The miser; Ricketicketack; and The poor gentleman

Front matter

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Preface

dream, imbued with all the rich tints of sunset over a quiet landscape. Indeed, it reminds us of one of those beautiful but rare pictures by the Flemish school in which it might be supposed that Cuyp furnished the scenery, while Teniers, in his happiest mood, contributed the figures. Unlike many of M. Conscience’s stories, it deals with the delicate emotions of the manly heart; and, at the same time that it portrays the sufferings of a friendless girl, it paints the fervor with which the love of his lost child haunts, stimulates, and sustains a father through all the trials of a soldier’s life.

The Parisian critics of “The Poor Gentleman’7 (at the head of whom, in admiration, is Pontmartin) have declared it to be, in its peculiar line, the most striking of M. Conscience’s stories. The struggles of human pride and human goodness, of ancestral vanity combined with gentle worth in a man, and of innocence and suddenlyaroused resolution in a woman, are delineated with a pathos, humor, minuteness, and elaborate finish which ought to place this work among the select favorites on every reading-table in our country. “The Poor Gentleman” is a story which we can readily imagine would have delighted the heart of Hogarth ; and we must lament that there is no inheritor of the Englishman’s genius to illustrate it with that entire sympathy which ought always to exist between an author and his artist.

Baltimore, Oct. 1856.

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Chapter I

It was winter. The snow covered the whole face of nature, like the pall upon a maiden’s bier; moors and fields lay in deep repose; every thing slept, but in a slumber so peaceful, so full of promise for a joyous awakening, that the scene, monotonous and lifeless as it was, made the heart heat high with instinctive gladness.

And what wonder ? Above, in the clear blue vault, brightly shone the winter’s sun, showering down his beams upon that stilly world ; from the endless expanse each flake flashed back the rays, so that the whole showed as bestrewn with thousands of sparkling gems; and so joyously glistened the brightness that resulted from this reflection, that it was as if the snow had been informed with life and colors of its own.

Far and near the whiteness was unbroken — for church, village, and farm were hidden, as it were, under the folds of earth’s wintry robe ; unbroken but by the sombre foliage of the fir-trees, 1* &

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which reared their dark green pyramids from amid the snow, and stood motionless there, like so many sentinels keeping guard over a sleeping army.

But if the world of nature had thus enveloped itself- in silence and repose, the world of man toiled on with unremitting diligence. From every farm, from every cottage, came forth noises and voices in endless variety. Here the threshing-floor' resounded heavily to the flail, there the corn-mill pursued its impatient clatter; farther on might be heard the sharp, rapid blows of the flax-crusher or the dull plash of the churn.

And above all these the pleasant song of the maidens and sharp whistle of the men, and then the neighing of the horses, the lowing of the cows, the sweet and plaintive bleat of the sheep.

Oh, ineffable song of praise, which ascends to God, and tells him that his creatures rejoice in their labors and thank him for their lot upon earth !

Nevertheless, one house there was which, amid this Babel of varied sounds, remained dull and silent as the grave. It stood some few hundreds of yards apart from the body of the village, and was evidently the remnant of a convent or monastery, of which the greater portion had been destroyed by fire or the hand of man ; for the broken foundations of massive buildings might still be traced in the ground all round about.

This habitation consisted simply of one wing

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of the old buildings which had been left standing, with its Gothic windows rudely bricked up with fragments from the ruins. House and garden were entirely enclosed within high walls, supported by projecting buttresses.

But it was not all this that made the passer-by stay his steps beside this singular house and led him off into a melancholy train of thought.

There lay over this mysterious * abode — pitiful remnant of antique prosperity and power — a tone of decay and desolation which pained the beholder to the very heart. All about it the ground seemed given up to waste. Great heaps of rubbish and yawning vaults rendered it almost inaccessible. Time and weather had sorely worn the walls, which were here and there traversed by long fissures ; the buttresses were in many places partial]}7 broken away; some of them even lay prostrate on the ground at the foot of the wall which they should have supported. Howhere could be observed a trace of any attempt at reparation or maintenance.

