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The Seven Poor Travellers.................................................................................................................................1

Charles Dickens.......................................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER IIN THE OLD CITY OF ROCHESTER.........................................................................1

CHAPTER IITHE STORY OF RICHARD DOUBLEDICK.............................................................6

CHAPTER IIITHE ROAD ................................................................................................................15

Strictly speaking, there were only six Poor Travellers; but, being a Traveller myself, though an idle one, and

being withal as poor as I hope to be, I brought the number up to seven. This word of explanation is due at

It was in the ancient little city of Rochester in Kent, of all the good days in the year upon a Christmaseve,

that I stood reading this inscription over the quaint old door in question. I had been wandering about the

neighbouring Cathedral, and had seen the tomb of Richard Watts, with the effigy of worthy Master Richard

starting out of it like a ship's figurehead; and I had felt that I could do no less, as I gave the Verger his fee,

than inquire the way to Watts's Charity. The way being very short and very plain, I had come prosperously to

"Now," said I to myself, as I looked at the knocker, "I know I am not a Proctor; I wonder whether I am a

Upon the whole, though Conscience reproduced two or three pretty faces which might have had smaller

attraction for a moral Goliath than they had had for me, who am but a Tom Thumb in that way, I came to the

conclusion that I was not a Rogue. So, beginning to regard the establishment as in some sort my property,

bequeathed to me and divers colegatees, share and share alike, by the Worshipful Master Richard Watts, I

I found it to be a clean white house, of a staid and venerable air, with the quaint old door already three times

mentioned (an arched door), choice little long low latticewindows, and a roof of three gables. The silent

High Street of Rochester is full of gables, with old beams and timbers carved into strange faces. It is oddly

garnished with a queer old clock that projects over the pavement out of a grave redbrick building, as if Time

carried on business there, and hung out his sign. Sooth to say, he did an active stroke of work in Rochester, in

the old days of the Romans, and the Saxons, and the Normans; and down to the times of King John, when the

rugged castleI will not undertake to say how many hundreds of years old thenwas abandoned to the

centuries of weather which have so defaced the dark apertures in its walls, that the ruin looks as if the rooks

I was very well pleased, both with my property and its situation. While I was yet surveying it with growing

content, I espied, at one of the upper lattices which stood open, a decent body, of a wholesome matronly

appearance, whose eyes I caught inquiringly addressed to mine. They said so plainly, "Do you wish to see the

house?" that I answered aloud, "Yes, if you please." And within a minute the old door opened, and I bent my

"This," said the matronly presence, ushering me into a low room on the right, "is where the Travellers sit by

"O! Then they have no Entertainment?" said I. For the inscription over the outer door was still running in my

head, and I was mentally repeating, in a kind of tune, "Lodging, entertainment, and fourpence each."

"They have a fire provided for 'em," returned the matrona mighty civil person, not, as I could make out,

overpaid; "and these cooking utensils. And this what's painted on a board is the rules for their behaviour.

They have their fourpences when they get their tickets from the steward over the way,for I don't admit 'em

myself, they must get their tickets first,and sometimes one buys a rasher of bacon, and another a herring,

and another a pound of potatoes, or what not. Sometimes two or three of 'em will club their fourpences

together, and make a supper that way. But not much of anything is to be got for fourpence, at present, when

"True indeed," I remarked. I had been looking about the room, admiring its snug fireside at the upper end, its

glimpse of the street through the low mullioned window, and its beams overhead. "It is very comfortable,"

I liked to hear her say so; for it showed a commendable anxiety to execute in no niggardly spirit the

intentions of Master Richard Watts. But the room was really so well adapted to its purpose that I protested,

"Nay, ma'am," said I, "I am sure it is warm in winter and cool in summer. It has a look of homely welcome

and soothing rest. It has a remarkably cosey fireside, the very blink of which, gleaming out into the street

upon a winter night, is enough to warm all Rochester's heart. And as to the convenience of the six Poor

"I don't mean them," returned the presence. "I speak of its being an illconwenience to myself and my

This was true enough, but there was another quaint room of corresponding dimensions on the opposite side of

the entry: so I stepped across to it, through the open doors of both rooms, and asked what this chamber was

"This," returned the presence, "is the Board Room. Where the gentlemen meet when they come here."

Let me see. I had counted from the street six upper windows besides these on the groundstory. Making a

perplexed calculation in my mind, I rejoined, "Then the six Poor Travellers sleep upstairs?"

My new friend shook her head. "They sleep," she answered, "in two little outer galleries at the back, where

their beds has always been, ever since the Charity was founded. It being so very ill conwenient to me as

things is at present, the gentlemen are going to take off a bit of the backyard, and make a slip of a room for

"And then the six Poor Travellers," said I, "will be entirely out of the house?"

"Entirely out of the house," assented the presence, comfortably smoothing her hands. "Which is considered

I had been a little startled, in the Cathedral, by the emphasis with which the effigy of Master Richard Watts

was bursting out of his tomb; but I began to think, now, that it might be expected to come across the High

Howbeit, I kept my thoughts to myself, and accompanied the presence to the little galleries at the back. I

found them on a tiny scale, like the galleries in old innyards; and they were very clean.

