Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1

"Oh, Mrs. Squallop! How d'ye do, Mrs. Squallop?" commenced Titmouse, faintly, when he had opened the door; "Won't you take a chair?" with trepidation offering to the panting dame almost the only chair he had.

"No—I a'n't come to stay, Mr. Titmouse, because, d'ye see, in coorse you've got a pound, at least, ready for me, as you promised long ago—and never more welcome; there's old Gripe been here to-day, and had his hodious rates—(drat the poor, say I! them as can't work should starve!—rates is a robbery!)—but howsomdever he's cleaned me out to-day; so, in coorse, I come up to you. Got it, Mr. Titmouse?"

"I—I—I—'pon my life, Mrs. Squallop, I'm uncommon sorry"–

"Oh, bother your sorrow, Mr. Titmouse!—out with the needful, for I can't stop palavering here."

"I—I can't, so help me–!" gasped Titmouse, with the calmness of desperation.

"You can't! And marry, sir, why not, may I make bold to ask?" inquired Mrs. Squallop, after a moment's pause, striving to choke down her rage.

"P'r'aps you can get blood out of a stone, Mrs. Squallop; it's what I can't," replied Titmouse, striving to screw his courage up to the sticking place, to encounter one who was plainly bent upon mischief. "I've got two shillings—there they are," throwing them on the table; "and cuss me if I've another rap in the world; there, ma'am! take 'em, do; and drive me desperate!"

"You're a liar, then, that's flat!" exclaimed Mrs. Squallop, slapping her hand upon the table, with a violence that made the candle quiver on it, and almost fall down. "You have the himperance," said she, sticking her arms akimbo, and commencing the address she had been preparing in her own mind ever since Mr. Gripe had quitted her house, "to stand there and tell me you've got nothing in the world but them two shillings! Heugh! Out on you, you oudacious fellow!—you jack-a-dandy! You tell me you haven't got more than them two shillings, and yet turns out every Sunday morning of your life like a lord, with your pins, and your rings, and your chains, and your fine coat, and your gloves, and your spurs, and your dandy cane—ough! you whipper-snapper! You're a cheat—you're a swindler, jack-a-dandy! You're the contempt of the whole court, you are—you jack-a-dandy! You've got all my rent on your back, and so you've had every Sunday for three months, you cheat!—you low fellow!—you ungrateful chap! You're a-robbing the widow and fatherless! Look at me, and my six fatherless children down there, you good-for-nothing, nasty, proud puppy!—eugh! it makes me sick to see you. You dress yourself out like my lord mayor! You've bought a gold chain with my rent, you rascally cheat! You dress yourself out?—Ha, ha!—you're a nasty, mean-looking, humpty-dumpty, carroty-headed"–

"You'd better not say that again, Mrs. Squallop," quoth Titmouse, with a fierce glance.

"Not say it again!—ha, ha! Hoighty-toighty, carroty-haired jack-a-dandy!—Why, you hop-o-my-thumb! d'ye think I won't say whatever I choose, and in my own house, and to a man that can't pay his rent? You're a Titmouse by name and by nature; there a'n't a cockroach crawling in our kitchen that a'n't more harmless than you!—You're a himperant cheat, and dandy, and knave, and a liar, and a red-haired rascal—and that in your teeth! (snapping her fingers.) Ough! Your name stinks in the court. You're a-taking of everybody in as will trust you to a penny's amount. There's poor old Cox, the tailor, with a sick wife and children, whom you've cheated this many months, all of his not having sperrit to summons you! But I'll set him upon you; you see if I don't—and I'll have my own, too, or I wouldn't give that for the laws!" shouted Mrs. Squallop, again furiously snapping her fingers in his face; and then pausing for breath after her eloquent invective.

"Now, what is the use," said Titmouse, gently, being completely cowed—"now, what good can it do to go on in this way, Mrs. Squallop?"

"Missus me no missus, Mr. Titmouse, but pay me my rent, you jack-a-dandy! You've got my rent on your back, and on your little finger; and I'll have it off you before I've done with you, I warrant you. I'm your landlady, and I'll sell you up; I'll have old Thumbscrew here the first thing in the morning, and distrain everything, and you, too, you jackdaw, if any one would buy you, which they won't! I'll have my rent at last: I've been too easy with you, you ungrateful chap; for, mark, even Gripe this morning says, 'Haven't you a gentleman lodger up above? get him to pay you your own,' says he; and so I will. I'm sick of all this, and I'll have my rights! Here's my son, Jem, a far better-looking chap than you, though he hasn't got hair like a sandy mop all under his chin, and he's obligated for to work from one week's end to another, in a paper cap and fustian jacket; and you—you painted jackanapes! But now I have got you, and I'll turn you inside out, though I know there's nothing in you! But I'll try to get at your fine coats, and spurs, and trousers, your chains and pins, and make something of them before I've done with you, you jack-a-dandy!"—and the virago shook her fist at him, looking as though she had not yet uttered even half that was in her heart towards him.

