Mr. Bumble emerged at early morning from the workhouse-gate,and walked with portly carriage and commanding steps,up the High Street.He was in the full bloom and pride of beadlehood;his cocked hat and coat were dazzling in the morning sun;he clutched his cane with the vigorous tenacity of health and power.Mr. Bumble always carried his head high;but this morning it was higher than usual.There was an abstraction in his eye,an elevation in his air,which might have warned an observant stranger that thoughts were passing in the beadle’s mind, too great for utterance.
Mr. Bumble stopped not to converse with the small shopkeepers and others who spoke to him, deferentially, as he passed along. He merely returned their salutations with a wave of his hand, and relaxed not in his dignified pace, until he reached the farm where Mrs. Mann tended the infant paupers with parochial care.
“Drat that beadle!” said Mrs. Mann, hearing the well-known shaking at the garden-gate.“If it isn’t him at this time in the morning!Lauk, Mr. Bumble, only think of its being you!Well, dear me, it _is_ a pleasure, this is!Come into the parlour, sir, please.”
The first sentence was addressed to Susan;and the exclamations of delight were uttered to Mr.Bumble: as the good lady unlocked the garden-gate:and showed him, with great attention and respect, into the house.
“Mrs. Mann,” said Mr. Bumble; not sitting upon,or dropping himself into a seat,as any common jackanapes would:but letting himself gradually and slowly down into a chair;“Mrs. Mann, ma’am, good morning.”
“Well, and good morning to _you_, sir,” replied Mrs.Mann, with many smiles;“and hoping you find yourself well, sir!”
“So-so, Mrs. Mann,” replied the beadle.“A porochial life is not a bed of roses, Mrs. Mann.”
“Ah, that it isn’t indeed, Mr. Bumble,” rejoined the lady.And all the infant paupers might have chorussed the rejoinder with great propriety, if they had heard it.
“A porochial life, ma’am,” continued Mr. Bumble,striking the table with his cane, “is a life of worrit,and vexation, and hardihood; but all public characters,as I may say, must suffer prosecution.”
Mrs. Mann, not very well knowing what the beadle meant,raised her hands with a look of sympathy, and sighed.
“Ah!You may well sigh, Mrs. Mann!” said the beadle.
Finding she had done right, Mrs. Mann sighed again:evidently to the satisfaction of the public character:who, repressing a complacent smile by looking sternly at his cocked hat, said,
“Mrs. Mann, I am going to London.”
“Lauk, Mr. Bumble!” cried Mrs. Mann, starting back.
“To London, ma’am,” resumed the inflexible beadle,“by coach. I and two paupers, Mrs. Mann!A legal action is a coming on, about a settlement;and the board has appointed me—me, Mrs.Mann—to dispose to the matter before the quarter-sessions at Clerkinwell.And I very much question,” added Mr. Bumble,drawing himself up,“whether the Clerkinwell Sessions will not find themselves in the wrong box before they have done with me.”
“Oh!you mustn’t be too hard upon them, sir,” said Mrs. Mann, coaxingly.
“The Clerkinwell Sessions have brought it upon themselves,ma’am,” replied Mr. Bumble;“and if the Clerkinwell Sessions find that they come off rather worse than they expected, the Clerkinwell Sessions have only themselves to thank.”
There was so much determination and depth of purpose about the menacing manner in which Mr. Bumble delivered himself of these words, that Mrs. Mann appeared quite awed by them. At length she said,
“You’re going by coach, sir?I thought it was always usual to send them paupers in carts. ”
“That’s when they’re ill, Mrs. Mann,” said the beadle.“We put the sick paupers into open carts in the rainy weather,to prevent their taking cold.”
“Oh!” said Mrs. Mann.
“The opposition coach contracts for these two;and takes them cheap,” said Mr. Bumble.“They are both in a very low state,and we find it would come two pound cheaper to move ’em than to bury ’em—that is, if we can throw ’em upon another parish, which I think we shall be able to do, if they don’t die upon the road to spite us. Ha!ha!ha!”
When Mr. Bumble had laughed a little while,his eyes again encountered the cocked hat;and he became grave.
“We are forgetting business, ma’am,” said the beadle;“here is your porochial stipend for the month.”
Mr. Bumble produced some silver money rolled up in paper,from his pocket-book; and requested a receipt:which Mrs. Mann wrote.
“It’s very much blotted, sir,” said the farmer of infants; “but it’s formal enough,I dare say. Thank you, Mr. Bumble, sir,I am very much obliged to you, I’m sure.”
Mr. Bumble nodded, blandly, in acknowledgment of Mrs.Mann’s curtsey; and inquired how the children were.
“Bless their dear little hearts!” said Mrs. Mann with emotion,“they’re as well as can be, the dears!Of course, except the two that died last week. And little Dick.”
“Isn’t that boy no better?” inquired Mr. Bumble.
Mrs. Mann shook her head.
“He’s a ill-conditioned, wicious,bad-disposed porochial child that,” said Mr.Bumble angrily. “Where is he?”
“I’ll bring him to you in one minute, sir,” replied Mrs.Mann. “Here, you Dick!”
After some calling, Dick was discovered.Having had his face put under the pump,and dried upon Mrs. Mann’s gown,he was led into the awful presence of Mr. Bumble, the beadle.
The child was pale and thin; his cheeks were sunken;and his eyes large and bright. The scanty parish dress,the livery of his misery,hung loosely on his feeble body;and his young limbs had wasted away,like those of an old man.
Such was the little being who stood trembling beneath Mr.Bumble’s glance; not daring to lift his eyes from the floor;and dreading even to hear the beadle’s voice.
“Can’t you look at the gentleman, you obstinate boy?” said Mrs. Mann.
The child meekly raised his eyes,and encountered those of Mr. Bumble.
“What’s the matter with you, porochial Dick?” inquired Mr. Bumble, with well-timed jocularity.
“Nothing, sir,” replied the child faintly.
“I should think not,” said Mrs. Mann,who had of course laughed very much at Mr. Bumble’s humour.
“You want for nothing, I’m sure.”
“I should like—” faltered the child.
“Hey-day!” interposed Mrs. Mann,“I suppose you’re going to say that you _do_ want for something, now?Why, you little wretch—”
“Stop, Mrs. Mann, stop!” said the beadle, raising his hand with a show of authority.“Like what, sir, eh?”
“I should like,” faltered the child,“if somebody that can write,would put a few words down for me on a piece of paper,and fold it up and seal it, and keep it for me,after I am laid in the ground.”