Faces and Places Part 6

"In London when I can find work."

"Where are you going now?"

"To London."

"How much money have you got?"

"Three-halfpence."

"Humph!"

I don't know whether a murder had recently been committed in Kent, and whether I in some degree answered to the description of the supposed murderer. If it were so, the unfortunate circ.u.mstance will explain why the sergeant should have run me through and through with his eyes whilst propounding these queries, and why he should have made them in such a gruff voice. However, he seemed to have finally arrived at the conclusion that I was not the person wanted for the murder, and after a brief pause he said, "Go inside."

I went inside, into one of the snuggest little police-offices I have seen in the course of some tramping, and took the liberty of warming myself by the cosy fire, whilst the remaining applicants for admission to Watts's were being put through a sort of minor catechism such as that I had survived. Presently the sergeant came in with the selected five of my yard companions, and, taking us one by one, entered in a book, under the date "24th December," our several names, ages, birthplaces and occupations, also the names of the last place we had come from, and the next whither we were going. Then, taking up a sc.r.a.p of blue paper with some printed words on it, and filling in figures, a date, and a signature, he bade us follow him.

Out of the snug police-office--which put utterly in the shade the comforts of the cathedral regarded as a sleeping place--across the courtyard, which somebody said faced the Sessions House, down High Street to the left till we stopped before an old-fas.h.i.+oned white house with a projecting lamp lit above the doorway, s.h.i.+ning full on an inscription graven in stone. I read it then and copied it when I left the house next morning. It ran thus:--

RICHARD WATTS, Esqr.

by his will dated 22 Aug., 1579, founded this charity for six poor travellers, who not being Rogues, or Proctors, may receive gratis, for one Night, Lodging, Entertainment, and four pence each.

In testimony of his Munificence, in honour of his Memory, and inducement to his Example, Nathl. Hood, Esq., the present Mayor, has caused this stone, gratefully to be renewed, and inscribed, A.D. 1771.

It was not Dr. Watts, then, as the verger had given me to understand. I was sorry, for it had seemed like going to the house of an old friend, and I had meant after supper to recite "How doth the little Busy Bee"

for the edification of my fellow-guests, and to tell them what I had learnt long ago of the good writer's life and labours.

"Here we are again, Mrs. Kercham," said our conductor, stepping into the low hall of the white house.

"Yes, here you are again," replied an old lady, dressed in black, and wearing a widow's cap. "Have you got 'em all to-night?"

"Yes, six--all tidy men. Can you write, Mr. Paper Stainer?"

I could write, and did, setting forth, in a book which lay on a table in a room labelled "Office," my name, age, occupation, and the town whence I had last come. Three of the other guests followed my example. Two could not write; and the sergeant, paying me a compliment on my beautiful clerkly handwriting, asked me to fill in the particulars for them. This ceremony over, we were shown into our bedrooms, and told to give ourselves "a good wash." My room was on the ground-floor, out in the yard: and I hope I may never be shown into a worse. It was not large, being about eight feet square, nor was it very high. The walls were whitewashed, and the floor clean. A single small window, deep set in the thick stone-built walls, looked out on to the yard, and by it stood the solitary piece of furniture, a somewhat rickety Windsor chair.

I except the bed, which was supposed to stand in a corner, but actually covered nearly the whole of the floor. The bedstead was of iron, and, I should imagine, was one of the earliest constructions of the sort ever sold in this country.

"I put on three blankets, being Christmas-time, though the weather is not according; so you can take one off if you like."

"Thank you, ma'am; I'll leave it till I go to bed, if you please." Much reason had I subsequently to be thankful for my caution.