While I was looking at them, the matron gave me to understand that the prescribed number of Poor Travellers

were forthcoming every night from year's end to year's end; and that the beds were always occupied. My

questions upon this, and her replies, brought us back to the Board Room so essential to the dignity of "the

gentlemen," where she showed me the printed accounts of the Charity hanging up by the window. From them

I gathered that the greater part of the property bequeathed by the Worshipful Master Richard Watts for the

maintenance of this foundation was, at the period of his death, mere marshland; but that, in course of time, it

had been reclaimed and built upon, and was very considerably increased in value. I found, too, that about a

thirtieth part of the annual revenue was now expended on the purposes commemorated in the inscription over

the door; the rest being handsomely laid out in Chancery, law expenses, collectorship, receivership,

poundage, and other appendages of management, highly complimentary to the importance of the six Poor

Travellers. In short, I made the not entirely new discovery that it may be said of an establishment like this, in

dear old England, as of the fat oyster in the American story, that it takes a good many men to swallow it

"And pray, ma'am," said I, sensible that the blankness of my face began to brighten as the thought occurred to

"Well!" she returned more positively, "no. Nobody ever asked to see them, and nobody ever did see them."

As I am not easily balked in a design when I am set upon it, I urged to the good lady that this was

Christmaseve; that Christmas comes but once a year,which is unhappily too true, for when it begins to

stay with us the whole year round we shall make this earth a very different place; that I was possessed by the

desire to treat the Travellers to a supper and a temperate glass of hot Wassail; that the voice of Fame had been

heard in that land, declaring my ability to make hot Wassail; that if I were permitted to hold the feast, I

should be found conformable to reason, sobriety, and good hours; in a word, that I could be merry and wise

myself, and had been even known at a pinch to keep others so, although I was decorated with no badge or

medal, and was not a Brother, Orator, Apostle, Saint, or Prophet of any denomination whatever. In the end I

prevailed, to my great joy. It was settled that at nine o'clock that night a Turkey and a piece of Roast Beef

should smoke upon the board; and that I, faint and unworthy minister for once of Master Richard Watts,

I went back to my inn to give the necessary directions for the Turkey and Roast Beef, and, during the

remainder of the day, could settle to nothing for thinking of the Poor Travellers. When the wind blew hard

against the windows,it was a cold day, with dark gusts of sleet alternating with periods of wild brightness,

as if the year were dying fitfully,I pictured them advancing towards their restingplace along various cold

roads, and felt delighted to think how little they foresaw the supper that awaited them. I painted their portraits

in my mind, and indulged in little heightening touches. I made them footsore; I made them weary; I made

them carry packs and bundles; I made them stop by fingerposts and milestones, leaning on their bent sticks,

and looking wistfully at what was written there; I made them lose their way; and filled their five wits with

apprehensions of lying out all night, and being frozen to death. I took up my hat, and went out, climbed to the

top of the Old Castle, and looked over the windy hills that slope down to the Medway, almost believing that I

could descry some of my Travellers in the distance. After it fell dark, and the Cathedral bell was heard in the

invisible steeplequite a bower of frosty rime when I had last seen itstriking five, six, seven, I became so

full of my Travellers that I could eat no dinner, and felt constrained to watch them still in the red coals of my

fire. They were all arrived by this time, I thought, had got their tickets, and were gone in.There my

pleasure was dashed by the reflection that probably some Travellers had come too late and were shut out.

After the Cathedral bell had struck eight, I could smell a delicious savour of Turkey and Roast Beef rising to

the window of my adjoining bedroom, which looked down into the innyard just where the lights of the

kitchen reddened a massive fragment of the Castle Wall. It was high time to make the Wassail now; therefore

I had up the materials (which, together with their proportions and combinations, I must decline to impart, as

the only secret of my own I was ever known to keep), and made a glorious jorum. Not in a bowl; for a bowl

anywhere but on a shelf is a low superstition, fraught with cooling and slopping; but in a brown earthenware

pitcher, tenderly suffocated, when full, with a coarse cloth. It being now upon the stroke of nine, I set out for

Watts's Charity, carrying my brown beauty in my arms. I would trust Ben, the waiter, with untold gold; but

there are strings in the human heart which must never be sounded by another, and drinks that I make myself

The Travellers were all assembled, the cloth was laid, and Ben had brought a great billet of wood, and had

laid it artfully on the top of the fire, so that a touch or two of the poker after supper should make a roaring

blaze. Having deposited my brown beauty in a red nook of the hearth, inside the fender, where she soon

began to sing like an ethereal cricket, diffusing at the same time odours as of ripe vineyards, spice forests,

and orange groves,I say, having stationed my beauty in a place of security and improvement, I introduced

myself to my guests by shaking hands all round, and giving them a hearty welcome.

I found the party to be thus composed. Firstly, myself. Secondly, a very decent man indeed, with his right

arm in a sling, who had a certain clean agreeable smell of wood about him, from which I judged him to have

something to do with shipbuilding. Thirdly, a little sailorboy, a mere child, with a profusion of rich dark

brown hair, and deep womanlylooking eyes. Fourthly, a shabbygenteel personage in a threadbare black

suit, and apparently in very bad circumstances, with a dry suspicious look; the absent buttons on his waistcoat

eked out with red tape; and a bundle of extraordinarily tattered papers sticking out of an inner breastpocket.

