Likely enough, there are people who would be glad to make light of this victory; as they do with all those we always lose, while blowing up the trumpet in the very new moon, if ever we cannot help winning one. But Jack, and I, took a natural view of the facts we ourselves had created. Science had bitten the dust before the powers of ancient literature, though the latter had struggled at fearful odds; and seven of the boys, who had seen it, persuaded their parents to take them from the Gorgon, and apprentice them again to the gentle Muse, who only strikes in self-defence. And as soon as my father and mother heard it—by reason of my bruises, one of which required raw beefsteak,—they were for ever confirmed in their perception of their own wisdom.
But alas! I scarcely know how to tell the next event in my sad career. Gladly would I leave it all untold, save by mine enemies; if the latter would only tell it truly, or leave it untold falsely. But this it is hopeless to expect. There is a certain rancour in all persons of loose politics; wherewith—to put it liberally—nature, abhorring a vacuum, has stopped the vast gap of their principles. And this pervasive bitterness, when not obtaining vent enough, as it fairly might do upon one another, sometimes sets them raking up the private life, and domestic history, of those who are not like themselves.
It has been related, some way back, that the great authorities of our parish, having been urged by fussy people—most of whom paid no rates at all—to abate, what they were pleased to call, the nuisance of our wholesome smell, had arrived at last at a resolution, to cure the air of our chimney-tops, by carrying a big culvert through the valley, a hundred yards below. How this was to effect that purpose, none of us clearly understood; but as it would not come near our works, yet saved them from being grumbled at, we accepted the conviction of the public, that it must prove a perfect cure. And reasoning by analogy, we expected no stroke to be struck, for a score of happy years yet to come.
But Joe Cowl, that same chimney-sweep who had tried to summon father, told all his friends, till he quite believed, that he never had been the same man, since the time my father syringed him. If this had been true, how much it would have been to his benefit, and his neighbours'! But being scant of introspection, he positively made a grievance of it! He contrived to push himself on the Committee appointed by the Vestry, for the drainage of Maiden valley, for no other reason in the world, than that he hoped to pester us, by carrying out that noisome scheme. As everybody said, there was no reason for such hurry; the valley had been a valley for more thousands of years than we could count, without wanting a bodkin put along it. In wet weather it drained itself; and in dry weather what was there to drain? The Lord had made it, as seemed Him best; and could any ratepayer improve His works?
Nevertheless, by stirring up, and rushing about with his best clothes on, and grouting (like a pig, with his ring come out) and writing, every other day, to every paper that would print his stuff, Chimney-sweep Cowl robbed all the parish of the pleasure of considering the next thing to be done. For he made them actually begin this job, at very little more than three years from the time of their voting it urgent, and not very much over two years from the time they raised the cash for it. But we let him see, when it was begun, that we were rather pleased than otherwise; and father went down and told Cowl himself, with as pleasant a smile as need be seen, that he would lend them a spare wheel-barrow, if they would put new gudgeons in; and as a large ratepayer of St. Pancras, he would try to keep them to their work. And it is a sad thing now to think of, that if he had been a bad-tempered man, and shunned them altogether, he might have been alive, while I write this.
Perhaps no man in London, except the Reverend St. Simon Cope, worked harder now than my father did. Not from any narrow-minded hankering after bullion; nor the common doom of our species, to find its final cause, as well as case, in specie; but from the stern resolution of a man, to turn out a good article, at a good figure, and to keep his own finger, and no others, in his pie. Mr. John Windsor had been trying very hard, to dip his own ladle into our warm vats; but while father valued him most highly as a friend, and would eagerly have done anything whatever, that lay in his power, to help him; he found it lie more and more beyond his power, to let him come into his yard just now. Plump and portly as Mr. Windsor was, and equally blunt at either end, my father kept calling him—as soon as he was gone—the thin end of the wedge, and telling dear mother to be very careful, not to say a word to let him in. This was exactly in accordance with my mother's own view of the case; and she said, that she first had insisted upon it, and that if Mrs. Windsor came sounding her for ever—as she did, even on a Sunday—it would take her a long time to discover any hollow place in her presence of mind. For she always answered.
"Oh, my dear, what do I care for odious business? You know, how much sooner you would hear me talk, about delightful Happystowe, and the sun coming over the sea, and the shrimps, and the shameful proceedings of the bathing females—for I never can call them ladies—and that dear good Lady Towers-Twentifold, who longed so extremely to make my acquaintance; and has written once more, for my Tommy to go down, and spend the holidays with his old friend, Sir Roland, at Twentifold Towers. What a pity it is, that we live so far asunder!"
"But don't you think, dear," Mrs. Windsor asked demurely, "that when the wind was blowing towards the windows of the Tower, her ladyship might object a little to the—the flavour of Mr. Upmore's operations?"