After having washed, I came out, and was told to go into a room, facing my bedroom, on the other side of the yard. Here I found three of my fellow-guests sitting by a fire, and in a few minutes the other two arrived, all looking very clean and (speaking for myself particularly) feeling ravenously hungry. The chamber, which had "Travellers' Room"

painted over the doorway, was about twelve or thirteen feet long and eight wide, and, like our bedrooms, was not remarkable for variety of furniture. A plain deal table stood at one end, and then there were two benches, and that's all. Over the mantelpiece a large card hung with the following inscription:--

"Persons accepting this charity are each supplied with a supper, consisting of half a pound of meat, one pound of bread, and half a pint of porter at seven o'clock in the evening, and fourpence on leaving the house in the morning. The additional comfort of a good fire is given during the winter months, from October 18th till March 10th, for the purpose of drying their clothes and supplying hot water for their use.

They go to bed at eight o'clock."

This was satisfactory, except inasmuch as it appeared that supper was not to be forthcoming till seven o'clock, and it was now only twenty minutes past six. This forty minutes promised to be harder to bear than the hunger of the long day; but the pain was averted by the appearance at half-past six of a pleasant-looking young woman, carrying a plate of cold roast beef in each hand. These she put down on the table, supplementing them in course of time with four similar plates, six small loaves, and as many mugs of porter.

It does not become guests to dictate arrangements, but if the wors.h.i.+pful trustees of Watts's knew how tantalising it is to a hungry man to see cold roast beef brought in in a slow and deliberate manner, they would buy a large tray for the use of the pleasant young person, and let the feast burst at once upon the vision of the guests.

Sharp on the stroke of seven we drew the benches up to the table, and Mrs. Kercham, standing at one end and leaning over, said grace.

Impatiently hungry as I was, I could not help noticing the precise terms in which the good matron implored a blessing. I suppose she had had her tea in the parlour. At any rate, she was not going to favour us with her company, and so, bending over our plates of cold beef, she lifted up her voice and said with emphasis,--

"For what _you_ are about to receive out of His bountiful goodness may the Lord make you truly thankful."

I write the personal p.r.o.noun with a capital letter, not being quite certain from Mrs. Kercham's rapid enunciation whether the bountiful goodness was Mr. Watts's or the Lord's.

Six emphatic "Amens!" followed, and before the sound had died away six able-bodied men had fallen-to upon the beef and the bread in a manner that would have done kind Master Watts's heart good had he beheld them.

I think I had done first, for I remember when I looked round the table my fellow-guests were still eating and was.h.i.+ng their suppers down with economical draughts from the half-pint mugs of porter. They--I think I may say we--did credit to the selection of the police sergeant, and, so far as appearances went, fulfilled one of the requirements of Master Watts, there being nothing of the rogue in our faces, if I except a slight hint in the physiognomy of the little man with the fair hair plastered down over his forehead, and perhaps I am prejudiced against him.

It was a little after seven when the plates were all polished, the mugs drained, and nothing but a few crumbs left to tell where a loaf had stood. The pleasant young person coming in to clear the table, we drew up round the fire, and for the first time in our more than two hours'

companions.h.i.+p began to exchange remarks.

They were of the briefest and most commonplace character, and attempts made to get up a general conversation signally failed. "What do you do?" "Where do you come from?" "Things hard down there?" were staple questions, with an occasional "Did you hear tell of Joe Mackin on the road?" or "Was Bill O'Brien there at the time?" From the replies to these inquiries I learnt that my companions were respectively a fitter, a painter, a waiter, and two indefinitely self-described as "labourers."

They had walked since morning from Faversham, from Sittingbourne, from Gravesend, and from Greenwich, and, sitting close around the fire, soon began to testify to their weariness by nodding, and even snoring.

"Well, lads, I'm off, goodnight," said the painter, yawning and stretching himself out of the room.

One by one the remaining four quickly followed, and before what I had on entering regarded as the absurdly early hour of eight o'clock had struck, five of Watts's guests had gone to bed, and the sixth was sitting looking drowsily in the fire, and thinking what a jolly Christmas he was having.