Fifthly, a foreigner by birth, but an Englishman in speech, who carried his pipe in the band of his hat, and lost

no time in telling me, in an easy, simple, engaging way, that he was a watchmaker from Geneva, and

travelled all about the Continent, mostly on foot, working as a journeyman, and seeing new

countries,possibly (I thought) also smuggling a watch or so, now and then. Sixthly, a little widow, who had

been very pretty and was still very young, but whose beauty had been wrecked in some great misfortune, and

whose manner was remarkably timid, scared, and solitary. Seventhly and lastly, a Traveller of a kind familiar

to my boyhood, but now almost obsolete,a BookPedler, who had a quantity of Pamphlets and Numbers

with him, and who presently boasted that he could repeat more verses in an evening than he could sell in a

All these I have mentioned in the order in which they sat at table. I presided, and the matronly presence faced

me. We were not long in taking our places, for the supper had arrived with me, in the following procession:

Myself with the pitcher. Ben with Beer. Inattentive Boy with hot plates. Inattentive Boy with hot plates. THE

TURKEY. Female carrying sauces to be heated on the spot. THE BEEF. Man with Tray on his head,

containing Vegetables and Sundries. Volunteer Hostler from Hotel, grinning, And rendering no assistance.

As we passed along the High Street, cometlike, we left a long tail of fragrance behind us which caused the

public to stop, sniffing in wonder. We had previously left at the corner of the innyard a walleyed young

man connected with the Fly department, and well accustomed to the sound of a railway whistle which Ben

always carries in his pocket, whose instructions were, so soon as he should hear the whistle blown, to dash

into the kitchen, seize the hot plumpudding and mincepies, and speed with them to Watts's Charity, where

they would be received (he was further instructed) by the saucefemale, who would be provided with brandy

All these arrangements were executed in the most exact and punctual manner. I never saw a finer turkey,

finer beef, or greater prodigality of sauce and gravy;and my Travellers did wonderful justice to everything

set before them. It made my heart rejoice to observe how their wind and frost hardened faces softened in the

clatter of plates and knives and forks, and mellowed in the fire and supper heat. While their hats and caps and

wrappers, hanging up, a few small bundles on the ground in a corner, and in another corner three or four old

walkingsticks, worn down at the end to mere fringe, linked this smug interior with the bleak outside in a

When supper was done, and my brown beauty had been elevated on the table, there was a general requisition

to me to "take the corner;" which suggested to me comfortably enough how much my friends here made of a

fire,for when had I ever thought so highly of the corner, since the days when I connected it with Jack

Horner? However, as I declined, Ben, whose touch on all convivial instruments is perfect, drew the table

apart, and instructing my Travellers to open right and left on either side of me, and form round the fire, closed

up the centre with myself and my chair, and preserved the order we had kept at table. He had already, in a

tranquil manner, boxed the ears of the inattentive boys until they had been by imperceptible degrees boxed

out of the room; and he now rapidly skirmished the saucefemale into the High Street, disappeared, and

This was the time for bringing the poker to bear on the billet of wood. I tapped it three times, like an

enchanted talisman, and a brilliant host of merrymakers burst out of it, and sported off by the

chimney,rushing up the middle in a fiery country dance, and never coming down again. Meanwhile, by

their sparkling light, which threw our lamp into the shade, I filled the glasses, and gave my Travellers,

CHRISTMAS!CHRISTMASEVE, my friends, when the shepherds, who were Poor Travellers, too, in

I don't know who was the first among us to think that we ought to take hands as we sat, in deference to the

toast, or whether any one of us anticipated the others, but at any rate we all did it. We then drank to the

memory of the good Master Richard Watts. And I wish his Ghost may never have had worse usage under that

It was the witching time for Storytelling. "Our whole life, Travellers," said I, "is a story more or less

intelligible, generally less; but we shall read it by a clearer light when it is ended. I, for one, am so divided

this night between fact and fiction, that I scarce know which is which. Shall I beguile the time by telling you

They all answered, yes. I had little to tell them, but I was bound by my own proposal. Therefore, after looking

for awhile at the spiral column of smoke wreathing up from my brown beauty, through which I could have

almost sworn I saw the effigy of Master Richard Watts less startled than usual, I fired away.

In the year one thousand seven hundred and ninetynine, a relative of mine came limping down, on foot, to

this town of Chatham. I call it this town, because if anybody present knows to a nicety where Rochester ends

and Chatham begins, it is more than I do. He was a poor traveller, with not a farthing in his pocket. He sat by

the fire in this very room, and he slept one night in a bed that will be occupied tonight by some one here.

My relative came down to Chatham to enlist in a cavalry regiment, if a cavalry regiment would have him; if

not, to take King George's shilling from any corporal or sergeant who would put a bunch of ribbons in his hat.

His object was to get shot; but he thought he might as well ride to death as be at the trouble of walking.

