Chapter VIII: The Feast of Lanterns

I remember I ate a very large supper that night, to the happy reassurance of Uncle Jenico. That suffocating tightness of the midriff, which anxiety brings, seems to expand, in its reaction, to a quite exaggerated emptiness. Have we not all had that experience? What meals we’ve made after a visit to the dentist’s! Who would have thought that this Berserker, dashing his beard with wine and roaring contempt of wounds and death, was the same individual who in the morning cowered sick-cropped in Mr. Forceps’s waiting-room? The thought of having vindicated, and proved, and so honourably acquitted one’s self of further responsibility to a much-dreaded task, is one of the most appetizing reflections in the world. And besides, I had arrears to make up.

For the moment, I was quite congratulatory to Fate on its having found so strong an instrument as myself to help it with its schemes. I even, I think, took credit for that brilliant conception of shifting the whole burden as soon as possible upon Mr. Sant’s shoulders. Through the glaze of repletion I saw, bedimmed, and even perhaps glorified, the figures of two ghostseers scuttling home that afternoon, with their tails between their legs, before the vision of a vengeance they had evoked. Now I laughed and snapped my fingers at the shadow of that vengeance left standing outside the window.

But it came to be just a leetle a different matter when it fell evening, and when shadow enwrapped the shadow, and I must go out into the first, perhaps after all to find the second also claiming and involving me. We were still, Harry and I, bound unrelieved to our secret, and must be so till late night, at least. For Mr. Sant was to return from London but in time to keep his evening engagement at the church, or, rather, the schoolrooms adjoining--to which, since their completion, the lectures had been relegated--and no opportunity could be ours to speak with him till after the entertainment. In the meanwhile, we had arranged to meet at the Flask, when I went to fetch Joshua, that Harry might be introduced; and about half-past seven I set out.

I confess I looked over my shoulder more than once as I sped for the inn. The night was very black, with a sense of creeping inquisitive mists in it. I had brought a lantern for myself and one for Joshua; but for some reason I did not want to light them as yet. Perhaps it was the thought of my moving a marked object through the gloom which prevented me. However, I reached my destination without mishap, and finding Harry already waiting for me there, took him up at once to our visitor’s bedroom.

We found Mr. Pilbrow dressed, and expecting me with some eagerness. He was quite spruce, so far as the contents of the little hand-bag, his sole baggage, it seemed, could make him. But he had been shaved and brushed, and his boots cleaned; and if his heavy green surtout was worn and smeared with a hundred stains, the character of it was redeemed by that of the little, alert, forcible face, which looked out of the frayed collar.

“So,” he said, pleased, but stiffly, “here’s the lantern, and here’s Harry, I presume?”

“How dee do, sir?” said my friend, grinning rather shy, but in his frank, attractive way. “I hope you’ll like Dunberry. We haven’t much in the way of local sights to recommend us; but what there is we’ll show you, if you’ll let us.”

“I’m obliged to ye,” said Joshua. “My young friend here mentioned some ruins.”

“Yes, there’s the ruins,” said Harry; “and--and--what else is there, Dick?”

I had hoped, under the circumstances, we might have let the ruins alone. I did not care much to think of them, for my part.

“O,” I said, airily, “there’s the wreck on the sands. It’s the only other thing I can call to mind.”

“Mighty!” said Harry. “What a genius you are, Dicky! I’d never thought of that. Would you care to pull out and see a wreck, Mr. Pilbrow?”

“Infinitely,” said the old man, handsomely. “And what wreck is it now?”

We told him.

“It’d be rather a lark,” said Harry. “Only we must time our visit to the tide. It’ll be low about to-morrow midday, if that’ll suit. If you’ll believe me, sir, we shall be the first to show any curiosity about the thing. There it’s sat for a week, and Dunberry not taken the trouble to pull five miles out to learn its name, even.”

