CHAPTER XLV. — THE FATE OF THE NAVVIES
And now, having dispatched Alaric and his wife and bairns on their long journey, we must go back for a while and tell how Charley had been transformed from an impudent, idle young Navvy into a well-conducted, zealous young Weights.
When Alaric was convicted, Charley had, as we all know, belonged to the Internal Navigation; when the six months' sentence had expired, Charley was in full blow at the decorous office in Whitehall; and during the same period Norman had resigned and taken on himself the new duties of a country squire. The change which had been made had affected others than Charley. It had been produced by one of those far-stretching, world-moving commotions which now and then occur, sometimes twice or thrice in a generation, and, perhaps, not again for half a century, causing timid men to whisper in corners, and the brave and high-spirited to struggle with the struggling waves, so that when the storm subsides they may be found floating on the surface. A moral earthquake had been endured by a portion of the Civil Service of the country.
The Internal Navigation had—No, my prognostic reader, it had not been reformed; no new blood had been infused into it; no attempt had been made to produce a better discipline by the appointment of a younger secretary; there had been no carting away of decayed wood in the shape of Mr. Snape, or gathering of rank weeds in the form of Mr. Corkscrew; nothing of the kind had been attempted. No—the disease had gone too far either for phlebotomy, purging, or cautery. The Internal Navigation had ceased to exist! Its demise had been in this wise.—It may be remembered that some time since Mr. Oldeschole had mentioned in the hearing of Mr. Snape that things were going wrong. Sir Gregory Hardlines had expressed an adverse opinion as to the Internal Navigation, and worse, ten times worse than that, there had been an article in the Times. Now, we all know that if anything is ever done in any way towards improvement in these days, the public press does it. And we all know, also, of what the public press consists. Mr. Oldeschole knew this well, and even Mr. Snape had a glimmering idea of the truth. When he read that article, Mr. Oldeschole felt that his days were numbered, and Mr. Snape, when he heard of it, began to calculate for the hundredth time to what highest amount of pension he might be adjudged to be entitled by a liberal-minded Treasury minute.
Mr. Oldeschole began to set his house in order, hopelessly; for any such effort the time was gone by. It was too late for the office to be so done by, and too late for Mr. Oldeschole to do it. He had no aptitude for new styles and modern improvements; he could not understand Sir Gregory's code of rules, and was dumbfounded by the Civil Service requisitions that were made upon him from time to time. Then came frequent calls for him to attend at Sir Gregory's office. There a new broom had been brought in, in the place of our poor friend Alaric, a broom which seemed determined to sweep all before it with an unmitigable energy. Mr. Oldeschole found that he could not stand at all before this young Hercules, seeing that his special stall was considered to be the foulest in the whole range of the Augean stables. He soon saw that the river was to be turned in on him, and that he was to be officially obliterated in the flood.
The civility of those wonder-doing demigods—those Magi of the Civil Service office—was most oppressive to him. When he got to the board, he was always treated with a deference which he knew was but a prelude to barbaric tortures. They would ask him to sit down in a beautiful new leathern arm-chair, as though he were really some great man, and then examine him as they would a candidate for the Custom House, smiling always, but looking at him as though they were determined to see through him.
They asked him all manner of questions; but there was one question which they put to him, day after day, for four days, that nearly drove him mad. It was always put by that horrid young lynx-eyed new commissioner, who sat there with his hair brushed high from off his forehead, peering out of his capacious, excellently-washed shirt-collars, a personification of conscious official zeal.
'And now, Mr. Oldeschole, if you have had leisure to consider the question more fully, perhaps you can define to us what is the—hum—hm—the use—hm—hm—the exact use of the Internal Navigation Office?'