My relative's Christian name was Richard, but he was better known as Dick. He dropped his own surname on

the road down, and took up that of Doubledick. He was passed as Richard Doubledick; age, twenty two;

height, five foot ten; native place, Exmouth, which he had never been near in his life. There was no cavalry in

Chatham when he limped over the bridge here with half a shoe to his dusty feet, so he enlisted into a regiment

You are to know that this relative of mine had gone wrong, and run wild. His heart was in the right place, but

it was sealed up. He had been betrothed to a good and beautiful girl, whom he had loved better than sheor

perhaps even hebelieved; but in an evil hour he had given her cause to say to him solemnly, "Richard, I

will never marry another man. I will live single for your sake, but Mary Marshall's lips"her name was

Mary Marshall"never address another word to you on earth. Go, Richard! Heaven forgive you!" This

finished him. This brought him down to Chatham. This made him Private Richard Doubledick, with a

There was not a more dissipated and reckless soldier in Chatham barracks, in the year one thousand seven

hundred and ninetynine, than Private Richard Doubledick. He associated with the dregs of every regiment;

he was as seldom sober as he could be, and was constantly under punishment. It became clear to the whole

Now the Captain of Richard Doubledick's company was a young gentleman not above five years his senior,

whose eyes had an expression in them which affected Private Richard Doubledick in a very remarkable way.

They were bright, handsome, dark eyes,what are called laughing eyes generally, and, when serious, rather

steady than severe,but they were the only eyes now left in his narrowed world that Private Richard

Doubledick could not stand. Unabashed by evil report and punishment, defiant of everything else and

everybody else, he had but to know that those eyes looked at him for a moment, and he felt ashamed. He

could not so much as salute Captain Taunton in the street like any other officer. He was reproached and

confused,troubled by the mere possibility of the captain's looking at him. In his worst moments, he would

rather turn back, and go any distance out of his way, than encounter those two handsome, dark, bright eyes.

One day, when Private Richard Doubledick came out of the Black hole, where he had been passing the last

eightandforty hours, and in which retreat he spent a good deal of his time, he was ordered to betake

himself to Captain Taunton's quarters. In the stale and squalid state of a man just out of the Black hole, he

had less fancy than ever for being seen by the captain; but he was not so mad yet as to disobey orders, and

consequently went up to the terrace overlooking the paradeground, where the officers' quarters were;

twisting and breaking in his hands, as he went along, a bit of the straw that had formed the decorative

"Come in!" cried the Captain, when he had knocked with his knuckles at the door. Private Richard

Doubledick pulled off his cap, took a stride forward, and felt very conscious that he stood in the light of the

There was a silent pause. Private Richard Doubledick had put the straw in his mouth, and was gradually

Private Richard Doubledick turned the straw of the Black hole in his month, and made a miserable salute of

"Doubledick," said the Captain, "since I entered his Majesty's service, a boy of seventeen, I have been pained

to see many men of promise going that road; but I have never been so pained to see a man make the shameful

Private Richard Doubledick began to find a film stealing over the floor at which he looked; also to find the

legs of the Captain's breakfasttable turning crooked, as if he saw them through water.

"I am only a common soldier, sir," said he. "It signifies very little what such a poor brute comes to."

"You are a man," returned the Captain, with grave indignation, "of education and superior advantages; and if

you say that, meaning what you say, you have sunk lower than I had believed. How low that must be, I leave

"I hope to get shot soon, sir," said Private Richard Doubledick; "and then the regiment and the world together

The legs of the table were becoming very crooked. Doubledick, looking up to steady his vision, met the eyes

that had so strong an influence over him. He put his hand before his own eyes, and the breast of his

"I would rather," said the young Captain, "see this in you, Doubledick, than I would see five thousand

guineas counted out upon this table for a gift to my good mother. Have you a mother?"

"If your praises," returned the Captain, "were sounded from mouth to mouth through the whole regiment,

through the whole army, through the whole country, you would wish she had lived to say, with pride and joy,

"Spare me, sir," said Doubledick. "She would never have heard any good of me. She would never have had

any pride and joy in owning herself my mother. Love and compassion she might have had, and would have

always had, I know but notSpare me, sir! I am a broken wretch, quite at your mercy!" And he turned his

"You are at the crisis of your fate. Hold your course unchanged a little longer, and you know what must

happen. I know even better than you can imagine, that, after that has happened, you are lost. No man who

"I fully believe it, sir," in a low, shivering voice said Private Richard Doubledick.

"But a man in any station can do his duty," said the young Captain, "and, in doing it, can earn his own

respect, even if his case should be so very unfortunate and so very rare that he can earn no other man's. A

common soldier, poor brute though you called him just now, has this advantage in the stormy times we live

in, that he always does his duty before a host of sympathising witnesses. Do you doubt that he may so do it as

to be extolled through a whole regiment, through a whole army, through a whole country? Turn while you

"I will! I ask for only one witness, sir," cried Richard, with a bursting heart.

I have heard from Private Richard Doubledick's own lips, that he dropped down upon his knee, kissed that

officer's hand, arose, and went out of the light of the dark, bright eyes, an altered man.

In that year, one thousand seven hundred and ninetynine, the French were in Egypt, in Italy, in Germany,

where not? Napoleon Bonaparte had likewise begun to stir against us in India, and most men could read the

signs of the great troubles that were coming on. In the very next year, when we formed an alliance with

Austria against him, Captain Taunton's regiment was on service in India. And there was not a finer

noncommissioned officer in it,no, nor in the whole linethan Corporal Richard Doubledick.

In eighteen hundred and one, the Indian army were on the coast of Egypt. Next year was the year of the

proclamation of the short peace, and they were recalled. It had then become well known to thousands of men,

that wherever Captain Taunton, with the dark, bright eyes, led, there, close to him, ever at his side, firm as a

rock, true as the sun, and brave as Mars, would be certain to be found, while life beat in their hearts, that

Eighteen hundred and five, besides being the great year of Trafalgar, was a year of hard fighting in India.

