The Adventures of Philip

one day making drawings for them, which the good painter never tired to sketch.

  Now if those children would but have kept Ridley's sketches, and waited for a

  good season at Christy's, I have no doubt they might have got scores of pounds

  for the drawings, but then, you see, they chose to improve the drawings with

  their own hands. They painted the soldiers yellow, the horses blue, and so

  forth. On the horses they put soldiers of their own construction. Ridley's

  landscapes were enriched with representations of "Omnibuses," which the children

  saw and admired in the neighbouring New Road. I dare say, as the fever left her,

  and as she came to see things as they were, Charlotte's eyes dwelt fondly on the

  pictures of the omnibuses inserted in Mr. Ridley's sketches, and she put some

  aside and showed them to her friends, and said, "Doesn't our darling show

  extraordinary talent for drawing? Mr. Ridley says he does. He did a great part

  of this etching."

  But, beside the drawings, what do you think Master Ridley offered to draw for

  his friends? Besides the prescriptions of medicine, what drafts did Dr.

  Goodenough prescribe? When nurse Brandon came to Mrs. Philip in her anxious

  time, we know what sort of payment she proposed for her services. Who says the

  world is all cold? There is the sun and the shadow. And the heaven which ordains

  poverty and sickness, sends pity, and love, and succour.

  During Charlotte's fever and illness, the Little Sister had left her but for one

  day, when her patient was quiet, and pronounced to be mending. It appears that

  Mrs. Charlotte was very ill indeed on this occasion; so ill that Dr. Goodenough

  thought she might have given us all the slip: so ill that, but for Brandon, she

  would, in all probability, have escaped out of this troublous world and left

  Philip and her orphaned little ones. Charlotte mended then: could take food and

  liked it, and was specially pleased with some chickens which her nurse informed

  her were "from the country." "From Sir John Ringwood, no doubt?" said Mrs.

  Firmin, remembering the presents sent from Berkeley Square, and the mutton and

  the turnips.

  "Well, eat and be thankful!" says the Little Sister, who was as gay as a little

  sister could be, and who had prepared a beautiful bread sauce for the fowl; and

  who had tossed the baby, and who showed it to its admiring brother and sister

  ever so many times; and who saw that Mr. Philip had his dinner comfortable; and

  who never took so much as a drop of porter??at home a little glass sometimes was

  comfortable, but on duty, never, never! No, not if Dr. Goodenough ordered it!

  she vowed. And the Doctor wished he could say as much, or believe as much, of

  all his nurses.

  Milman Street is such a quiet little street that our friends had not carpeted it

  in the usual way; and three days after her temporary absence, as nurse Brandon

  sits by her patient's bed, powdering the back of a small pink infant that makes

  believe to swim upon her apron, a rattle of wheels is heard in the quiet

  street??of four wheels, of one horse, of a jingling carriage, which stops before

  Philip's door. "It's the trap," says nurse Brandon, delighted. "It must be those

  kind Ringwoods," says Mrs. Philip. "But stop, Brandon. Did not they, did not

  we???oh, how kind of them!" She was trying to recal the past. Past and present

  for days had been strangely mingled in her fevered brain. "Hush, my dear, you

  are to be kep' quite still," says the nurse??and then proceeded to finish the

  polishing and powdering of the pink frog on her lap.

  The bedroom window was open towards the sunny street: but Mrs. Philip did not

  hear a female voice say, "'Old the 'orses 'ead, Jim," or she might have been

  agitated. The horse's head was held, and a gentleman and a lady with a great

  basket containing pease, butter, greens, flowers, and other rural produce,

  descended from the vehicle and rang at the bell.

  Philip opened it; with his little ones, as usual, trotting at his knees.

  "Why, my darlings, how you air grown!" cries the lady.

  "Bygones be bygones. Give us your 'and, Firmin: here's mine. My missus has

  brought some country butter and things for your dear good lady. And we hope you

  liked the chickens. And God bless you, old fellow, how are you?" the tears were

  rolling down the good man's cheeks as he spoke. And Mrs. Mugford was likewise

  exceedingly hot, and very much affected. And the children said to her, "Mamma is

  better now: and we have a little brother, and he is crying now upstairs."