[Alas, alas, unhappy Titmouse, much-enduring son of sorrow! I perceive that you now feel the sharpness of an angry female tongue; and indeed to me, not in the least approving of the many coarse and heart-splitting expressions which she uses, it seems, nevertheless, that she hath not gone exceeding far off the mark in much that she hath said; for, in truth, in your conduct there is not a little that to me, piteously inclined towards you as I am, yet appeareth obnoxious to the edge of this woman's reproaches. But think not, O bewildered and not-with-sufficient-distinctness-discerning-the-nature-of-things Titmouse! that she hath only a sharp and bitter tongue. In this woman behold a mother, and it may be that she will soften before you, who have plainly, as I hear, neither father nor mother. Oh me!]

Poor Titmouse trembled violently; his lips quivered; and the long pent-up tears forced their way at length over his eyelids, and fell fast down his cheeks.

"Ah, you may well cry!—you may! But it's too late!—it's my turn to cry now! Don't you think that I feel for my own flesh and blood, which is my six children? And isn't what's mine theirs? And aren't you keeping the fatherless out of their own? It's too bad of you—it is! and you know it is," continued Mrs. Squallop, vehemently.

"They've got a mother—a kind—good—mother—to take—care of them," sobbed Titmouse; "but there's been no one in the—the—world that cares a straw for me—this twenty—years!" He fairly wept aloud.

"Well, then, more's the pity for you. If you had, they wouldn't have let you make such a puppy of yourself—and at your landlady's expense, too. You know you're a fool," said Mrs. Squallop, dropping her voice a little; for she was a mother, after all, and she knew that what poor Titmouse had just stated was quite true. She tried hard to feed the fire of her wrath, by forcing into her thoughts every aggravating topic against Titmouse that she could think of; but it became every moment harder and harder to do so, for she was consciously softening rapidly towards the weeping and miserable little object, on whom she had been heaping such violent and bitter abuse. He was a great fool, to be sure—he was very fond of fine clothes– he knew no better—he had, however, paid his rent well enough till lately—he was a very quiet, well-disposed lodger, for all she had known—he had given her youngest, child a pear not long ago. Really, thought Mrs. Squallop, I may have gone a leetle too far.

"Come—it a'n't no use crying in this way," she began in an altered tone. "It won't put money into your pocket, nor my rent into mine. You know you've wronged me, and I must be paid," she added, but in a still lower tone. She tried to cough away a certain rising disagreeable sensation about her throat; for Titmouse, having turned his back to hide the extent of his emotions, seemed half-choked with suppressed sobs.

"So you won't speak a word—not a word—to the woman you've injured so much?" inquired Mrs. Squallop, trying to assume a harsh tone; but her eyes were a little obstructed with tears.

"I—I—can't speak," sobbed Titmouse—"I—I feel ready to drop into a cold early grave!—everybody hates me"—here he paused; and for some moments neither of them spoke. "I've been kept on my legs the whole day about the town by Mr. Tag-rag, and had no dinner. I—I—wish I was dead! I do!—you may take all I have—here it is," continued Titmouse, with his foot pushing towards Mrs. Squallop the old hair trunk that contained all his little finery. "I sha'n't want them much longer, for I'm turned out of my situation."

This was too much for Mrs. Squallop, and she was obliged to wipe her full eyes with the corner of her apron, without saying a word. Her heart smote her for the misery she had inflicted on one who seemed quite broken down. Pity suddenly flew, fluttering his wings—soft dove!—into her heart, and put to flight in an instant all her enraged feelings. "Come, Mr. Titmouse," said she, in quite an altered tone, "never mind me; I'm a plain-spoken woman enough, I dare say—and often say more than I mean—for I know I a'n't over particular when my blood's up—but—lord!—I—I wouldn't hurt a hair of your head, poor chap!—for all I've said—no, not for double the rent you owe me. Come! don't go on so, Mr. Titmouse—what's the use?—it's all quite—over—I'm so sorry—Lud! if I had really thought"—she almost sobbed—"you'd been so—so—why, I'd have waited till to-morrow night before I'd said a word. But, Mr. Titmouse, since you haven't had any dinner, won't you have a mouthful of something—a bit of bread and cheese I—I'll soon fetch you up a bit, and a drop of beer—we've just had it in for our suppers."

"No, thank you—I can't—I can't eat!" sobbed Titmouse.

