Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green [56]
up the steps, "ye're a good son, Jack, ye're a good son."
He led the way into the parlour. As he entered every face lightened up with pleasure, a harmony of joyous welcome greeted him. The old hard world had been shut out with the slam of the front door. I seemed to have wandered into Dickensland. The red- faced man with the small twinkling eyes and the lungs of leather loomed before me, a large, fat household fairy. From his capacious pockets came forth tobacco for the old father; a huge bunch of hot- house grapes for a neighbour's sickly child, who was stopping with them; a book of Henty's--beloved of boys--for a noisy youngster who called him "uncle"; a bottle of port wine for a wan, elderly woman with a swollen face--his widowed sister-in-law, as I subsequently learned; sweets enough for the baby (whose baby I don't know) to make it sick for a week; and a roll of music for his youngest sister.
"We're a-going to make a lady of her," he said, drawing the child's shy face against his gaudy waistcoat, and running his coarse hand through her pretty curls; "and she shall marry a jockey when she grows up."
After supper he brewed some excellent whisky punch, and insisted upon the old lady joining us, which she eventually did with much coughing and protestation; but I noticed that she finished the tumblerful. For the children he concocted a marvellous mixture, which he called an "eye-composer," the chief ingredients being hot lemonade, ginger wine, sugar, oranges, and raspberry vinegar. It had the desired effect.
I stayed till late, listening to his inexhaustible fund of stories. Over most of them he laughed with us himself--a great gusty laugh that made the cheap glass ornaments upon the mantelpiece to tremble; but now and then a recollection came to him that spread a sudden gravity across his jovial face, bringing a curious quaver into his deep voice.
Their tongues a little loosened by the punch, the old folks would have sung his praises to the verge of tediousness had he not almost sternly interrupted them.
"Shut up, mother," he cried at last, quite gruffly, "what I does I does to please myself. I likes to see people comfortable about me. If they wasn't, it's me as would be more upset than them."
I did not see him again for nearly two years. Then one October evening, strolling about the East End, I met him coming out of a little Chapel in the Burdett Road. He was so changed that I should not have known him had not I overheard a woman as she passed him say, "Good-evening, Mr. Burridge."
A pair of bushy side-whiskers had given to his red face an aggressively respectable appearance. He was dressed in an ill- fitting suit of black, and carried an umbrella in one hand and a book in the other.
In some mysterious way he managed to look both thinner and shorter than my recollection of him. Altogether, he suggested to me the idea that he himself--the real man--had by some means or other been extracted, leaving only his shrunken husk behind. The genial juices of humanity had been squeezed out of him.
"Not Jack Burridge!" I exclaimed, confronting him in astonishment.
His little eyes wandered shiftily up and down the street. "No, sir," he replied (his tones had lost their windy boisterousness--a hard, metallic voice spoke to me), "not the one as you used to know, praise be the Lord."
"And have you given up the old business?" I asked.
"Yes, sir," he replied, "that's all over; I've been a vile sinner in my time, God forgive me for it. But, thank Heaven, I have repented in time."
"Come and have a drink," I said, slipping my arm through his, "and tell me all about it."
He disengaged himself from me, firmly but gently. "You mean well, sir," he said, "but I have given up the drink."
Evidently he would have been rid of me, but a literary man, scenting material for his stockpot, is not easily shaken off. I asked after the old folks, and if they were still stopping with him.
"Yes," he said, "for the present. Of course, a man can't be expected to keep people for ever; so many
He led the way into the parlour. As he entered every face lightened up with pleasure, a harmony of joyous welcome greeted him. The old hard world had been shut out with the slam of the front door. I seemed to have wandered into Dickensland. The red- faced man with the small twinkling eyes and the lungs of leather loomed before me, a large, fat household fairy. From his capacious pockets came forth tobacco for the old father; a huge bunch of hot- house grapes for a neighbour's sickly child, who was stopping with them; a book of Henty's--beloved of boys--for a noisy youngster who called him "uncle"; a bottle of port wine for a wan, elderly woman with a swollen face--his widowed sister-in-law, as I subsequently learned; sweets enough for the baby (whose baby I don't know) to make it sick for a week; and a roll of music for his youngest sister.
"We're a-going to make a lady of her," he said, drawing the child's shy face against his gaudy waistcoat, and running his coarse hand through her pretty curls; "and she shall marry a jockey when she grows up."
After supper he brewed some excellent whisky punch, and insisted upon the old lady joining us, which she eventually did with much coughing and protestation; but I noticed that she finished the tumblerful. For the children he concocted a marvellous mixture, which he called an "eye-composer," the chief ingredients being hot lemonade, ginger wine, sugar, oranges, and raspberry vinegar. It had the desired effect.
I stayed till late, listening to his inexhaustible fund of stories. Over most of them he laughed with us himself--a great gusty laugh that made the cheap glass ornaments upon the mantelpiece to tremble; but now and then a recollection came to him that spread a sudden gravity across his jovial face, bringing a curious quaver into his deep voice.
Their tongues a little loosened by the punch, the old folks would have sung his praises to the verge of tediousness had he not almost sternly interrupted them.
"Shut up, mother," he cried at last, quite gruffly, "what I does I does to please myself. I likes to see people comfortable about me. If they wasn't, it's me as would be more upset than them."
I did not see him again for nearly two years. Then one October evening, strolling about the East End, I met him coming out of a little Chapel in the Burdett Road. He was so changed that I should not have known him had not I overheard a woman as she passed him say, "Good-evening, Mr. Burridge."
A pair of bushy side-whiskers had given to his red face an aggressively respectable appearance. He was dressed in an ill- fitting suit of black, and carried an umbrella in one hand and a book in the other.
In some mysterious way he managed to look both thinner and shorter than my recollection of him. Altogether, he suggested to me the idea that he himself--the real man--had by some means or other been extracted, leaving only his shrunken husk behind. The genial juices of humanity had been squeezed out of him.
"Not Jack Burridge!" I exclaimed, confronting him in astonishment.
His little eyes wandered shiftily up and down the street. "No, sir," he replied (his tones had lost their windy boisterousness--a hard, metallic voice spoke to me), "not the one as you used to know, praise be the Lord."
"And have you given up the old business?" I asked.
"Yes, sir," he replied, "that's all over; I've been a vile sinner in my time, God forgive me for it. But, thank Heaven, I have repented in time."
"Come and have a drink," I said, slipping my arm through his, "and tell me all about it."
He disengaged himself from me, firmly but gently. "You mean well, sir," he said, "but I have given up the drink."
Evidently he would have been rid of me, but a literary man, scenting material for his stockpot, is not easily shaken off. I asked after the old folks, and if they were still stopping with him.
"Yes," he said, "for the present. Of course, a man can't be expected to keep people for ever; so many