“Be Jasus! and well you may be, my dear frind!” cried the gallant gentleman. “But who is the governor, d’ye say?”
“Archdeacon Hale is the Master, as he is called—Archdeacon Hale, the notorious pluralist who fattens upon the loaves and fishes of the Church, without ever having done a single thing to render him deserving of such fine preferment and such large emoluments. He it is who presides over this Protestant monkery,—who enforces in the nineteenth century the grinding discipline of the sixteenth,—who moves the whole machinery of espionnage, and rules us as a mitred abbot was wont to sway his Romish brotherhood. If a gentleman, reduced by adversity, once enters those walls as an inmate, he must resign himself to the treatment of a pauper. The authorities look upon us in that light; and the servants behave to us accordingly. The very porter will sometimes call us by our Christian or surnames, without the prefatory Mister. If the surgeon visit us, it is evident that he considers himself to be doing us a great favour—just as you may suppose that the medical man belonging to an Union of Parishes behaves towards the pauper invalids requiring his services. Should the Matron have occasion to call upon us, it is with all the airs of a fine lady—she who curtseys and does not dare sit down in the presence of the Archdeacon’s wife! The manciple, or steward, is likewise a great man;—and woe to the Poor Brother who does not receive him with all possible respect. The nurses attend upon us in a slovenly, negligent manner; and we dare not complain nor remonstrate—for we know that they are spies ready to report us for every incautious word that we may utter, or even to invent charges against us. It was but the other day that one of the inmates—a poor old man of nearly seventy—did venture to complain of the shameful neglect which he experienced at the hands of his nurse. What was the consequence? She made a counter-charge, to the effect that he had taken liberties with her! The woman’s statement—her unsupported statement was believed in preference to the denial and the complaint of the old man, and he was expelled the Charter House for six months—turned out upon the wide world to live how he could, or die as he might![10] Oh! you have no idea of the tremendous tyranny that is perpetrated within these walls, where all is so silent and all appears to be so serene and tranquil! A short time ago a Brother, driven to despair by the horrors of the place, went away—took an obscure lodging—and put an end to his life by means of poison. The authorities hushed up the matter as well as they could—prevented the interference of the Coroner—and had the man buried within three days from the moment of his self-destruction.[11] These are all facts, sir—stubborn facts; and the public should know them. Yes—the public should learn that there are eighty old men dwelling in a monastic institution in the very heart of London—enduring a discipline as severe, and subject to a system as despotic and oppressive as in the olden times and in those very cloistral establishments which Henry the Eighth destroyed! The public should be informed that then eighty old men are the victims of ecclesiastical tyranny, and that they are compelled to endure neglect and even insult at the hands of the very servants who are so liberally paid to attend upon them.”
“Be the power-r-s! it’s a bur-r-ning shame!” cried Captain O’Blunderbuss: “and what’s worse of all, is that it’s the parsons who are your governors and by consequence your opprissors in this establisment. Bad luck to ’em, say I!”
“A good parson is a most estimable, as well as a most necessary character in society,” said Mr. Scales; “and this every sensible man must admit. But an intolerant, illiberal, tyrannical parson is the greatest curse that can be inflicted upon a community. Such is our case—such is our misfortune. We have half-a-dozen parsons belonging to the institution; and their main object is to get all the loaves and fishes to themselves. Though they rule us with a rod of iron, they do not mind breaking the regulations themselves. For instance, if a Poor Brother remains away from chapel without the surgeon’s leave, or returns home a little after hours in the evening, he is reported and fined—fined out of the beggarly pittance of seven pounds ten shillings a quarter allowed him to purchase tea, sugar, milk, and the many other necessaries which the establishment does not supply. But though the regulations specify in distinct terms that the Master is to reside constantly upon the premises, he laughs at the enactments, and passes weeks or months together in the country. No fine—no punishment for him! Who would dare to talk of calling the Very Reverend Archdeacon Hale over the coals? But who does not hesitate to kick Poor Brother Gray, or Poor Brother Jones, or Poor Brother Scales from pillar to post, and from post to pillar, if he be caught tripping in the slightest degree?”
“Jist now, me frind,” exclaimed Captain O’Blunderbuss, looking particularly fierce, “ye assured me that ye hadn’t an inimy in the wor-r-ld: but it sames pritty clare to me that I must be afther punching the head of your Archdeacon—or manciple—or porter—or some one, jist to revinge your wrongs and create a little sinsation for the Poor Brothers, as ye call yourselves.”
“My dear fellow, do nothing mad or rash!” cried Mr. Scales, positively believing at the moment that the formidable Irishman was about to declare war against the authorities of the institution, and that he would experimentalise with his fists upon the first of those functionaries who might chance to come in his way. “All that I have been telling you is sacred between you and me;—and as a man of honour, I must appeal to you——”
“Be Jasus! and if it’s to me honour-r-r ye appale,” interrupted the captain, slapping his left breast with the palm of his right hand, “I’ll not brathe a wor-rd to a sowl that I’m acquainted with any gravances at all, at all. But, remember, if the time should come when ye may feel inclined to administher a thrilling dhrubbing or so to any of thim spalpeens of whom we’ve been talking——”
“Hush!” cried Mr. Scale?, suddenly: “some one is ascending the stairs. Let us pretend to be speaking on matters quite indifferent.”
“With all my heart!” said the captain: and, elevating his voice for the behoof of the person who was approaching the room from the stairs, he exclaimed, “Yes—’tis a very fine mornin’, Misther Scales—a very fine mornin’ indeed!”—just as if, in the natural course of things, he would have made, after a visit of nearly three hours, the remark with which a conversation is usually commenced.
Mr. Scales burst out laughing at this display of his new friend’s ingenuity; and the captain laughed heartily likewise—though he knew not precisely at what.