We must go now, if we wanted to hear the lecture; and so we lighted our lanterns and descended those private stairs which I had used on the morning first after our coming. I led, and as I issued forth, I lifted my lantern to show Joshua, who followed, the way. The light shone full upon his face, where it hung, like the gurgoyle of my memory, I could have thought, in the dark entry. And on the instant a little strained scream broke at my elbow, and something staggered back against the closed door of the tap which stood hard by.

The latch burst; there was a snap and tinkle of glass, and the door flying open, let down a heavy sprawling body into the lighted bar beyond. A volley of oaths from the landlord sprung out with the glow, and some one was cursed for a crazy, drunken lout. Startled beyond measure, I hurried our guest on.

“What was it?” he asked, unruffled.

“Nothing,” I said, “but a boozy ruffian of our acquaintance.”

But by-and-by I took an opportunity to pull Harry back and whisper in his ear--

“Did you see?”

“Yes. Rampick.”

“What was he doing there?”

“What is he always doing there?”

“Yes. But to give out that screech at the sight of us!”

“It shows, anyhow, that he’s more frightened of us than we are of him.”

I was agitated, nevertheless, and more eager than ever to unburden myself to Mr. Sant. This giving of himself away was hardly to be reconciled with the drunkard’s stealthy effacement of his traces up on the hill yonder. I wanted the thing all over and taken out of our hands.

We found the road to the schools, now we came to retrace it, all dotted and lively with wandering sparks of lanterns. There was to be a good attendance, it was evident. The holiday spirit was in the air, and these lectures, after all, were the best of holiday tasks. And, indeed, when we entered the building we perceived it so crowded as, in the brilliancy of its illumination, to preclude any chance of that first fun of obscured revelations; for the drawings on the sheet were plain as truth, or anyhow as plain as good intentions. We were forced to satisfy ourselves with back places near the door. However, the room was not so large but that we could distinguish every one of the freehand objects depicted in charcoal on the screen, which, with a “Seraphine”--a late invented reed instrument blown with the feet, and the joy of Mr. Sant’s heart--was the whole of the lecturer’s paraphernalia.

“What’s that first thing?” whispered Harry, giggling.

“Hush!” I said. “I don’t know. It looks like an oyster.”

The lights, and the company, and the prospect of our tutor’s near restoration to us, were beginning to recover me, and already I was tickled with the thought of some fun ahead. And then, in a moment, there he was, the whimsical strong soul; and I breathed a great sigh of relief, and joined tumultuously in the welcome which greeted him.

His discourse this night (and the illustrations to it, presumably) was all of an appropriate observance of the sacred and festive occasion now upon us. He urged his audience to honour it with sobriety. “In the very teeth,” he said, “of that foreign clergyman who exhorted his English congregation to temperance in these words: ‘Myself I do not say no drink. Myself I would drink a pot of porter with you every minute,’ I must assure you that it is not excess which is the friend of festivity, nor is it sport to choose the devil for bottle holder, and let one’s self be knocked out of time at the first round. Take your share and drink fair is our motto; and put it down that you may keep it up, the ‘father of lies.’ A drunken christening is never a pleasant sight; but when Christ Himself is the baby, it is damning as well as shameful. What would you think, as honest men, of repaying the author of a feast by excluding him from a share in it, and not even, like the Model Constituency, in order to point a moral? You have never heard of the Model Constituency?” (“No, your reverence, no!”) “Well, I suppose not. But the one that came nearest to it was the one to the independent and enlightened electors of which a candidate once appealed with a free lunch and drinks on the day of the poll. And very polite and ingratiatory he came to it himself, too, to take a snack and a glass with his good friends and guests. Only his good friends and guests wouldn’t let him in On the contrary, a burly, red-faced elector barred his way as he was entering.

“‘Vait a minute, sir,’ says the elector. ‘Ve likes this idea of yours,’ he says, ‘only there’s vun thing: ve doesn’t want to be disfranchised for corruption,’ says he. ‘The bony fiddles of our borough is wery dear to us,’ he says.

