Upsidonia

by Archibald Marshall

"My great-grandfather and my grandfather were both poor men, and my father was brought up in the lap of indigence. But when he was quite a boy, he saw a sight that affected his whole life.

"He was walking along the poor street in which he lived, when he saw a carriage with four horses and postillions coming along. In it was seated a miserably rich-looking old man swathed in furs, who was being taken off to prison. My father hung on to the back of the carriage—he was but a child—and was carried inside the prison gates. There he saw the treatment that was then considered good enough for rich malefactors. They drove through a large garden to a fine-looking house, and when the carriage stopped at the door a groom of the chambers came out, followed by two footmen in powdered wigs and silk stockings. The wretched creature was taken inside, and before he went away my father learnt that he would be treated with every refinement of luxury. And what do you think his crime was?"

"I haven't the least idea," I replied. "Probably making somebody a present of a fortune."

"No. His crime was that he had thrown a pot of caviare into a provision shop."

"And you're not allowed to do that here?"

"You must remember that he was an old man, in the last stages of opulence, and actually surfeited with food. As my father went back to his happy home, which had always lacked all but the barest necessities of life, the contrast between his lot and that of this unfortunate creature, bred from his earliest years to the burdens of wealth, took strong hold of his youthful imagination. Then and there he vowed his life to the service of the unhappy rich, and especially to the alleviation of the lot of prisoners; and nothing ever turned him from his purpose. When he grew up, he left home, much against the wishes of his parents, and went to live in one of the richest parts of the town, so as to get to know the wealthy thoroughly, and to be able to help them when the time came for him to do so. He even took their money, and, so far as a man of education could, became like them. Of course, there are many who follow in his footsteps now, but most of them live in settlements, and only come into actual contact with the people they are trying to help by going in and out amongst them in their own homes. But he was the first; and he really lived with them, in a house with twenty bedrooms, luxuriously furnished, and with a chef and a great many servants. I believe he did actually nothing for himself for two whole years, and, of course, he broke down under the strain."

"Poor fellow!" I murmured sympathetically.

"He went back for a time to the life of poverty in which he had been brought up. But even then, he refused to live like the rest of his family, and, as far as his enfeebled state of health would permit, practised secret indulgences, and never lost sight of his great purpose in life.

"He made a convert of my mother, who was the daughter of a farm-labourer, and of one of the proudest and poorest families in Upsidonia. They started their married life in a comfortable villa, with four indoor servants and two out—my father could not, of course, expect his young wife to take the extreme plunge that he had himself—and he has told me that she acted like a heroine, and never grumbled at the life of strict affluence they laid down for themselves. I was born in that house, and it was my mother's own wish that we then moved to a larger one, where we have lived ever since. We have all been brought up to think nothing of wealth, and each of us in our several ways does his or her utmost to help our parents in their noble work. My eldest sister has even married a stockbroker, and a very good fellow he is, and it is wonderful how he has overcome the defects of his upbringing.