From the stillness which reigned here, one should have judged this house wholly uninhabited, had it not been for a beaten track through the snow which led from the door in the direction of the village till it was lost in a broader pathway. With closer observation, the smaller prints of a woman’s foot might be distinguished from among the larger impressions.

Within, under a projecting mantel-piece, in total

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silence, their feet on the hearth, their heads sunk between their shoulders, as though chilled into insensibility by the cold, sat two persons over against one another. The one was an old man with gray hairs, sunken eyes, and pale hollow cheeks, his back bowed with years, his hands, whenever he moved them, tremulous with feebleness. The other was a man of some forty years of age, still in the full vigor of life, whose irregular features bore upon them a strange and inexplicable expression, which at the first sight could hardly fail to inspire distrust or aversion. His little gray eyes were buried as it were beneath a high forehead and heavy overhanging brows, and glqamed out from their recesses like glowworms in a dark night; his spreading nostrils vibrated with each breath he drew; his mouth was wide, cleft almost to the middle of the cheek ; and the unpleasant smile that played upon his thick lips told of gluttony and vices more odious still. His countenance thus bore upon its upper half the expression of unprincipled cunning, not without somewhat of acute intelligence too; in its lower half, that of blind animal appetite ; and the result of the combination produced a whole sufficiently ill-favored in its material forms, but doubly so by its moral significance.

The room in which they sat, and every thing about them, accurately harmonized with the aspect and temper of the two silent figures. It was a vaulted chamber, spacious and lofty, but

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hardly more than half lighted by a window high up in the wall and closely barred with iron, which, in default of glass, gave freest ingress to wind and rain. An excessive want of cleanliness reigned throughout. The floor was covered with a layer of earth ; cobwebs hung down from the ceiling and thickly festooned the walls; in the dark corners lay cast-away objects of the most heterogeneous description, without a use, and almost without a form, among which worn-out shoes prominently figured ; while the few articles of household use which here and there hung against the walls, or stood ranged upon the chimney-piece, were all so thickly covered with dust that it was plain enough they had not for years and years been moved from their places.

Both the men, closely muffled up as they were in garments miserably patched indeed, but of the thickest and heaviest materials, seemed pierced with cold to the very marrow; and a strange spectacle it was to see them stretching out their feet to the solitary peat-sod which lay smouldering on the hearth, at the same time bending over it, so that no ray of caloric should escape them on its way up the chimney, and even intercepting with outspread hands the scanty steam which issued from an earthen pipkin placed in the ashes beside this apology for a fire.

The old man sat motionless, his eyes fixed upon the hearth; his companion, though he too but

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rarely changed his position, yet sufficiently indicated by the frequent blinking of his cunning eyes that he was deeply occupied in thought upon matters of the utmost interest to him. It was as though he was impatiently awaiting the old man’s rousing up, meanwhile anxiously spying out the slightest indication of emotion upon the fleshless and lifeless countenance. At last he took up the iron blowpipe and directed a vigorous blast upon the peat-sod, so that a blue flame rose up from the hearth.

With feverish haste the old man caught his hand. “ What are you about, Thys ^Matthias] ? he exclaimed, in a tremulous voice ; “ take care ! isn’t the peat soon enough gone, that you must blow it to pieces ? Are you cold, then ?”

“Hot at all,” answered Thys; “but it’s striking eight by the church clock, so it’s time for us to get our breakfast.”

“Well, what then ?”

“Well, I thought a good sup of something warm would do you good, Uncle Jan.”

“Warm food weakens the stomach,” murmured the old man; “and the peat, too, is so terribly dear!”

Meanwhile Thys had set the pipkin on the table, and put a spoon into his companion’s hand, who kept stirring and blowing as though sorely afraid of burning his mouth. To judge by the eager smile of appetite with which he inhaled the steam, the pottage seemed much to

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his mind ; yet, in good truth, the appearance of it was any thing but inviting, it being, in fact, neither more nor less than a mess of warm water with great bits of black bread swimming about in it.