That year saw such wonders done by a SergeantMajor, who cut his way singlehanded through a solid mass

of men, recovered the colours of his regiment, which had been seized from the hand of a poor boy shot

through the heart, and rescued his wounded Captain, who was down, and in a very jungle of horses' hoofs and

sabres,saw such wonders done, I say, by this brave SergeantMajor, that he was specially made the bearer

of the colours he had won; and Ensign Richard Doubledick had risen from the ranks.

Sorely cut up in every battle, but always reinforced by the bravest of men,for the fame of following the old

colours, shot through and through, which Ensign Richard Doubledick had saved, inspired all breasts,this

regiment fought its way through the Peninsular war, up to the investment of Badajos in eighteen hundred and

twelve. Again and again it had been cheered through the British ranks until the tears had sprung into men's

eyes at the mere hearing of the mighty British voice, so exultant in their valour; and there was not a

drummerboy but knew the legend, that wherever the two friends, Major Taunton, with the dark, bright eyes,

and Ensign Richard Doubledick, who was devoted to him, were seen to go, there the boldest spirits in the

One day, at Badajos,not in the great storming, but in repelling a hot sally of the besieged upon our men at

work in the trenches, who had given way,the two officers found themselves hurrying forward, face to face,

against a party of French infantry, who made a stand. There was an officer at their head, encouraging his

men,a courageous, handsome, gallant officer of fiveandthirty, whom Doubledick saw hurriedly, almost

momentarily, but saw well. He particularly noticed this officer waving his sword, and rallying his men with

an eager and excited cry, when they fired in obedience to his gesture, and Major Taunton dropped.

It was over in ten minutes more, and Doubledick returned to the spot where he had laid the best friend man

ever had on a coat spread upon the wet clay. Major Taunton's uniform was opened at the breast, and on his

"For the love of Heaven, no!" exclaimed the other, kneeling down beside him, and passing his arm round his

neck to raise his head. "Taunton! My preserver, my guardian angel, my witness! Dearest, truest, kindest of

The bright, dark eyesso very, very dark now, in the pale face smiled upon him; and the hand he had

"Write to my mother. You will see Home again. Tell her how we became friends. It will comfort her, as it

He spoke no more, but faintly signed for a moment towards his hair as it fluttered in the wind. The Ensign

understood him. He smiled again when he saw that, and, gently turning his face over on the supporting arm as

if for rest, died, with his hand upon the breast in which he had revived a soul.

No dry eye looked on Ensign Richard Doubledick that melancholy day. He buried his friend on the field, and

became a lone, bereaved man. Beyond his duty he appeared to have but two remaining cares in life,one, to

preserve the little packet of hair he was to give to Taunton's mother; the other, to encounter that French

officer who had rallied the men under whose fire Taunton fell. A new legend now began to circulate among

our troops; and it was, that when he and the French officer came face to face once more, there would be

The war went onand through it went the exact picture of the French officer on the one side, and the bodily

reality upon the other until the Battle of Toulouse was fought. In the returns sent home appeared these

At Midsummertime, in the year eighteen hundred and fourteen, Lieutenant Richard Doubledick, now a

browned soldier, sevenand thirty years of age, came home to England invalided. He brought the hair with

him, near his heart. Many a French officer had he seen since that day; many a dreadful night, in searching

with men and lanterns for his wounded, had he relieved French officers lying disabled; but the mental picture

Though he was weak and suffered pain, he lost not an hour in getting down to Frome in Somersetshire, where

Taunton's mother lived. In the sweet, compassionate words that naturally present themselves to the mind

It was a Sunday evening, and the lady sat at her quiet garden window, reading the Bible; reading to herself,

in a trembling voice, that very passage in it, as I have heard him tell. He heard the words: "Young man, I say

He had to pass the window; and the bright, dark eyes of his debased time seemed to look at him. Her heart

"He saved me from ruin, made me a human creature, won me from infamy and shame. O, God for ever bless

"He will!" the lady answered. "I know he is in heaven!" Then she piteously cried, "But O, my darling boy,

Never from the hour when Private Richard Doubledick enlisted at Chatham had the Private, Corporal,

Sergeant, SergeantMajor, Ensign, or Lieutenant breathed his right name, or the name of Mary Marshall, or a

word of the story of his life, into any ear except his reclaimer's. That previous scene in his existence was

closed. He had firmly resolved that his expiation should be to live unknown; to disturb no more the peace that

had long grown over his old offences; to let it be revealed, when he was dead, that he had striven and

suffered, and had never forgotten; and then, if they could forgive him and believe himwell, it would be

But that night, remembering the words he had cherished for two years, "Tell her how we became friends. It

will comfort her, as it comforts me," he related everything. It gradually seemed to him as if in his maturity he

had recovered a mother; it gradually seemed to her as if in her bereavement she had found a son. During his

stay in England, the quiet garden into which he had slowly and painfully crept, a stranger, became the

boundary of his home; when he was able to rejoin his regiment in the spring, he left the garden, thinking was

this indeed the first time he had ever turned his face towards the old colours with a woman's blessing!