  "Bless you, my darlings!" Mrs. Mugford was off by this time. She put down her

  peace-offering of carrots, chickens, bacon, butter. She cried plentifully. "It

  was Brandon came and told us," she said; "and when she told us how all your

  great people had flung you over, and you'd been quarrelling again, you naughty

  fellar, I says to Mugford, let's go and see after that dear thing, Mugford, I

  says. And here we are. And year's two nice cakes for your children" (after a

  forage in the cornucopia), "and, 'lor, how they are grown!"

  A little nurse from the upstairs regions here makes her appearance, holding a

  bundle of cashmere shawls, part of which is removed, and discloses a being

  pronounced to be ravishingly beautiful, and "jest like Mrs. Mugford's Emaly!"

  "I say," says Mugford, "the 'old shop's still open to you. T'other chap wouldn't

  do at all. He was wild when he got the drink on board. Hirish. Pitched into

  Bickerton, and black'd 'is eye. It was Bickerton who told you lies about that

  poor lady. Don't see 'em no more now. Borrowed some money of me; haven't seen

  him since. We were both wrong, and we must make it up??the missus says we must."

  "Amen!" said Philip, with a grasp of the honest fellow's hand. And next Sunday

  he and a trim little sister, and two children, went to an old church in Queen

  Square, Bloomsbury, which was fashionable in the reign of Queen Anne, when

  Richard Steele kept house, and did not pay rent, hard by. And when the clergyman

  in the Thanksgiving particularized those who desired now to "offer up their

  praises and thanksgiving for late mercies vouchsafed to them," once more Philip

  Firmin said "Amen," on his knees, and with all his heart.

  CHAPTER XIII. THE REALMS OF BLISS.

  You know??all good boys and girls at Christmas know ??that, before the last

  scene of the pantomime, when the Good Fairy ascends in a blaze of glory, and

  Harlequin and Columbine take hands, having danced through all their tricks and

  troubles and tumbles, there is a dark, brief, seemingly meaningless penultimate

  scene, in which the performers appear to grope about perplexed, whilst the music

  of bassoons and trombones, and the like, groans tragically. As the actors, with

  gestures of dismay and outstretched arms, move hither and thither, the wary

  frequenter of pantomimes sees the illuminators of the Abode of Bliss and Hall of

  Prismatic Splendour nimbly moving behind the canvas, and streaking the darkness

  with twinkling fires??fires which shall blaze out presently in a thousand

  colours round the Good Fairy in the Revolving Temple of Blinding Bliss. Be

  happy, Harlequin! Love and be happy and d
ance, pretty Columbine! Children, mamma

  bids you put your shawls on. And Jack and Mary (who are young and love

  pantomimes,) look lingeringly still over the ledge of the box, whilst the fairy

  temple yet revolves, whilst the fireworks play, and ere the Great Dark Curtain

  descends.

  My dear young people, who have sate kindly through the scenes during which our

  entertainment has lasted, be it known to you that last chapter was the dark

  scene. Look to your cloaks, and tie up your little throats, for I tell you the

  great baize will soon fall down. Have I had any secrets from you all through the

  piece? I tell you the house will be empty and you will be in the cold air. When

  the boxes have got their nightgowns on, and you are all gone, and I have turned

  off the gas, and am in the empty theatre alone in the darkness, I promise you I

  shall not be merry. Never mind! We can make jokes though we are ever so sad. We

  can jump over head and heels, though I declare the pit is half emptied already,

  and the last orange-woman has slunk away. Encore une pirouette, Colombine!

  Saute, Arlequin, mon ami! Though there are but five bars more of the music, my

  good people, we must jump over them briskly, and then go home to supper and bed.

  Philip Firmin, then, was immensely moved by this magnanimity and kindness on the

  part of his old employer, and has always considered Mugford's arrival and

  friendliness as a special interposition in his favour. He owes it all to

  Brandon, he says. It was she who bethought herself of his condition, represented

  it to Mugford, and reconciled him to his enemy. Others were most ready with

  their money. It was Brandon who brought him work rather than alms, and enabled

  him to face fortune cheerfully. His interval of poverty was so short, that he

  actually had not occasion to borrow. A week more, and he could not have held

  out, and poor Brandon's little marriage present must have gone to the coenotaph

  of sovereigns??the dear Little Sister's gift which Philip's family cherish to

  this hour.