“‘And to me,’ says the candidate. ‘Rather sacrifice twenty seats than imperil that and my good name,’ he says.

“‘So ve thought, sir,’ says the elector. ‘And therefore ve’re going to eat your wittles, and drink your hale, and arterwards go down in a body and plump for the other gentleman, in order to prove,’ says he, ‘that our incorruptibility was what you stood on. And we’ll be wery much obliged,’ he says, ‘if you’ll give us your countenance by clearing out.’”

The illustration went home--we were not so far from the Reform Act of ’32--and was greeted with laughter and cheers.

“Now, you have not that excuse,” said the lecturer. “The author of this feast comes to save, not to corrupt you; and if you would honour Him, consider His sober innocence in your midst, or His Father will withdraw Him. Christmas without Christ! That is to play the devil’s game.”

He sat down, as he spoke, to his “Seraphine,” and broke into a hymn--his own production, and very characteristic--which ran, literally, as follows--

“’Tis Christ His feast,” said Short to Long. “Let’s pass the night in drink and song.”

“The liquor must not be too mild For toasting of that holy Child,”

Said Long. “Them Jews was blind,” said he; “But not so blind as we will be.”

They drank Him once, and twice, and thrice; The main brace they began to splice.

A child’s voice wailed outside the door: “O, let me enter, I implore!

“’Tis freezing cold, and dark, and dire. O, let me warm me at your fire!”

“No place for children here,” said Long, And bid him “cut his lucky” strong.

“We’re keeping of Christ Jesus’ feast, Clear out,” said Short, “you little beast!”

They sang to “David’s royal Son,” And not till all the drink was done

Abstained; then staggered to the door, And sobered at the sight they saw.

Stark on the snow Christ baby lay. ’Twas Him those sots had cursed away.

Now tell me, what availed them, then, To keep Christ out and Christmas in?

He had set his words to the tune of “Immortal Babe who this dear day,” and you may question, if you are purists, a cockney rhyme or two; and you may question, if you are Pharisees, his methods. Well, all I can tell you is that women wiped their eyes over the homely theme, and that our Christmas was the sweeter for the lesson it taught.

At the end Mr. Sant jumped up, and taking his rod, pointed to the first object on the screen.

“Now, then!” sniggered Harry, kneading his hands between his knees.

There followed a pause and a general stir, rippled through with a little undercurrent of laughter.

“Go on!” whispered Harry, nudging me.

“Oyster!” I sung out.

Mr. Sant caught sight of us, and nodded and laughed.

“Thank you, Mr. Bowen,” said he. “No, it’s not an oyster!” and he sat down and began trolling out a new carol.

The little ex-bookseller shifted; blushed faintly, I do believe, and turned to me.

“I fancy I’ve got it,” said he.

“Have you?” I answered delightedly. “Cry up, then!”

“Christmas pie!” he piped, in his thin, cracked voice.

Every head was turned momentarily our way. Mr. Sant left his stool and bowed.

“The artist is vindicated,” said he. “The gentleman has the right penetrative vision. A mince-pie it is.” And he made his illustration forthwith the text for a lovely disquisition on plum-porridge and frumenty and goose-pie, “on beef and plum-pudding and turkey and chine,” and, generally, the history and rationale of Christmas fare, till his audience shifted and sighed under the influence of an illusive surfeit.

A thing guessed for “one o’ them tree worms,” and turning out to be a yule log, came next, and provoked an allusion to a Norfolk custom on certain farms of dealing out the strong cider to the household at meals for so long as the block was in consuming; for which reason the servants would select for Yule the biggest and most cross-grained stump of elm they could find--a shrewd providence which tickled the simple fancy of this fishing community, where wood for burning was economized to the last spark it would yield.

A leathern jack coming third, and passing, by way of a wading boot, the ordeal of identification, led to the liveliest little essay on the drinking vessels of our ancestors; the “cocker-nuts” and hornes of beasts; the “goords” and ostrich eggs; the “mazers, broad-mouthed dishes, noggins, whiskins, piggins, crinzes, ale-bowls, wassell-bowls, court-dishes, tankards, Kannes, from a pottle to a pint and a pint to a gill;” and, last of all, the great jacks and bombards, which indeed were not unlike the cavalry boot of William III.’s time.