But at the first spoonful which the old man put to his lips he cast a look of reproach on his companion.

“Thys, Thys!” he exclaimed, “I cannot think how it is you are so desperately fond of salt !”

“ Only five grains, Uncle Jan !”

“And what’s that I see? — grease? You’ve been putting butter to it ! So you are determined to bring me to the workhouse in my old days? Thys, Thys! that was not well done of you !”

“You’re blaming me 'quite without cause,” answered Thys; “Cecilia used the pipkin yesterday to warm up her potatoes in, and put a great piece of butter to them.”

“A great piece of butter!”

“ I could have washed and wiped out the pot, to-be-sure.”

“No, no ! that would never have done !”

“ And I took good care not to do so ; now we have some good of it too, instead of its being thrown away.”

“ I was wrong, Thys ; you’re an excellent fellow, and, if I leave a trifle behind me when I ; come to die, be sure you shall see that I’ve not forgotten you for your care and attachment to me.”

At this moment a gentle knocking was heard

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at the door, followed by a paternoster distinctly repeated, though in a faint and tremulous voice.

“ There’s Jan the mason’s widow again,” mutterered Thys, with a gesture of annoyance ; “ she’s never got any thing yet, and every day she keeps on coming. I wonder what she means by it. It’s just as though she was hired to worry us.”

“What ! again ?” exclaimed the old man ; “give, give ! always the same story ! Just get up, Thys, and pack the idle hussy away.”

How the door was gently opened, and a poor woman, thin and faded, leading by the hand a little shivering girl, stood upon the threshold. She went on with her prayer ; else she spoke not.

Thys meanwhile had risen from his seat, and, roughly and rudely addressing himself to the woman, —

“Off with you!” he cried; “there’s nothing given away here. I should like to know what you’re always sneaking about this house for ? to see if there’s any thing to steal, I suppose, as your’e too idle to work. Off! off! and be quick about it!”

The beggar-woman at once turned away to leave the inhospitable dwelling ; but, as she went, whether out of impatience to have her gone or out of pure brutality, Thys gave her little girl so violent a push behind that the poor child fell forward into the snow and immediately began to cry aloud. With flashing eyes and uplifted threatening finger, the mother exclaimed, —

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“ God will repay you this, you wretch !”

But with scant heed to her malediction, and with an ugly smile upon his countenance, Thys violently slammed the door behind her and returned to his place at the table.

After a vigorous litany of imprecations upon all thieves, beggars, and idlers, the, worthy pair proceeded quietly with their breakfast. At last the old man inquired, —

“ Well, Thys, how do you like your breakfast ?"

“It is excellent, Uncle Jan. And yet there is poor misguided Cecilia says it’s only fit for a dog.”

The expression of his eyes made it sufficiently evident that it was not by accident that he introduced Cecilia’s name.

“I’m sadly afraid, Thys, that Cecilia’s straying every day farther and farther away from the right path. She gets dainty, dressy, extravagant.”

“ Indeed and indeed, I’m sorry to say it is so, tJncJe Jan. I don’t often speak about it, for Cecilia’s just the spoilt child here ; she may do what she pleases, — eat butter, wear fine clothes, pile up the fire, give away money. I really pity you, Uncle Jan; and sometimes, when I think of all the trouble your blind indulgence for her may bring upon^you, it quite frightens me. Though, indeed, I pity our poor Cecilia much more, who is led away, and, as you say, every day gets farther and farther astray.”

“How much is there left' of the butter we 2 B

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bought last week?” asked old Jan, his thoughts wandering on to another subject.

“The half-pound is wellnigh out again,” was the reply.

“ Out again ! Why, then, we shall have to lay out another half-franc for her extravagance ! Oh dear! oh dear!”

“ Yes, to-morrow, Uncle Jan.”