He followed themso ragged, so scarred and pierced now, that they would scarcely hold togetherto

Quatre Bras and Ligny. He stood beside them, in an awful stillness of many men, shadowy through the mist

and drizzle of a wet June forenoon, on the field of Waterloo. And down to that hour the picture in his mind of

The famous regiment was in action early in the battle, and received its first check in many an eventful year,

when he was seen to fall. But it swept on to avenge him, and left behind it no such creature in the world of

Through pits of mire, and pools of rain; along deep ditches, once roads, that were pounded and ploughed to

pieces by artillery, heavy waggons, tramp of men and horses, and the struggle of every wheeled thing that

could carry wounded soldiers; jolted among the dying and the dead, so disfigured by blood and mud as to be

hardly recognisable for humanity; undisturbed by the moaning of men and the shrieking of horses, which,

newly taken from the peaceful pursuits of life, could not endure the sight of the stragglers lying by the

wayside, never to resume their toilsome journey; dead, as to any sentient life that was in it, and yet

alive,the form that had been Lieutenant Richard Doubledick, with whose praises England rang, was

conveyed to Brussels. There it was tenderly laid down in hospital; and there it lay, week after week, through

the long bright summer days, until the harvest, spared by war, had ripened and was gathered in.

Over and over again the sun rose and set upon the crowded city; over and over again the moonlight nights

were quiet on the plains of Waterloo: and all that time was a blank to what had been Lieutenant Richard

Doubledick. Rejoicing troops marched into Brussels, and marched out; brothers and fathers, sisters, mothers,

and wives, came thronging thither, drew their lots of joy or agony, and departed; so many times a day the

bells rang; so many times the shadows of the great buildings changed; so many lights sprang up at dusk; so

many feet passed here and there upon the pavements; so many hours of sleep and cooler air of night

succeeded: indifferent to all, a marble face lay on a bed, like the face of a recumbent statue on the tomb of

Slowly labouring, at last, through a long heavy dream of confused time and place, presenting faint glimpses

of army surgeons whom he knew, and of faces that had been familiar to his youth,dearest and kindest

among them, Mary Marshall's, with a solicitude upon it more like reality than anything he could

discern,Lieutenant Richard Doubledick came back to life. To the beautiful life of a calm autumn evening

sunset, to the peaceful life of a fresh quiet room with a large window standing open; a balcony beyond, in

which were moving leaves and sweetsmelling flowers; beyond, again, the clear sky, with the sun full in his

It was so tranquil and so lovely that he thought he had passed into another world. And he said in a faint voice,

"I came to nurse you. We have nursed you many weeks. You were moved here long ago. Do you remember

"Where is the regiment? What has happened? Let me call you mother. What has happened, mother?"

"A great victory, dear. The war is over, and the regiment was the bravest in the field."

His eyes kindled, his lips trembled, he sobbed, and the tears ran down his face. He was very weak, too weak

"It was only dark to me? Something passed away, like a black shadow. But as it went, and the sunO the

blessed sun, how beautiful it is!touched my face, I thought I saw a light white cloud pass out at the door.

She shook her head, and in a little while he fell asleep, she still holding his hand, and soothing him.

From that time, he recovered. Slowly, for he had been desperately wounded in the head, and had been shot in

the body, but making some little advance every day. When he had gained sufficient strength to converse as he

lay in bed, he soon began to remark that Mrs. Taunton always brought him back to his own history. Then he

One day he awoke out of a sleep, refreshed, and asked her to read to him. But the curtain of the bed, softening

the light, which she always drew back when he awoke, that she might see him from her table at the bedside

where she sat at work, was held undrawn; and a woman's voice spoke, which was not hers.

"Can you bear to see a stranger?" it said softly. "Will you like to see a stranger?"

"Stranger!" he repeated. The voice awoke old memories, before the days of Private Richard Doubledick.

"A stranger now, but not a stranger once," it said in tones that thrilled him. "Richard, dear Richard, lost

He cried out her name, "Mary," and she held him in her arms, and his head lay on her bosom.

"I am not breaking a rash vow, Richard. These are not Mary Marshall's lips that speak. I have another name."

He looked into her face, so pensively beautiful, and wondered at the smile upon it through her tears.

"Don't move your head to look at me, dear Richard. Let it lie here, while I tell my story. I loved a generous,

noble man; loved him with my whole heart; loved him for years and years; loved him faithfully, devotedly;

loved him without hope of return; loved him, knowing nothing of his highest qualitiesnot even knowing

that he was alive. He was a brave soldier. He was honoured and beloved by thousands of thousands, when the

mother of his dear friend found me, and showed me that in all his triumphs he had never forgotten me. He

was wounded in a great battle. He was brought, dying, here, into Brussels. I came to watch and tend him, as I

would have joyfully gone, with such a purpose, to the dreariest ends of the earth. When he knew no one else,

he knew me. When he suffered most, he bore his sufferings barely murmuring, content to rest his head where

your rests now. When he lay at the point of death, he married me, that he might call me Wife before he died.