  So Philip, with a humbled heart and demeanour, clambered up on his sub-editorial

  stool once more at the Pall Mall Gazette, and again brandished the paste pot and

  the scissors. I forget whether Bickerton still remained in command at the Pall

  Mall Gazette, or was more kind to Philip than before, or was afraid of him,

  having heard of his exploits as a fire-eater; but certain it is, the two did not

  come to a quarrel, giving each other a wide berth, as the saying is, and each

  doing his own duty. Good-by, Monsieur Bickerton. Except, mayhap, in the final

  group round the Fairy Chariot (when, I promise you, there will be such a blaze

  of glory that he will be invisible), we shall never see the little spiteful

  envious creature more. Let him pop down his appointed trap-door; and, quick

  fiddles! let the brisk music jig on.

  Owing to the coolness which had arisen between Philip and his father on account

  of their different views regarding the use to be made of Philip's signature, the

  old gentleman drew no further bills in his son's name, and our friend was spared

  from the unpleasant persecution. Mr. Hunt loved Dr. Firmin so ardently that he

  could not bear to be separated from the doctor long. Without the doctor, London

  was a dreary wilderness to Hunt. Unfortunate remembrances of past pecuniary

  transactions haunted him here. We were all of us glad when he finally retired

  from the Covent Garden taverns and betook himself to the Bowery once more.

  And now friend Philip was at work again, hardly earning a scanty meal for self,

  wife, servant, children. It was indeed a meagre meal, and a small wage.

  Charlotte's illness, and other mishaps, had swept away poor Philip's little

  savings. It was determined that we would let the elegantly furnished apartments

  on the first floor. You might have fancied the proud Mr. Firmin rather repugnant

  to such a measure. And so he was on the score of convenience, but of dignity,

  not a whit. To this day, if necessity called, Philip would turn a mangle with

  perfect gravity. I believe the thought of Mrs. General Baynes's horror at the

  idea of her son-in-law letting lodgings greatly soothed and comforted Philip.

  The lodgings were absolutely taken by our country acquaintance, Miss Pybus, who

  was coming up for the May meetings, and whom we persuaded (heaven be good to us)

  that she would find a most desirable quiet residence in the house of a man with

  three squalling children. Miss P. came, then, with my wife to look at the

  apartments; and we allured her by describing to her the delightful musical

  services at the Foundling hard by; and she was very much pleased with Mrs.

  Philip, and did not even wince at the elder children, whose pretty faces won the

  kind old lady's heart: and I am ashamed to say we were mum about the baby: and

  Pybus was going to close for the lodgings, when Philip burst out of his little

  room, without his coat, I believe, and objurgated a little printer's boy, who

  was sitting in the hall, waiting for some "copy" regarding which he had made a

  blunder; and Philip used such violent language towards the little lazy boy, that

  Pybus said "she never could think of taking apartments in that house," and

  hurried thence in a panic. When Brandon heard of this project of letting

  lodgings, she was in a fury. She might let lodgin's, but it wasn't for Philip to

  do so. "Let lodgin's, indeed! Buy a broom, and sweep a crossin'!" Brandon always

  thought Charlotte a poor-spirited creature, and the way she scolded Mrs. Firmin

  about this transaction was not a little amusing. Charlotte was not angry. She

  liked the scheme as little as Brandon. No other person ever asked for lodgings

  in Charlotte's house. May and its meetings came to an end. The old ladies went

  back to their country towns. The missionaries returned to Caffraria. (Ah! where

  are the pleasant-looking Quakeresses of our youth, with their comely faces, and

  pretty dove-coloured robes? They say the goodly sect is dwindling??dwindling.)

  The Quakeresses went out of town: then the fashionable world began to move: the

  Parliament went out of town. In a word, everybody who could, made away for a

  holiday, whilst poor Philip remained at his work, snipping and pasting his

  paragraphs, and doing his humble drudgery.