Thys saw with secret joy how the old man, with a gesture of despair, pressed one hand to his forehead, and how his whole frame was convulsed with irritation. A singular smile passed over his ill-favored countenance as he went on

“Yes, believe it or not as you will, Uncle Jan, but it’s just the plain truth,— Cecilia’s getting thoroughly spoiled with Mother Ann. They give her all sorts of titbits, make up a fire fit to burn the house down, and scoff and sneer at you and me, to set her against us. That Cecilia is never at home and goes on as though money grew on your back, — that’s all the widow’s doing; but the hypocritical set know very well what they’re about; — they’re laying out money on a venture that they reckon will bring them in some thousands per cent.”

“But, Thys, Mother Ann is poor. At her husband’s death she could barely raise the money to pay for his funeral; to-be-sure she would needs have an oak coffin, and four masses said for him ; and now you talk of money extrava-

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gance, and laying but on a venture. I don’t understand you.”

“See, Uncle Jan,” replied the other, with wellfeigned grief, “I can’t be silent any longer; it has been too long on my conscience already. And besides, my affection for you, my benefactor, obliges me ”

“What does this strange beginning mean? You make me quite tremble.”

“And well you may, poor Uncle Jan. Listen, and I’ll tell you something that will astonish you. But, for heaven’s sake, keep cool and calm ; for, if you were to be too much grieved and put out about it, I should never forgive myself.”

“ Well, then ? well, then ?”

“You know well enough, Uncle Jan, that Mother Ann has a son.”

“Yes, to-be-sure, — little Bart [Bartholomew] ; I know him well enough, — the thievish young rascal that used to come stealing our apples before the garden-wall was put to rights. If he doesn’t end on the gallows, why, neither he nor it will get their due!”

“Yes, Uncle Jan, hut that was a long while ago ; before I was here. But now the child is a young man. He has other tricks now, — different enough, but not a hair’s-breadth better. Every 'holiday, and many other times besides, when he might he doing something, he’s off to the alehouse, . drinking, dancing, singing, laughing, as who hut he? Wherever ‘Begone dull care’ is

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being sung by a dozen roisterers, depend upon it, he’s one of them.”

“Well, well, he’s just going on as one might have expected from his beginning! But what says Mother Ann to all this?”

“ Oh, she’s just one of the same sort, and is as sweet upon her precious son as if his name already stood in the calendar ! And now do you see why it is- that they make so much of Cecilia up at the Chapel farm, always have something nice ready for her, and, in fact, do all they can to make her one of themselves, by turning her to their own dainty, flaunting, extravagant ways?”

“Why, .pray?’

“Why, that the widow may get up a match between her lad and your Cecilia, to-be-sure! Do you see it now, Uncle Jan ?

The old man shook his head with a thoughtful air, as though in doubt and unable well to see his way in the demonstration.

“I understand well enough,” at last he said; “ but what is there in this that need frighten me so terribly? I haven’t to give Cecilia a portion when she’s married!”

“My poor good Uncle Jan!” cried Thys, in a tone of compassion, “your just and generous heart cannot understand so much craft and selfishness ! I will speak more clearly, then. Mother Ann is poor, and her son too. You are rich ”

“What’s that you say?” interrupted the old man, in a tone of horror, such as might reasonably

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IT have been called forth by some terrible blasphemy; “rich? I rich? Who has put such a wicked slander into your head?’

“Softly, Uncle Jan! I’m not speaking for myself. I know only too well what a hard shift we have to make both ends meet. What I’m talking of is Mother Ann’s calculation; so now, for a moment, let me speak as the widow thinks, — all at random. She’s poor, you’re rich, and Cecilia is heir to the half of whatever you may leave. If then the widow can only get her snugly married to Master Bart, these spendthrifts will one day lay their hands upon a good share of your property. No wonder then that they don’t mind running in debt for the present to draw the poor girl on ; they are just sinking a capital on 'post-obit for some thousands per cent, at your death.”

Old Jan’s eyes opened wider and wider with each word Thys spoke, and he shook in every limb; while the latter regarded his companion’s growing disturbance with inward satisfaction, and hastened to follow up the impression he had made.

