“He has drunk, in course,” said Mrs. Grimes.
“The world has been pretty rough with him, Sir,” said Mr. Grimes.
“But he don’t drink now,” continued the lady. “At least if he do, we don’t see it. As for her, she wouldn’t show herself inside our door.”
“It aint often that man and wife draws their milk from the same cow,” said Mr. Grimes.
“But Mackenzie is here every day of his life,” said Mrs. Grimes. “When he’s got a sixpence to pay for it, he’ll come in here and have a glass of beer and a bit of something to eat. We does make him a little extra welcome, and that’s the truth of it. We knows what he is, and we knows what he was. As for book learning, Sir;—it don’t matter what language it is, it’s all as one to him. He knows ’em all round just as I know my catechism.”
“Can’t you say fairer than that for him, Polly?” asked Mr. Grimes.
“Don’t you talk of catechisms, John, nor yet of nothing else as a man ought to set his mind to;—unless it is keeping the Spotted Dog. But as for Mackenzie;—he knows off by heart whole books full of learning. There was some furreners here as come from,—I don’t know where it was they come from, only it wasn’t France, nor yet Germany, and he talked to them just as though he hadn’t been born in England at all. I don’t think there ever was such a man for knowing things. He’ll go on with poetry out of his own head till you think it comes from him like web from a spider.” We could not help thinking of the wonderful companionship which there must have been in that parlour while the reduced man was spinning his web and Mrs. Grimes, with her needlework lying idle in her lap, was sitting by, listening with rapt admiration. In passing by the Spotted Dog one would not imagine such a scene to have its existence within. But then so many things do have existence of which we imagine nothing!
Mr. Grimes ended the interview. “The fact is, Sir, if you can give him employment better than what he has now, you’ll be helping a man who has seen better days, and who only wants help to see ’em again. He’s got it all there,” and Mr. Grimes put his finger up to his head.
“He’s got it all here too,” said Mrs. Grimes, laying her hand upon her heart. Hereupon we took our leave, suggesting to these excellent friends that if it should come to pass that we had further dealings with Mr. Mackenzie we might perhaps trouble them again. They assured us that we should always be welcome, and Mr. Grimes himself saw us to the door, having made profuse offers of such good cheer as the house afforded. We were upon the whole much taken with the Spotted Dog.
From thence we went to the office of the “Penny Dreadful,” in the vicinity of Fleet Street. As we walked thither we could not but think of Mrs. Grimes’s words. The troublesomest of troubles! We acknowledged to ourselves that they were true words. Can there be any trouble more troublesome than that of suffering from the shame inflicted by a degraded wife? We had just parted from Mr. Grimes,—not, indeed, having seen very much of him in the course of our interview;—but little as we had seen, we were sure that he was assisted in his position by a buoyant pride in that he called himself the master, and owner, and husband of Mrs. Grimes. In the very step with which he passed in and out of his own door you could see that there was nothing that he was ashamed of about his household. When abroad he could talk of his “missus” with a conviction that the picture which the word would convey to all who heard him would redound to his honour. But what must have been the reflections of Julius Mackenzie when his mind dwelt upon his wife? We remembered the words of his letter. “I have a wife and four children, which burden forbids me to free myself from all care with a bare bodkin.” As we thought of them, and of the story which had been told to us at the Spotted Dog, they lost that tone of rhodomontade with which they had invested themselves when we first read them. A wife who is indifferent to being picked out of the gutter, and who will pawn her children’s clothes for gin, must be a trouble than which none can be more troublesome.