"I know it now!" he sobbed. "The shadowy remembrance strengthens. It is come back. I thank Heaven that

my mind is quite restored! My Mary, kiss me; lull this weary head to rest, or I shall die of gratitude. His

Well! They were happy. It was a long recovery, but they were happy through it all. The snow had melted on

the ground, and the birds were singing in the leafless thickets of the early spring, when those three were first

able to ride out together, and when people flocked about the open carriage to cheer and congratulate Captain

But even then it became necessary for the Captain, instead of returning to England, to complete his recovery

in the climate of Southern France. They found a spot upon the Rhone, within a ride of the old town of

Avignon, and within view of its broken bridge, which was all they could desire; they lived there, together, six

months; then returned to England. Mrs. Taunton, growing old after three yearsthough not so old as that her

bright, dark eyes were dimmed and remembering that her strength had been benefited by the change

resolved to go back for a year to those parts. So she went with a faithful servant, who had often carried her

son in his arms; and she was to be rejoined and escorted home, at the year's end, by Captain Richard

She wrote regularly to her children (as she called them now), and they to her. She went to the neighbourhood

of Aix; and there, in their own chateau near the farmer's house she rented, she grew into intimacy with a

family belonging to that part of France. The intimacy began in her often meeting among the vineyards a

pretty child, a girl with a most compassionate heart, who was never tired of listening to the solitary English

lady's stories of her poor son and the cruel wars. The family were as gentle as the child, and at length she

came to know them so well that she accepted their invitation to pass the last month of her residence abroad

under their roof. All this intelligence she wrote home, piecemeal as it came about, from time to time; and at

last enclosed a polite note, from the head of the chateau, soliciting, on the occasion of his approaching

mission to that neighbourhood, the honour of the company of cet homme si justement celebre, Monsieur le

Captain Doubledick, now a hardy, handsome man in the full vigour of life, broader across the chest and

shoulders than he had ever been before, dispatched a courteous reply, and followed it in person. Travelling

through all that extent of country after three years of Peace, he blessed the better days on which the world had

fallen. The corn was golden, not drenched in unnatural red; was bound in sheaves for food, not trodden

underfoot by men in mortal fight. The smoke rose up from peaceful hearths, not blazing ruins. The carts were

laden with the fair fruits of the earth, not with wounds and death. To him who had so often seen the terrible

reverse, these things were beautiful indeed; and they brought him in a softened spirit to the old chateau near

It was a large chateau of the genuine old ghostly kind, with round towers, and extinguishers, and a high

leaden roof, and more windows than Aladdin's Palace. The lattice blinds were all thrown open after the heat

of the day, and there were glimpses of rambling walls and corridors within. Then there were immense

outbuildings fallen into partial decay, masses of dark trees, terracegardens, balustrades; tanks of water, too

weak to play and too dirty to work; statues, weeds, and thickets of iron railing that seemed to have overgrown

themselves like the shrubberies, and to have branched out in all manner of wild shapes. The entrance doors

stood open, as doors often do in that country when the heat of the day is past; and the Captain saw no bell or

He walked into a lofty stone hall, refreshingly cool and gloomy after the glare of a Southern day's travel.

Extending along the four sides of this hall was a gallery, leading to suites of rooms; and it was lighted from

"Faith," said the Captain halting, ashamed of the clanking of his boots, "this is a ghostly beginning!"

He started back, and felt his face turn white. In the gallery, looking down at him, stood the French

officerthe officer whose picture he had carried in his mind so long and so far. Compared with the original,

He moved, and disappeared, and Captain Richard Doubledick heard his steps coming quickly down own into

the hall. He entered through an archway. There was a bright, sudden look upon his face, much such a look as

Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick? Enchanted to receive him! A thousand apologies! The servants

were all out in the air. There was a little fete among them in the garden. In effect, it was the fete day of my

He was so gracious and so frank that Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick could not withhold his hand.

"It is the hand of a brave Englishman," said the French officer, retaining it while he spoke. "I could respect a

brave Englishman, even as my foe, how much more as my friend! I also am a soldier."

"He has not remembered me, as I have remembered him; he did not take such note of my face, that day, as I

The French officer conducted his guest into a garden and presented him to his wife, an engaging and beautiful

woman, sitting with Mrs. Taunton in a whimsical oldfashioned pavilion. His daughter, her fair young face

beaming with joy, came running to embrace him; and there was a boybaby to tumble down among the

orange trees on the broad steps, in making for his father's legs. A multitude of children visitors were dancing

to sprightly music; and all the servants and peasants about the chateau were dancing too. It was a scene of

innocent happiness that might have been invented for the climax of the scenes of peace which had soothed

He looked on, greatly troubled in his mind, until a resounding bell rang, and the French officer begged to

show him his rooms. They went upstairs into the gallery from which the officer had looked down; and

Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick was cordially welcomed to a grand outer chamber, and a smaller

one within, all clocks and draperies, and hearths, and brazen dogs, and tiles, and cool devices, and elegance,

Left alone with the sound of his own stern voice in his ears, he sat down to consider, What shall I do, and

how shall I tell him? At that time, unhappily, many deplorable duels had been fought between English and

French officers, arising out of the recent war; and these duels, and how to avoid this officer's hospitality, were

He was thinking, and letting the time run out in which he should have dressed for dinner, when Mrs. Taunton

spoke to him outside the door, asking if he could give her the letter he had brought from Mary. "His mother,

"You will form a friendship with your host, I hope," said Mrs. Taunton, whom he hurriedly admitted, "that

will last for life. He is so truehearted and so generous, Richard, that you can hardly fail to esteem one

another. If He had been spared," she kissed (not without tears) the locket in which she wore his hair, "he

would have appreciated him with his own magnanimity, and would have been truly happy that the evil days

She left the room; and the Captain walked, first to one window, whence he could see the dancing in the

garden, then to another window, whence he could see the smiling prospect and the peaceful vineyards.

