an opportunity of wearing Rebecca's jewels at court, whenever the Queen held a drawing-room ; or at the York assizes and ball, when she appeared there ; not of course because she took any interest in such things, but because she considered it her duty to attend, as one of the chief ladies of the county.

Thus Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, having attained the height of his wishes, was, like many a man when he has reached that dangerous elevation, disappointed. Ah, dear friends, it is but too often so in life ! Many a garden, seen from a distance, looks fresh and green, which, when beheld closely, is dismal and weedy ; the shady walks melancholy and grass-grown ; the bowers you would fain repose in, cushioned with stinging-nettles. I have ridden in a caique upon the waters of the Bosphorus, and looked upon the capital of the Soldan of Turkey. As seen from those blue waters, with palace and pinnacle, with gilded dome and towering cypress, it seemeth a very Paradise of Mahound : but, enter the city, and it is but a beggarly labyrinth of rickety huts and dirty alleys, where the ways are steep and the smells are foul, tenanted by mangy dogs and ragged beggars — a dismal illusion !

Life is such, ah, well-a-day ! It is only hope which is real, and reality is a bitterness and a deceit. Perhaps a man with Ivanhoe's high principles would never bring himself to acknowledge this fact; but others did for him. He grew thin, and pined away as much as if he had been in a fever under the scorching sun of Ascalon. He had no appetite for his meals; he slept ill, though he was yawning all day. The jangling of the doctors and friars whom Rowena brought together did not in the least enliven him, and he would sometimes give proofs of somnolency during their disputes, greatly to the consternation of his lady. He hunted a good deal, and, I very much fear, as Rowena rightly remarked, that he might have an excuse for being absent from home. He began to like wine, too, who had been as sober as a hermit ; and when he came back from Athelstane's (whither he would repair not unfrequently), the unsteadiness of his gait and the unnatural brilliancy of his eye were remarked by his lady ; who, you may be sure, was sitting up for him.

As for Athelstane, he swore by St. Wulfstan that he was glad to have escaped a marriage with such a pattern of propriety ; and honest Cedric the Saxon (who had been very speedily driven out of his daughter-in-law's castle) vowed by St. Waltheof that his son had bought a dear bargain. So Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe became almost as tired of England as his royal master Richard was (who always quitted the country when he had squeezed from his loyal nobles, commons, clergy, and Jews, all the money which he could get), and when the lion-hearted Prince began to make war against the French King, in Normandy and Guienne, Sir Wilfrid pined like a true servant to be in company of the good champion, alongside of whom he had shivered so many lances, and dealt such woundy blows of sword and battle-axe on the plains of Jaffa or the breaches of Acre.

Travellers were welcome at Rother wood that brought news from the camp of the good King ; and I warrant me that the knight listened with all his might when Father Drono, the chaplain, read in the St. fames' s Chronykyll (which was the paper of news he of Ivanhoe took in) of " another glorious triumph " — " Defeat of the French near Blois " — " Splendid victory at Epte, and narrow escape of the French King : " the which deeds of arms the learned scribes had to narrate. However such tales might excite him during the reading, they left the Knight of Ivanhoe only the more melancholy after listening ; and the more moody as he sat in his great hall silently draining his Gascony wine. Silently sat he and looked at his coats of mail hanging vacant on the wall, his banner covered with spider-webs, and his sword and axe rusting there.

" Ah, dear axe," sighed he (into his drinking-horn) — " ah, gentle steel ! that was a merry time when I sent thee crashing into the pate of the Emir Abdul Melik as he rode on the right of Saladin. Ah, my sword, my dainty headsman ! my sweet split-rib ! my razor of infidel beards ! is the rust to eat thine edge off, and am I never more to wield thee in battle ? What is the use of a shield on a wall, or a lance that has a cobweb for a pennon ? O Richard, my good king, would I could hear once more thy voice in the front of the onset ! Bones of Brian the Templar ! would ye could rise from your grave at Templestowe, and that we might break another spear for honour and — and " "And Rebecca" he would have said; but the knight paused here in rather a guilty panic ; and her Royal Highness the Princess Rowena (as she chose to style herself at home) looked so hard at him out of her china blue eyes, that Sir Wilfrid felt as if she were reading his thoughts, and was fain to drop his own eyes into his flagon.

In a word, his life was intolerable. The dinner-hour of the twelfth century, it is known, was very early; in fact, people dined at jten o'clock in the morning; and after dinner Rowena sat mum under her canopy, em broidered with the arms of Edward the Confessor, working with her maidens at the most hideous pieces of tapestry, representing the tortures and martyrdoms of her favourite saints, and not allowing a soul to speak above his breath, except when she chose to cry out in her own shrill voice when a handmaid made a wrong stitch, or let fall a ball of worsted. It was a dreary life. AVamba, we have said, never ventured to crack a joke, save in a whisper, when he was ten miles from home ; and then Sir Wilfrid Ivanhoe was too weary and blue-devilled to laugh, but hunted in silence, moodily bringing down deer and wild-boar with shaft and quarrel.

Then he besought Robin of Huntingdon, the jolly out law, nathless, to join him, and go to the help of their fair sire King Richard, with a score or two of lances. But the Earl of Huntingdon was a very different character from Robin Hood the forester. There was no more conscien tious magistrate in all the county than his lordship ; he was never known to miss church or quarter-sessions; he was the strictest game-proprietor in all the Riding, and sent scores of poachers to Botany Bay. " A man who has a stake in the country, my good Sir Wilfrid," Lord Huntingdon said, with rather a patronising air (his lord ship had grown immensely fat since the King had taken him into grace, and required a horse as strong as an elephant to mount him) — " a man with a stake in the country ought to stay in the country.

Property has its duties as well as its privileges, and a person of my rank is bound to live on the land from which he gets his living." " Amen ! " sang out the Reverend Tuck, his lord ship's domestic chaplain, who had also grown as sleek as the Abbot of Jorvaulx, who was as prim as a lady in his dress, wore bergamot in his handkerchief, and had his poll shaved and his beard curled every day. And so sanctified was his Reverence grown, that he thought it was a shame to kill the pretty deer (though he ate of them still hugely, both in pasties and with French beans and currant-jelly), and being shown a quarter-staff upon a certain occasion, handled it curiously, and asked " what that ugly great stick was ? " Lady Huntingdon, late Maid Marian, had still some of her old fun and spirits, and poor Ivanhoe begged and prayed that she would come and stay at Rotherwood occasionally, and egayer the general dulness of that castle.

But her lady ship said that Rowena gave herself such airs, and bored her so intolerably with stories of King Edward the Confessor, that she preferred any place rather than Rotherwood, which was as dull as if it had been at the top of Mount Athos. The only person who visited it was Athelstane. " His Royal Highness the Prince " Rowena of course called him, whom the lady received with royal honours. She had the guns fired, and the footmen turned out with presented arms when he arrived ; helped him to all Ivanhoe's favourite cuts of the mutton or the turkey, and forced her poor husband to light him to the state bedroom, walking backwards, holding a pair of wax-candles. At this hour of bedtime the Thane used to be in such a condition, that he saw two pair of candles and two Ivanhoes reeling before him.