All But Lost: A Novel. Vol. 1 of 3

by G. A. Henty

Anyone entering John Holl’s at seven o’clock that evening would have seen at once that something very important was about to take place. The floor had been evidently recently scrubbed, and in those parts not covered by the square patch of drugget in the middle of the room, was so clean and white that it almost seemed a pity to tread upon it. The chairs and table absolutely shone with the amount of rubbing and polishing which had been bestowed upon them, and the ornaments on the chest of drawers had been arranged upon a spotless white cloth to the best possible advantage.

Mother had just come down from upstairs, where she had been engaged in tidying herself, and looked red and hot from the hard work and excitement.

John Holl himself was sitting in his usual place by the side of the fire, smoking his long pipe with his accustomed air of thoughtful gravity. James was in his box on wheels opposite to him, but not immediately so, the chair next to the fire being, as the place of honour, reserved for Stephen Walker.

The younger children are seated upon the stairs as being quite out of the way, and are from that post of vantage viewing all the preparations with an air of extreme interest, passing away the time the while, by munching apples and cakes which have fallen to them as their share of the feast.

Presently Evan returns, and the cause of his absence is at once apparent, for he is followed by a potboy from a neighbouring public-house, carrying in one hand a large can of beer and in the other three empty pewter pots, which he places upon the table in company with several long clay pipes which are lying upon it ready for use. He then takes from the pockets of his jacket two black bottles which he places beside them, and with a brief “good-night” takes his leave. And now when Mrs. Holl has placed some tumblers upon the table, the preparations for the feast are complete.

For even the Holls have their feasts—not often and not great ones. In no single respect resembling those banquets which a city alderman pictures to himself at the word feast, where turtle soup with its lumps of green fat mingles if not harmonises with venison and truffles, the whole crowned with that wonderful institution—the loving cup.

But the Holls have none of these things, nor perhaps would be able thoroughly to appreciate them if they had. The contents of the black bottles and battered pewter pots form the great staple of the entertainment. Strange stories, could they speak, might these pewters relate of those who have drunk from them, and curious would be the history of each of their numerous dints and bruises. That one was crushed only last Saturday night by being thrown by a drunken husband at his wife; the symmetry of the next was spoilt against a navvy’s skull in an English and Irish row; for stealing the third, Daniel Crinky, alias the Ferret, was sent on a long sea voyage; and many another tale of drunkenness and crime.

This is one of the pewter’s innocent uses, and they seem to have been specially cleaned and brightened up in honour of the occasion. It is the twentieth anniversary of John and Sarah Holl’s wedding-day. The guests soon begin to arrive; there are not many of them—half-a-dozen or so. In the first case, as he is a public character should be mentioned A 56. For he is a public character, and his place can by no means be termed a sinecure. Far from it, for A 56 has plenty of hard work and not over much pay in return. He must make up his mind for hard knocks, and occasionally in the discharge of his duty to be nearly killed, perhaps in the open day, with dozens of bystanders looking on, too cowardly or too indifferent to lift a finger in his defence. He will have some unpleasant duties, too, such as keeping the line all day in the rain at Chiswick Fête, and is expected to be within a few yards of every irascible gentleman who is overcharged by a cabman, or who imagines himself to be in any way aggrieved. He must make up his mind to being a pretty general object of dislike among the lower orders, and to be taunted and chaffed and groaned at on all public occasions, he being at those times considered a fair subject for sport. All this and much more must he bear with perfect equanimity and good temper, for if he should ever get a little crusty, and hit rather harder then the occasion appears to warrant, he knows that “Mentor,” and “Censor,” and “Civis,” and many others will be down upon him at once in the columns of the daily papers. But to their credit be it spoken, it is very seldom that A 56 and his brethren from A 1 to the end of the alphabet ever give an opportunity for a charge against them.

Next to A 56 must be mentioned Perkins. Perkins is not a handsome man, in fact the reverse. He is rather tall and strongly built, with high cheek bones, small sunken eyes, and a broken nose. He wears a groom’s waistcoat with a heavy steel watchguard, and a gaudy scarf round his neck with a showy mosaic gold pin. From these tokens it may be at once seen that Perkins is or has been a prize-fighter. A nasty customer was Perkins in his time, and many a victory has he won, from his first appearance as Harry Parson’s novice, to the time when backing himself to fight Unknown for 200l. a side, he was nearly killed. It was in that celebrated conflict that his nose was broken; and he then retired from the ring, and was established by his admirers in the snug Public, known as “The Lively Stunners,” where every Wednesday evening a select harmonic meeting is held, at which good humour and fisticuffs prevail, as see “Bell’s Life.”

Between Perkins and A 56 a species of feud exists, for Perkins cannot disguise that he objects to A 56. Not on personal grounds, far from it; but as being one of the body who are constantly on the watch to interrupt and put an end to the noble art of which he, Perkins, is a professor; and he attributes to A 56 and his fellows the disrepute into which that noble science has fallen. Of the others present, as they will not appear again in the pages of this history, no description need be given.