  A sojourn on the sea-shore was prescribed by Dr. Goodenough, as absolutely

  necessary for Charlotte and her young ones, and when Philip pleaded certain

  cogent reasons why the family could not take the medicine prescribed by the

  doctor, that eccentric physician had recourse to the same pocket-book which we

  have known him to produce on a former occasion; and took from it, for what I

  know, some of the very same notes which he had formerly given to the Little

  Sister. "I suppose you may as well have them as that rascal Hunt?" said the

  doctor, scowling very fiercely. "Don't tell me. Stuff and nonsense. Pooh! Pay me

  when you are a rich man!" And this Samaritan had jumped into his carriage, and

  was gone, before Philip or Mrs. Philip could say a word of thanks. Look at him

  as he is going off. See the green brougham drive away, and turn westward, and

  mark it well. A
shoe go after thee, John Goodenough; we shall see thee no more

  in this story. You are not in the secret, good reader: but I, who have been

  living with certain people for many months past, and have a hearty liking for

  some of them, grow very soft when the hour for shaking hands comes, to think we

  are to meet no more. Go to! when this tale began, and for some months after, a

  pair of kind old eyes used to read these pages, which are now closed in the

  sleep appointed for all of us. And so page is turned after page, and behold

  Finis and the volume's end.

  So Philip and his young folks came down to Periwinkle Bay, where we were

  staying, and the girls in the two families nursed the baby, and the child and

  mother got health and comfort from the fresh air, and Mr. Mugford??who believes

  himself to be the finest sub-editor in the world??and I can tell you there is a

  great art in sub-editing a paper??Mr. Mugford, I say, took Philip's scissors and

  paste-pot, whilst the latter enjoyed his holiday. And J. J. Ridley, R.A., came

  and joined us presently, and we had many sketching parties, and my drawings of

  the various points about the bay, viz., Lobster Head, the Mollusc Rocks, are

  considered to be very spirited, though my little boy (who certainly has not his

  father's taste for art) mistook for the rock a really capital portrait of

  Philip, in a gray hat and paletot, sprawling on the sand.

  Some twelve miles inland from the bay is the little town of Whipham Market, and

  Whipham skirts the park palings of that castle where Lord Ringwood had lived,

  and where Philip's mother was born and bred. There is a statue of the late lord

  in Whipham marketplace. Could he have had his will, the borough would have

  continued to return two members to Parliament, as in the good old times before

  us. In that ancient and grass-grown little place, where your footsteps echo as

  you pass through the street, where you hear distinctly the creaking of the sign

  of the "Ringwood Arms" hotel and posting-house, and the opposition creaking of

  the "Ram Inn" over the way??where the half-pay captain, the curate, and the

  medical man stand before the fly-blown window-blind of the "Ringwood Institute"

  and survey the strangers??there is still a respect felt for the memory of the

  great lord who dwelt behind the oaks in yonder hall. He had his faults. His

  lordship's life was not that of an anchorite. The company his lordship kept,

  especially in his latter days, was not of that select description which a

  nobleman of his lordship's rank might command. But he was a good friend to

  Whipham. He was a good landlord to a good tenant. If he had his will, Whipham

  would have kept its own. His lordship paid half the expense after the burning of

  the town-hall. He was an arbitrary man, certainly, and he flogged Alderman

  Duffle before his own shop, but he apologized for it most handsome afterwards.

  Would the gentlemen like port or sherry? Claret not called for in Whipham; not

  at all: and no fish, because all the fish at Periwinkle Bay is bought up and

  goes to London. Such were the remarks made by the landlord of the Ringwood Arms

  to three cavaliers who entered that hostelry. And you may be sure he told us

  about Lord Ringwood's death in the postchaise as he came from Turreys Regum; and

  how his lordship went through them gates (pointing to a pair of gates and lodges

  which skirt the town), and was drove up to the castle and laid in state; and his

  lordship never would take the railway, never; and he always travelled like a

  nobleman, and when he came to a hotel and changed horses, he always called for a

  bottle of wine, and only took a glass, and sometimes not even that. And the

  present Sir John has kept no company here as yet; and they say he is close of

  his money, they say he is. And this is certain, Whipham haven't seen much of it,

  Whipham haven't.