“Look you, Uncle Jan; the swindling pack have quite made up their reckoning that you won’t . live much longer. And then, the moment the old miser — that’s what they call you — is well under the turf — why, then, my service to you, a jolly life they’ll have of it! A pretty guzzling there’ll be then, and fine times for Bart in the 2*

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ale-houses ! And so, with all sorts of extravagance and abomination, they’ll squander the little that you’ve had so hard a struggle to scrape together. And then, alas ! the worst of the whole is, that at the end of the game our poor Cecilia will find herself a beggar, and most likely will have nothing for it but to curse her folly to the end of her days. But let us hope that God’s providence will order it better for her!”

A long and distressing fit of coughing for some time hindered the old man from coming to speech ; and then unearthly were the sounds that broke from his laboring chest as they re-echoed in the vaulted chamber.

Thys had left his seat, and held a wooden bowl with water to the sufferer’s lips with one hand, while with the other he gently patted him on the back. To see him, one would have said that he bore a true, a boundless affection to his aged friend : his voice was so gentle and compassionate, so caressingly did he attend the old man in his need. A loving son could not have had more anxious care for a beloved father.

At last the cough ceased, and poor old Jan could once more draw his breath freely.

Trembling still from the violence of the attack, he grasped Thys by the hand, and, in a tone of the uttermost despair, while a flood of tears rolled down his hollow cheeks, —

“ Thanks! oh, thanks, my good friend!” he exclaimed ; “you and you alone have compassion

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on me. All the rest wish me dead. Cecilia, you that I have loved as my own and only child, you too are ungrateful! And then, oh misery, misery ! the little bit of money that I’ve so hardly got together — saved upon the very bread out of my mouth — after my death they’ll squander it in mere prodigality and riot! And, good heavens! I must die with that dreadful thought in my heart ! Ah me ! And so they dare to say that I’m rich, Thys ?”

“ They call you the rich miser.”

“I dare say they think that I’m worth a matter of a hundred guilders?”*

“ Fifty thousand, says the widow.”

“ Oh me ! oh me !” cried the old man, beside himself, “ that’s the way that virtue and poverty are maligned ! But Thys, my friend, you know better, don’t you? — you that share my poverty and are my only support in all my afflictions ?”

“They’re a pack of liars and evil-speakers, Uncle Jan ! Don’t trouble your head about them as long as only we can save our poor Cecilia from the snares of these deceivers.”

“Yes, our Cecilia — and my poor money!” sighed the old man. “Ah, Thys! if only I was younger I’d turn spendthrift; I’d get rid of every farthing I have in riotous living. But no; then I might in the end come to die of hunger.”

A short pause of silence followed this pas-

1 guilder = 20 stivers, i. e. Is. 8 d. English money.

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sionate exclamation. The old man seemed as laboring under an access of fever, and was evidently tortured in his mind by the terrible prospect before him. At last Thys resumed, in a tone of consolation: —

“But be calm, and don’t lose heart, Uncle Jan. They’re not so far forward yet, the vile swindlers ! I don’t believe that at present Cecilia has the least idea of what they’re about. The poor girl is just led astray. True enough, she’s standing on the very brink of the pitfall ; but be sure that with good-will and spirited determination she may yet easily be saved.”

The miser looked up with hope in his eyes, and said, imploringly, —

“Ah, yes, my friend! for God’s sake advise me what I had best do! I’m quite unable to think for myself; my mind is utterly paralyzed with vexation and grief.”

“The matter’s simple enough, Uncle Jan. You’re afraid that Cecilia, either now or after your death, will marry a spendthrift, and so all her inheritance be squandered and she herself come to poverty and wretchedness. Well, then, make sure of her, by getting her, once for all, married to a prudent, careful, saving man, that will make her happy.”

“Ah, yes ! — a careful, saving man,” repeated the old man, sinking into thought. “Yes, indeed!”

But, after a long consideration, he shook his head, and, in a discomfited tone, sighed out, —

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“’Tis of no use; I’ve gone through the whole village in my mind, and there’s not one of the sort to be found, — not one at least but what’s as old as myself. All the rest give themselves up to luxury and extravagance.”