Then we came to a fowl of some sort, most unnamable and amazing. Every species of partlet known to Dunberry, from a barn-door to a guinea-hen, was named without success, while Mr. Sant at the “Seraphine” laughed so that he could hardly sing, and from the hall a peal of merriment went up with every guess. But at last, a dear fat boy, Hoogan by name, was inspired, and to an explosion of chuckles gave up the secret.

“I’ve got un, Muster Sarnt, I’ve got un! It’s a tor-key!”

The lecturer brought down his hands to a little scream of laughter, and sprang to his feet.

“Hoogan,” he cried, “you redeem me. Not know him! Look here--his vain, empty, strutting, intolerable self-importance! Isn’t it all there to the life? The very manner of the creature that imposed so abominably upon the Mayor of Bantam.”

Cries and cheers greeted him as the laughter subsided.

“Your reverence, your reverence! Tell us who was the Mayor of Bantam.”

“Why, he was the Mayor of Bantam, to be sure, and so puffed up with pride and good living, that when he sat down, I tell you for a fact, he couldn’t see his own lap. He could only see, resting on it, what he loved best in the world; and you may guess what that was. Anyhow, there are two ways of running to waste, and his wasn’t the consumption of the stomach one.

“Well, one Christmas, when he was at the height of his glory and appetite, he conceived the happy idea of making that part of himself a present of the primest and most promising bird which money could procure. ‘It’s no less than a duty,’ thinks he, ‘to so faithful a servant; and I’ll go to Huggins myself this day about it.’

“Now, this Huggins bred turkeys; and what he didn’t know about ’em wasn’t worth knowing. He knew their pride and their self-sufficiency; he knew that of all the fowls that came strutting out of the ark they were the vainest about their election; he knew how a little flattery, properly administered, would serve them for food and drink till they came near bursting; and he had a grudge against this Mayor of Bantam for having once fined him for being incapable when he had never felt so _powerful_ drunk in his life. So, ‘Ho-ho!’ says he to himself, when the mayor comes upon his quest, ‘I’ve a bone to pick with you, my friend; and fine pickings you shall have!’

“‘You want such a turkey as never was, my lord?’ says he. ‘And you want to take and fatten him, and watch him fattening, and enjoy him in anticipation, do you?’ he says. ‘But turkeys is queer beasts,’ says he; ‘and whited sepulchres to them as doesn’t know their tricks.’

“‘How do you mean “whited sepulchres?”’ asks the Mayor of Bantam.

“‘_Bones_, when all’s told,’ says Huggins, shaking his head darkly, ‘_if_ you don’t know the trick of inducing of ’em to swell.’

“‘Well, what is the trick?’ says the mayor.

“‘Flattery, my lord,’ says Huggins. And then he pointed to a bird.

“‘Do you see him?’ says he. ‘There’s the proudest, healthiest cock in my yard--one as, if humoured, would fill a whole corporation, down to its hungriest kitchen gal on two and six a week and what she could pick up, with the marrer of deliciousness. A dream, he is.’

“‘A nightmare, by the looks of him,’ says the mayor, ‘There’s more of sepulchre than of meat about him,’ he says.

“‘Ah!’ says Huggins; ‘and that shows your ignorance. It’s just slighting that keeps him in his place till he’s wanted. If I was to flatter that bird, sir, he’d puff himself out that amazing with self-importance, he’d burst in a week and anticipate his own market. You take him home, and feed him judicious on admiration and little else, and you’ll have such a feast of him in the end as you never dreamed.’

“‘How much for him?’ says the mayor.

“‘Not a penny less than two guineas,’ says Huggins.

“‘Preposterous!’ says the mayor.