"Spirit of my departed friend," said he, "is it through thee these better thoughts are rising in my mind? Is it

thou who hast shown me, all the way I have been drawn to meet this man, the blessings of the altered time? Is

it thou who hast sent thy stricken mother to me, to stay my angry hand? Is it from thee the whisper comes,

that this man did his duty as thou didst,and as I did, through thy guidance, which has wholly saved me here

He sat down, with his head buried in his hands, and, when he rose up, made the second strong resolution of

his life,that neither to the French officer, nor to the mother of his departed friend, nor to any soul, while

either of the two was living, would he breathe what only he knew. And when he touched that French officer's

glass with his own, that day at dinner, he secretly forgave him in the name of the Divine Forgiver of injuries.

Here I ended my story as the first Poor Traveller. But, if I had told it now, I could have added that the time

has since come when the son of Major Richard Doubledick, and the son of that French officer, friends as their

fathers were before them, fought side by side in one cause, with their respective nations, like longdivided

My story being finished, and the Wassail too, we broke up as the Cathedral bell struck Twelve. I did not take

leave of my travellers that night; for it had come into my head to reappear, in conjunction with some hot

As I passed along the High Street, I heard the Waits at a distance, and struck off to find them. They were

playing near one of the old gates of the City, at the corner of a wonderfully quaint row of red brick

tenements, which the clarionet obligingly informed me were inhabited by the MinorCanons. They had odd

little porches over the doors, like soundingboards over old pulpits; and I thought I should like to see one of

the MinorCanons come out upon his top stop, and favour us with a little Christmas discourse about the poor

scholars of Rochester; taking for his text the words of his Master relative to the devouring of Widows'

The clarionet was so communicative, and my inclinations were (as they generally are) of so vagabond a

tendency, that I accompanied the Waits across an open green called the Vines, and assistedin the French

senseat the performance of two waltzes, two polkas, and three Irish melodies, before I thought of my inn

any more. However, I returned to it then, and found a fiddle in the kitchen, and Ben, the walleyed young

man, and two chambermaids, circling round the great deal table with the utmost animation.

I had a very bad night. It cannot have been owing to the turkey or the beef,and the Wassail is out of the

questionbut in every endeavour that I made to get to sleep I failed most dismally. I was never asleep; and

in whatsoever unreasonable direction my mind rambled, the effigy of Master Richard Watts perpetually

In a word, I only got out of the Worshipful Master Richard Watts's way by getting out of bed in the dark at

six o'clock, and tumbling, as my custom is, into all the cold water that could be accumulated for the purpose.

The outer air was dull and cold enough in the street, when I came down there; and the one candle in our

supper room at Watts's Charity looked as pale in the burning as if it had had a bad night too. But my

Travellers had all slept soundly, and they took to the hot coffee, and the piles of breadandbutter, which

While it was yet scarcely daylight, we all came out into the street together, and there shook hands. The

widow took the little sailor towards Chatham, where he was to find a steamboat for Sheerness; the lawyer,

with an extremely knowing look, went his own way, without committing himself by announcing his

intentions; two more struck off by the cathedral and old castle for Maidstone; and the bookpedler

accompanied me over the bridge. As for me, I was going to walk by Cobham Woods, as far upon my way to

When I came to the stile and footpath by which I was to diverge from the main road, I bade farewell to my

last remaining Poor Traveller, and pursued my way alone. And now the mists began to rise in the most

beautiful manner, and the sun to shine; and as I went on through the bracing air, seeing the hoarfrost sparkle

Going through the woods, the softness of my tread upon the mossy ground and among the brown leaves

enhanced the Christmas sacredness by which I felt surrounded. As the whitened stems environed me, I

thought how the Founder of the time had never raised his benignant hand, save to bless and heal, except in

the case of one unconscious tree. By Cobham Hall, I came to the village, and the churchyard where the dead

had been quietly buried, "in the sure and certain hope" which Christmas time inspired. What children could I

see at play, and not be loving of, recalling who had loved them! No garden that I passed was out of unison

with the day, for I remembered that the tomb was in a garden, and that "she, supposing him to be the

gardener," had said, "Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him

away." In time, the distant river with the ships came full in view, and with it pictures of the poor fishermen,

mending their nets, who arose and followed him,of the teaching of the people from a ship pushed off a

little way from shore, by reason of the multitude,of a majestic figure walking on the water, in the

loneliness of night. My very shadow on the ground was eloquent of Christmas; for did not the people lay their

sick where the more shadows of the men who had heard and seen him might fall as they passed along?

Thus Christmas begirt me, far and near, until I had come to Blackheath, and had walked down the long vista

of gnarled old trees in Greenwich Park, and was being steamrattled through the mists now closing in once

more, towards the lights of London. Brightly they shone, but not so brightly as my own fire, and the brighter

faces around it, when we came together to celebrate the day. And there I told of worthy Master Richard

Watts, and of my supper with the Six Poor Travellers who were neither Rogues nor Proctors, and from that