“ You can’t say that of me, at all events,” interposed Thys, half smiling.

The old man regarded him for a moment with a sort of timid astonishment, and then replied, —

“ Ah ! only to see how one’s wits can go woolgathering ! That you should be the only one that I’ve not thought of, and just the only one that’s fit for her! But, Thys, you’d never take her; you don’t love her.”

Thys looked down with an air of embarrassment.

“I don’t know about that,” he replied, with a sigh; 4 ‘but if I were rich I’d give all I had to see her happy.”

“ Then you must indeed love her dearly, Thys. But then too, alas ! my dear friend, she’s so sadly set against you, — quite without cause, I well know. One might really say that her dislike of you came ofia diseased imagination.”

“I know that she hates me,” interrupted Thys; “I know well enough, too, that she will go on hating me; that I should he unhappy with her.”

“ And yet you would marry her?”

“I feel so strongly moved by compassion for her and gratitude to you that I would make the sacrifice. In her infatuation she hates and de-

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spises me ; well, in return I will save her, be her guardian angel for life ; will care for her and spare for her, and see that the trifle she may one day have is kept together. And then perhaps — who can tell ? — perhaps in the end she may reward me with a change of feeling toward me.”

These words, uttered in a tone of high resolve and magnanimous self-sacrifice, made a deep impression on the old man’s feelings. With much emotion, and grasping his companion’s hand, he exclaimed, —

“ Thanks, thanks, my generous friend ! you are the only thoroughly upright man that I know. And so you would marry Cecilia, live on with her here in my house, and help me to reach the grave without falling into worse poverty than I am in now ? And after my death you will take care that the few pence I have scraped together are not squandered ? God bless you ! I accept the sacrifice you offer, and recognise you as my best benefactor.”

“ You’ve made up your mind then, Uncle Jan?”

“ Irrevocably, my good Thys.”

“But should Cecilia refuse?”

At this question the old man only shrugged his shoulders and made no answer; he dared not fairly contemplate it.

“Always the same !” cried Thys, somewhat impatiently, in a tone between jest and annoyance.

“It is true, my good friend, the girl has downright bewitched me ; give me a little time to per-

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suade her. And do you, meanwhile, try and do something for yourself. Be friendly with her; talk to her a little; don’t he so sharp with her about a hit of butter more or less ; keep a good sod of peat against she comes home.”

“What weakness, Uncle Jan!” interrupted the other, somewhat scornfully; “when once the ill seed has fairly taken root, it’s not a hit of butt or that will clear the ground of it.”

“Well, well!” answered the old man, half put out, “if fair means won’t do, — why, then, we must see.”

And with these words he rose from his seat, and, coughing as he went, directed his way to one of the doors.

“ I will go up-stairs for a while,” he said ; “ I am tired. I shall see you again at dinner-time ; don’t put too much salt to the turnips.”

“They’re frozen, Uncle Jan.”

“ They’ll be all the tenderer, Thys. And use the same pot again; the butter has quite soaked into it.”

And with these words he disappeared, and immediately afterward his step was heard upon the stairs.

For a few moments Thys stood listening, till he had heard the sound of two or three doors as they were successively shut to and locked. Then suddenly his bearing entirely changed. The stoop disappeared from his shoulders, a scornful smile passed over his lips, his eyes rolled briskly under

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their brows; — in fact, he had all the joyous air of a victor returning from the field of battle.

Stepping on tiptoe, he now approached a cupboard, took out a loaf of tolerably fine bread, cut a substantial slice, and buttered it half an inch thick. With glistening eyes and a smile of gluttonous delight he bit into it, and rapidly swallowed mouthful after mouthful with indescribable greediness. Then he shut up the cupboard, put every thing in its place again, and resumed his seat in the chimney-corner, having first well heaped up the fire with peat, which he .now proceeded to blow into a blaze that it was a comfort to look upon. Then, having for some time rubbed his hands with an expression of intense satisfaction, he settled down into an attitude of repose, murmuring to himself, with a hateful smile upon his countenance, —