I was awakened by a familiar voice inquiring whether I was "going to sit up all night," and opening my eyes beheld the matron standing by me with a shovelful of coal in one hand and a small jug in the other. Her voice was sharp, but her look was kind, and I was not a bit surprised when she threw the coal on the fire, and, putting down the jug, which evidently contained porter, said she would bring a gla.s.s in a minute.

"I'm not going to bed myself for a bit, and if you like to sit by the fire and smoke a pipe and drink a gla.s.s whilst I mend a stocking or two, you'll be company."

So we sat together by Master Watts's fire, and whilst I drank his porter and smoked my own tobacco, the matron mended her stockings, and told me a good deal about the trials she had gone through in a life that would never again see its sixtieth year. Forty years she had spent under the roof of Watts's, and knew all about the old man's will, and how he ordered that after the re-marriage or the death of his wife, his princ.i.p.al dwelling-house, called Satis, on Boley Hill, with the house adjoining, the closes, orchards, and appurtenances, his plate and his furniture, should be sold, and the proceeds be placed out at usury by the Mayor and citizens of Rochester for the perpetual support of an alms-house then erected and standing near the Market Cross; and how he further ordained that there should be added thereto six rooms, "with a chimney in each," and with convenient places for six good mattresses or flock beds, and other good and sufficient furniture for the lodgment of poor wayfarers for a single night.

Had she many people come to see the quaint old place beside those whom the police-sergeant brought every night?

Not many. The visitors' book had been twenty years in the house, and it was not nearly full of names.

I took up the book, and carelessly turning back the leaves came upon the signature "Charles d.i.c.kens," with "Mark Lemon" written underneath.

I know d.i.c.kens pretty well--his books, I mean, of course--and said, with a gratified start, "Ha! has d.i.c.kens been here?"

"Yes, he has," said the matron, in her sharpest tones, "and a pretty pack of lies he told about it. Stop a bit."

I stopped accordingly whilst the old lady flew out of the room, and flying back again with a well-worn pamphlet in her hand, shoved it at me, saying, "Read that." I opened it, and found it to be the Christmas number of _Household Words_ for 1854. It was ent.i.tled "The Seven Poor Travellers," and the opening chapter, in Mr d.i.c.kens's well-known style, described by name, and in detail, the very house in which I had taken my supper.

It was a charming narrative, I, poor waif and stray, felt a strong personal regard for the great novelist as I read the cheery story in which he sets forth how, calling at the house on the afternoon before Christmas-day, he obtained permission to give a Christmas feast to the six Poor Travellers; how he ordered the materials for the feast to be sent in from his own inn; how, when the feast was set upon the table, "finer beef, a finer turkey, a greater prodigality of sauce and gravy,"

he never saw; and how "it made my heart rejoice to see the wonderful justice my travellers did to everything set before them." All this and much more, including "a jug of wa.s.sail" and the "hot plum-pudding and mince pies," which "a wall-eyed young man connected with the fly department at the hotel was, at a given signal, to dash into the kitchen, seize, and speed with to Dr. Watts's Charity," was painted with a warmth and colour that made my mouth water, even after the plate of cold beef, the small loaf, and the unaccustomed allowance of porter.

"How like d.i.c.kens!" I exclaimed, with wet eyes, as I finished the recital; "and he even waited in Rochester all night to give his poor Travellers 'hot coffee and piles of bread and b.u.t.ter in the morning!'"

"Get along with you! he didn't do nothing of the sort."

"What! didn't he come here, as he says, and give the poor Travellers a Christmas treat?"

Not a bit of it; as the matron, with indignation that seemed to have lost nothing by lapse of years, forthwith demonstrated. There had been no supper, no wa.s.sail, no hot coffee in the morning, and, in truth, no meeting between Charles d.i.c.kens and the Travellers, at Christmas or at any other time.

Indeed, the visitors' book testified that the visit had been paid on May 11th, 1854, and not at Christmastide at all.