"Oh, bother it, but you shall! I'll go down and fetch it up in half a minute, as sure as my name's Squallop!" And out of the room and down-stairs she bustled, glad of a moment to recover herself.

"Lord-a-mercy!" said she, on entering her room, to her eldest daughter and a neighbor who had just come in to supper—and while she hastily cut a thick hunch of bread, and a good slice of cheese—"there I've been a-rating that poor little chap, up at the top room, (my dandy lodger, you know,) like anything—and I really don't think he's had a morsel of victuals in his belly this precious day; and I've made him cry, poor soul! as if his heart would break. Pour us out half a pint of that beer, Sally—a good half pint, mind!—I'm going to take it up-stairs directly. I've gone a deal too far with him, I do think; but it's all of that nasty old Gripe; I've been wrong all the day through it! How I hate the sight of old Gripe! What hodious looking people they do get to collect the rates and taxes, to be sure!—Poor chap," she continued, as she wiped out a plate with her apron, and put into it the bread and cheese, together with a knife—"he offered me a chair when I went in, so uncommon civil-like, it took a good while before I could get myself into the humor to give it him as I wanted. And he's no father nor mother, (half of which has happened to you, Sal, and the rest will happen one of these days, you know—so you mind me while you have me!) and he's not such a very bad lodger, after all, though he does get a little behind-hand now and then, and though he turns out every Sunday like a lord, poor fool—as your poor dear father used to say, 'with a shining back and empty belly.'"

"But that's no reason why honest people should be kept out of their own, to feed his pride," interposed her neighbor, a skinny old widow, who had never had chick nor child, and was always behind-hand with her own rent; but whose effects were not worth distraining upon. "I'd get hold of some of his fine crincum-crancums and gimcracks, for security like, if I was you. I would, indeed."

"Why—no, poor soul—I don't hardly like: he's a vain creature, and puts everything he can on his back, to be sure; but he a'n't quite a rogue, neither."

"Ah, ha, Mrs. Squallop—you're such a simple soul!—Won't my fine gentleman make off with his finery after to-night?"

"Well, I shouldn't have thought it! To be sure he may! Really, there can't be much harm in asking him (in a proper kind of way) to deposit one of his fine things with me, by way of security—that ring of his, you know—eh?—Well, I'll try it anyhow," said Mrs. Squallop, as she set off up-stairs.

"I know what I should do, if so be he was a lodger of mine, that's all," said her visitor, significantly, (as Mrs. Squallop quitted the room,) vexed to find her supper so considerably and unexpectedly diminished, especially as to the pot of porter, which she strongly suspected would not be replenished.

"There," said Mrs. Squallop, setting down on the table what she had brought for Titmouse, "there's a bit of supper for you; and you're welcome to it, I'm sure, Mr. Titmouse."

"Thank you, thank you—I can't eat," said he, casting, however, upon the victuals a hungry eye, which belied what he said, while in his heart he longed to be left alone with them for about three minutes.

"Come, don't be ashamed—fall to work—it's good wholesome victuals," said she, lifting the table near to the edge of the bed, on the side of which he was sitting, and taking up the two shillings lying on the table—"and capital good beer, I warrant me; you'll sleep like a top after it."

"You're uncommon kind, Mrs. Squallop; but I sha'n't get a wink of sleep to-night for thinking"–

"Oh, bother your thinking! Let me begin to see you eat a bit. Well, I suppose you don't like to eat and drink before me, so I'll go." [Here arose a sudden conflict in the good woman's mind, whether or not she would act on the suggestion which had been put into her head down-stairs. She was on the point of yielding to the impulse of her own good-natured, though coarse feelings; but at last—] "I—I—dare say, Mr. Titmouse, you mean what's right and straightforward," she stammered.

"Yes, Mrs. Squallop—you may keep those two shillings; they're the last farthing I have left in the whole world."

"No—hem!—hem!—ahem! I was just suddenly a-thinking—now can't you guess, Mr. Titmouse?"

"What, Mrs. Squallop?" inquired Titmouse, meekly but anxiously.

"Why—suppose now—if it were only to raise ten shillings with old Balls, round the corner, on one of those fine things of yours—your ring, say!" [Titmouse's heart sank within him.] "Well, well—never mind—don't fear," said Mrs. Squallop, observing him suddenly turn pale again. "I—I only thought—but never mind! it don't signify—good-night! we can talk about that to-morrow—good-night—a good night's rest to you, Mr. Titmouse!" and the next moment he heard her heavy step descending the stairs. Some little time elapsed before he could recover from the agitation into which he had been thrown by her last proposal; but within five minutes of her quitting the room, there stood before him, on the table, an empty plate and jug.