Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/173

Charles Dickens] My pet will see this at a glance, that the two colours really alternate in equal batches. Had I been one of the players—just to give you an idea of the easy way the money is made—I should have earned enough in ten minutes to have paid all our year's rent.

This morning, when we are all doing our procession at the wells, that agreeable man of God, the Dean of ——, comes up to me, with that smug obsequiousness which he has unconsciously got to exhibit to inferiors, from the habit of always addressing lords and baronets.

"I saw your name," he said, "in the Fremdenliste, and at once thought you must be one of the Edward Austens of Berkshire. Am I right—the member?"

"Yes," I said; "my father was Edward Austen, the member."

"Good gracious! I was sure of it. How wonderful are the ways"—he was going to add "of Providence!" but more decorously substituted, "the ways—ahem—we find people turning up!"

Of course he had not heard of my fall in the world, or, if he had, thought it was one of those genteel bits of ruin which don't affect people of condition. He was a great man at a charity sermon, and very strong "against Rome." We walked up and down together, he chattering all the time, with every now and again a nod and "How d'ye do?" to some one. After which he would get abstracted, and look after that lord uneasily—I think meditating whether there was likely to be a vacancy beside the lord, when he might join in. I remember a sermon by this dignitary of extraordinary warmth and power, on the text, "Go up higher," which, in his own life, he illustrated forcibly; and I believe the true bearing for him of the text was unconsciously this: "he that humbleth himself" was to do so, through the hope of being exalted. I dare say I do him wrong in this, for he was a charitable man; but certainly loved a lord a little too much. He asked me, "to make one of their party" at dinner at the Shepherdess, a mean, obscure place, which some irreverent people always called "that pot-house of a place," but where "the swells" were fond of planning dinners. Is not this the world all over? Some obscure spot or thing is taken up by "ladies of quality"—no matter what discomfort or stupidity follows—the world pronounces it charming, and would give their poor battered souls—the cheapest thing they have—to get there.

I went to the Shepherdess that evening, and found ten people at the dean's table. Only one lord—the salt of the earth—but certainly some "nice people," as he would call them. The dinner was bad enough, as, indeed, Mr. Boxwell, a hearty jovial member of parliament, said plainly.

"In fact, my dear dean, what surprises me altogether is to find you in this queer place at all."

"Find me here," repeated the dean—"find me here! Surely there are the nicest people—Lord ——, Lady ——, and Sir John; why, there is nothing queer about them."

"I don't mean that; but I was thinking of a sermon I have heard of yours, on 'Responsibility,' and all that, and how one preached more by simply not saying a word, than by regular sermons. A capital idea, by the way, which I wish was carried out in all our churches."

"Oh, that's all very well," said the dean.

(I know these conversations amuse my pet, and I try to recollect scraps of them as nearly as possible.)

"In short, it is so droll to find all the good people gathered here—aprons, shovels, white ties, gaiters, high collars, holy faces—all clustered about a common gambling-house. You can call it Kursaal, and all that, and talk of the croupier and such dignified names; but we know, if the great Blanc himself took a scrubby room in St. James's-street, the police would just burst in, and drag him and his croupiers with unnecessary violence before Sir Thomas Henry, who would refuse bail."

I enjoyed this thoroughly. These are my own views, only put so much better. But the dean was a shrewd man, and when he saw we were all listening, said: "Oh, we come for our healths. We are ordered here, sir—our health. Those people have nothing to do with us. And, to tell you the truth, I don't look at it in that way at all. They tell me it is all perfectly fair and above board; and I hear the good they do, the sums they give away in charity, is something incalculable. The widows and the orphans of the place come to them, and never go away empty."

I was astonished to hear such careless language from a man in so responsible a position, and could not resist saying, "But how many a widow and orphan, Mr. Dean, have they made destitute? How many households have they filled with desolation? The ruin they have caused spreads over every land, and many and many are the