Some Roundabout Papers | Page 5

your dear mother's birth. I daresay her father was absent
in the Low Countries, with his Royal Highness the Duke of

Cumberland, under whom he had the honour of carrying a halberd at
the famous engagement of Fontenoy -- or if not there, he may have
been at Preston Pans, under General Sir John Cope, when the wild
Highlanders broke through all the laws of discipline and the English
lines; and, being on the spot, did he see the famous ghost which didn't
appear to Colonel Gardner of the Dragoons? My good creature, is it
possible you don't remember that Doctor Swift, Sir Robert Walpole
(my Lord Orford, as you justly say), old Sarah Marlborough, and little
Mr Pope, of Twitnam, died in the year of your birth? What a wretched
memory you have! What? haven't they a library, and the commonest
books of reference at the old convent of Saint Lazarus, where you
dwell?"
"Convent of Saint Lazarus, Prince William, Dr Swift, Atossa, and Mr
Pope, of Twitnam! What is the gentleman talking about?" says old
goody, with a "Ho! ho!" and a laugh like a old parrot -- you know they
live to be as old as Methuselah, parrots do, and a parrot of a hundred is
comparatively young (ho! ho! ho!). Yes, and likewise carps live to an
immense old age. Some which Frederick the Great fed at Sans Souci
are there now, with great humps of blue mould on their old backs; and
they could tell all sorts of queer stories, if they chose to speak -- but
they are very silent, carps are -- of their nature peu communicatives. Oh!
what has been thy long life, old goody, but a dole of bread and water
and a perch on a cage; a dreary swim round and round a Lethe of a
pond? What are Rossbach or Jena to those mouldy ones, and do they
know it is a grandchild of England who brings bread to feed them?
No! Those Sans Souci carps may live to be a thousand years old and
have nothing to tell but that one day is like another; and the history of
friend Goody Twoshoes has not much more variety than theirs. Hard
labour, hard fare, hard bed, numbing cold all night, and gnawing
hunger most days. That is her lot. Is it lawful in my prayers to say,
"Thank heaven, I am not as one of these"? If I were eighty, would I like
to feel the hunger always gnawing, gnawing? to have to get up and
make a bow when Mr Bumble the beadle entered the common room? to
have to listen to Miss Prim, who came to give me her ideas of the next
world? If I were eighty, I own I should not like to have to sleep with
another gentleman of my own age, gouty, a bad sleeper, kicking in his
old dreams, and snoring; to march down my vale of years at word of

command, accommodating my tottering old steps to those of the other
prisoners in my dingy, hopeless old gang; to hold out a trembling hand
for a sickly pittance of gruel, and say, "Thank you, ma'am," to Miss
Prim, when she has done reading her sermon. John! when Goody
Twoshoes comes next Friday, I desire she may not be disturbed by
theological controversies. You have a fair voice, and I heard you and
the maids singing a hymn very sweetly the other night, and was
thankful that our humble household should be in such harmony. Poor
old Twoshoes is so old and toothless and quaky, that she can't sing a bit;
but don't be giving yourself airs over her, because she can't sing and
you can. Make her comfortable at our kitchen hearth. Set that old kettle
to sing by our hob. Warm her old stomach with nut-brown ale and a
toast laid in the fire. Be kind to the poor old school-girl of ninety, who
has had leave to come out for a day of Christmas holiday. Shall there
be many more Christmases for thee? Think of the ninety she has seen
already; the fourscore and ten cold, cheerless, nipping New Years!
If you were in her place, would you like to have a remembrance of
better early days, when you were young and happy, and loving, perhaps;
or would you prefer to have no past on which your mind could rest?
About the year 1788, Goody, were your cheeks rosy, and your eyes
bright, and did some young fellow in powder and a pigtail look in them?
We may grow old, but to us some stories never are old. On a sudden
they rise up, not dead, but living -- not forgotten, but freshly
remembered. The eyes gleam on us as they