“‘O, very well!’ says Huggins. ‘I’d as lief you refused. He shall be three to the next customer.’

“Well, the mayor allowed himself to be persuaded; and he had the bird sent home and put in a coop. And every day, and half a dozen times a day, he’d go down and praise the creature to its face till its very wattles turned purple with pleasure. There’s nothing too fulsome for a turkey to swallow. The very ‘gobble-gobble’ of him set the mayor’s jaws going with a foretaste of delight.

“‘Gobble-gobble! I could eat you, my beauty!’ says he, just as a rapturous mother talks to her child.

“You should have seen the turkey ruffle and swell to be called beauty.

“‘Put up your tail,’ says the mayor, ‘and the dear little pope’s nose! There’s no Juno’s peacock can spread such a fan!’ says he.

“The cage would hardly contain the bird at that. He expanded at the very sound of the mayor’s footstep afterwards; and he discarded his food almost entirely, as something too gross for the consideration of a better than Juno’s peacock. The mayor wondered; but he couldn’t discount the evidence of his own eyes.

“‘That Huggins is a cunning one,’ he thought. ‘He knows what he’s about’--which was very true.

“Well, at length the festive day arrived, and the mayor went to take a last look at his beauty before consigning him to his cook. He was almost in tears. He’d been starving himself for a week, in anticipation of the feast, and perhaps that was the reason.

“‘Darling!” he said, ‘my whole being craves for you! There never was such a beautiful turkey in the world!’

“Bang! went the bird. It was like a paper bag exploding. And there before the mayor’s eyes was just a little sack of bones and feathers. The creature’s pride had been nothing but wind; and that was a turkey all over.

“It was Christmas Day, not a market open, and Huggins was avenged.”

The lecturer ended amidst shouts of laughter and applause. In the midst, he sat down to the “Seraphine,” and was fingering out the first bars of a new hymn, when some one coming up on to the platform whispered to him. He rose hurriedly, and, listening a moment or two, as hurriedly left the room. The audience, including ourselves, relaxed, at his going, into a babble of talk and merriment.

“Prime, isn’t it, Mr. Pilbrow?” said Harry, grinning and rubbing his hands.

“If you introduce me to nothing worse,” answered the visitor, “I shall love Dunberry for itself.”

“That reminds me,” I said. “I never thought of it before. If we’re going to take him to see the wreck to-morrow, Harry, where shall we get a boat?”

“H’m!” said my friend. “That requires consideration, to be sure. They’re all laid up for the holidays, I suppose.”

“Well, we must see,” said I, and, in the act of speaking, turned my head.

Now there was a row of wooden pillars behind us, supporting a gallery, which threw into comparative darkness the space underneath; and projected round that pillar nearest us, and leaned out of the darkness, hung the face of Rampick. It was ghastly pale, the jaw loose, the livid spectacles about the eyes horribly emphasized; and its expression was one of an unnerved and listening sickness that made me shudder. In the very act of my looking, it was snatched back; and I saw the man himself going, lurching heavily, but on tiptoe, into the gloom and away.

To say that I was startled would be but to express ill my feelings. All the doubts and agitations of the earlier evening trooped upon me again, like a cold cloud. Had he followed us for a purpose? and, if so, for what purpose? He had long slunk out of all attendance at these feasts. For some reason, it seemed--we could only assume what--we had become objects of mixed terror and fascination to him. He must have picked himself up from that fall, and stealthily shadowed us hither, where, it was evident, he had taken up a position cautiously to observe and overhear us.

I bent towards Harry to whisper to him; but before I could secure his attention, a stir and silence ran through the room, and there, on the platform, was our parish clerk holding up his hand. He came to say that Mr. Sant had been summoned hastily to the Court, where an old servant of the squire was reported at death’s door, and to request the audience to take his apologies and disperse.

As we rose, I looked at Harry dumbly and significantly.

So here were we again baulked for the moment of our confession. It was under the spirit of a fall from gaiety to a very real depression that I said good night to my friends.