That very evening, it was thought wise that the members of the Starey family, who had come so kindly to our aid, should return to the bosom of their own affairs, at that pleasant place, Stoke Newington. My dear father was so widely known, and so loved and admired, by all the trade, that he received an exceedingly large funeral. My dear mother told me, how many high firms, nearly all of them wholesale, were represented; but I was pleased only because of her pleasure, or rather of the comfort she drew from it. Moreover, there were ancient friends who came, as well as still more of new date, and even some nephews of the name of Upmore, with warm recollections of their dear Uncle, and hopes of a mutual (though posthumous) remembrance. Some of these had a good claim to be fed, in the hunger and thirst of unavailing sorrow—for none of them was down for sixpence—and my mother, who had made a great effort to attend, naturally left Mrs. Starey, and her daughters, to offer consolation to these mourners. Among them, so deep a flow of sympathy was opened, that when Mr. Cope and myself came in, all the members of the Starey family, for our three had fetched the residue, were (as Mr. Cope said afterwards) totally unable stare. This made it incumbent upon us to send them home; and two cabs were ordered, with drivers of well-known integrity, who received the whole of them, and their goods, on condition of getting their money, as soon as their job was discharged conscientiously. Only they must get it from the people they took home, and not from those compelled to pack them off. Like all other sensible arrangements, this turned out to all reasonable satisfaction; though the Stareys made a fearful fuss about it, grieving to go away at all, and still more to do it at their own expense. They seemed to forget altogether, that when starvation stared them in the face, my father set them up in a small candleshop, and supplied them for three months, on full credit. But such is the way of the world; and what right have I to be finding fault with it, while yet I continue to belong to it?
When all this was over, and my mother gone to sleep, I opened the paper which she had given me; and with two of our own best candles lit, (for my father would never have gas in the house, to ruin our eyes and to disgrace our business) I read every word of it, sighing sometimes, and sometimes crying, to find how good he had been to me, who had paid him out so badly. And private as the matter was, the public, having taken such a kindly interest in me, might fairly call me ungrateful, if I shut them out of all of it. Neither could that be done, without a confusion arising between us. My dear father had clear ideas, as to his own will and way; and while he enjoyed himself much in the world, he carried on his work to suit. He had written a letter to me, to be read when he could no more talk to me; though he little thought, how soon that would be. After things which I need not enter into, he proceeded with these words, the whole being written in a plain round hand:
"You will see, my son, that I have worked hard, chiefly that you may do well. If anything happens to me of a sudden, as may be the case, after what I have gone through, your mother will be well provided for, as she has thoroughly deserved of me. Everything will be at her discretion; but I am sure that she will carry out whatever I wish concerning you. Cut no capers with my hard earnings; I think you have too much sense for that, and I have taken good care to prevent it. None of your high society nonsense, which is not fit for a tradesman's son; but a steady rise in the world, which is according to the laws of England. When the business has been well disposed of, after completion of all jobs in hand, according to the meaning of my will, you must go on with your school-learning, at the Oxford colleges, where your friend Bill Chumps has done so well. I have had a long talk with Mr. Cope, though I did not tell your mother of it, and he says that the money will not be thrown away; for it makes you anybody's equal, except among the nobility. You have quite as good a head piece as Bill Chumps, if you will stick to it, as he has done; and you will see that it pays as well to boil down animals, as to cut them up, when a man understands the business.
"When you have been through the Colleges, I intend to send you into Parliament, that you may flabergast the Radicals. These are now making so much bluster, and getting their own wicked way so fast, that unless a firm stand is made against them, no man's life will be his own, no more than his land or money will. Robbery is the beginning, and robbery is the end of it; and in the middle stands the man with the biggest pair of jaws; and laughs, as he pockets all their thievery. If this goes on, a man had better lie down on his back, and rant all day, than labour hard, and be robbed of it. You have heard me talk of this, my son; but we have only turned the first leaf yet; if Mr. Panclast gets the power he has set his stubborn heart on.
"Tommy, I am not a wise man, nor even to be called a clever one; but I am of a sort that is going by, and perhaps will be missed hereafter. That is to say, an Englishman, of common sense, and of fair play, and of tidy pride in his Country. All these are dragged in the dirt, by the people now getting upper hand of us; and what will come of it? They will drag themselves in the dirt, and their children; until our grandsons are ashamed to say—'I am an Englishman.'
"Now mind you this, my dear son, though you have little chance of doing it, fight you, tooth and nail, against the white-livered lot of Panclast. Who is he, by right of gab, and words no more English than himself, to upset the meaning of England, and the value of an Englishman? A change will come, among the changes he is always starting, when people will try to respect themselves; and finding it all too late for that, will turn against him, who has made it so. Then a very few men, without possessing any quality at all wonderful, except their love of their Country, may lay hold of the sense of our disgrace, and make it serve for common sense. Then good-bye to Mr. Panclast!
"Tommy, I wish that I might live, to see a son of mine bear share, in such an act of righteousness. But I hear your mother with the dinner ready, and I will go on about it, to-morrow."
* * * * *
The abruptness of this conclusion made me as sad almost as anything; although I do not see how my father, writing so much in prophetic vein, could have added anything of more precision, for my future guidance. I thoroughly understood his wishes, from the above brief sketch of them, and they agreed entirely with my own; so far at least as I had paid attention to such matters. Very few boys at school as yet, had made up their minds immutably,—as Sir Roland Twentifold had done already, and as every school-boy now does at once—what side in politics is the only right one, and how it may best be promoted.
As soon as we had the time, and spirit, to look round and think again, we could not help admiring, more and more, my father's wisdom. Not, by any manner of means, on account of the sum he had left for our benefit; though this turned out to be three times as much as my mother, in her most hopeful moments, had ever dreamed of finding it. It would be unnatural, if this had failed to increase her admiration; but she wished everybody to understand, that of that she thought nothing, in comparison with subjects so much higher. When coarse people said—"He has cut up grandly. My dear lady, I congratulate you, and your most interesting son, with all my heart;" she simply waved her hand, and said, "Sir, you can never have felt, as I do. Money is only an added trouble, when the guiding hand is gone, and gross exaggerations are made about it." And she felt most deeply the great injustice, and cruel hardship, of paying for probate a sum which made her weep again; because of the utter want of feeling, exhibited by the Revenue.