A fat cunts obituary (081/152)
Tez Burk
chapters were yet in progress, was, as the reader may suppose,
gradually familiarising himself more and more with Mr and Mrs
Garland, Mr Abel, the pony, and Barbara, and gradually coming to
consider them one and all as his particular private friends, and
Abel Cottage, Finchley, as his own proper home.
Stay--the words are written, and may go, but if they convey any
notion that Kit, in the plentiful board and comfortable lodging of
his new abode, began to think slightingly of the poor fare and
furniture of his old dwelling, they do their office badly and
commit injustice. Who so mindful of those he left at home--albeit
they were but a mother and two young babies--as Kit? What
boastful father in the fulness of his heart ever related such
wonders of his infant prodigy, as Kit never wearied of telling
Barbara in the evening time, concerning little Jacob? Was there
ever such a mother as Kit's mother, on her son's showing; or was
there ever such comfort in poverty as in the poverty of Kit's
family, if any correct judgment might be arrived at, from his own
glowing account!
And let me linger in this place, for an instant, to remark that if
ever household affections and loves are graceful things, they are
graceful in the poor. The ties that bind the wealthy and the proud
to home may be forged on earth, but those which link the poor man
to his humble hearth are of the truer metal and bear the stamp of
Heaven. The man of high descent may love the halls and lands of
his inheritance as part of himself: as trophies of his birth and
power; his associations with them are associations of pride and
wealth and triumph; the poor man's attachment to the tenements he
holds, which strangers have held before, and may to-morrow occupy
again, has a worthier root, struck deep into a purer soil. His
household gods are of flesh and blood, with no alloy of silver,
gold, or precious stone; he has no property but in the affections
of his own heart; and when they endear bare floors and walls,
despite of rags and toil and scanty fare, that man has his love of
home from God, and his rude hut becomes a solemn place.
Oh! if those who rule the destinies of nations would but remember
this--if they would but think how hard it is for the very poor to
have engendered in their hearts, that love of home from which all
domestic virtues spring, when they live in dense and squalid masses
where social decency is lost, or rather never found--if they
would but turn aside from the wide thoroughfares and great houses,
and strive to improve the wretched dwellings in bye-ways where only
Poverty may walk--many low roofs would point more truly to the
sky, than the loftiest steeple that now rears proudly up from the
midst of guilt, and crime, and horrible disease, to mock them by
its contrast. In hollow voices from Workhouse, Hospital, and jail,
this truth is preached from day to day, and has been proclaimed for
years. It is no light matter--no outcry from the working vulgar--
no mere question of the people's health and comforts that may be
whistled down on Wednesday nights. In love of home, the love of
country has its rise; and who are the truer patriots or the better
in time of need--those who venerate the land, owning its wood, and
stream, and earth, and all that they produce? or those who love
their country, boasting not a foot of ground in all its wide
domain!
Kit knew nothing about such questions, but he knew that his old
home was a very poor place, and that his new one was very unlike
it, and yet he was constantly looking back with grateful
satisfaction and affectionate anxiety, and often indited square-
folded letters to his mother, enclosing a shilling or eighteenpence
or such other small remittance, which Mr Abel's liberality enabled
him to make. Sometimes being in the neighbourhood, he had leisure
to call upon her, and then great was the joy and pride of Kit's
mother, and extremely noisy the satisfaction of little Jacob and
the baby, and cordial the congratulations of the whole court, who
listened with admiring ears to the accounts of Abel Cottage, and
could never be told too much of its wonders and magnificence.
Although Kit was in the very highest favour with the old lady and
gentleman, and Mr Abel, and Barbara, it is certain that no member
of the family evinced such a remarkable partiality for him as the
self-willed pony, who, from being the most obstinate and
opinionated pony on the face of the earth, was, in his hands, the
meekest and most tractable of animals. It is true that in exact
proportion as he became manageable by Kit he became utterly
ungovernable by anybody else (as if he had determined to keep him
in the family at all risks and hazards), and that, even under the
guidance of his favourite, he would sometimes perform a great
variety of strange freaks and capers, to the extreme discomposure
of the old lady's nerves; but as Kit always represented that this
was only his fun, or a way he had of showing his attachment to his
employers, Mrs Garland gradually suffered herself to be persuaded
into the belief, in which she at last became so strongly confirmed,
that if, in one of these ebullitions, he had overturned the chaise,
she would have been quite satisfied that he did it with the very
best intentions.
Besides becoming in a short time a perfect marvel in all stable
matters, Kit soon made himself a very tolerable gardener, a handy
fellow within doors, and an indispensable attendant on Mr Abel, who
every day gave him some new proof of his confidence and
approbation. Mr Witherden the notary, too, regarded him with a
friendly eye; and even Mr Chuckster would sometimes condescend to
give him a slight nod, or to honour him with that peculiar form of
recognition which is called 'taking a sight,' or to favour him with
some other salute combining pleasantry with patronage.
One morning Kit drove Mr Abel to the Notary's office, as he
sometimes did, and having set him down at the house, was about to
drive off to a livery stable hard by, when this same Mr Chuckster
emerged from the office door, and cried 'Woa-a-a-a-a-a!'--dwelling
upon the note a long time, for the purpose of striking terror into
the pony's heart, and asserting the supremacy of man over the
inferior animals.
'Pull up, Snobby,' cried Mr Chuckster, addressing himself to Kit.
'You're wanted inside here.'
'Has Mr Abel forgotten anything, I wonder?' said Kit as he
dismounted.
'Ask no questions, Snobby,' returned Mr Chuckster, 'but go and see.
Woa-a-a then, will you? If that pony was mine, I'd break him.'
'You must be very gentle with him, if you please,' said Kit, 'or
you'll find him troublesome. You'd better not keep on pulling his
ears, please. I know he won't like it.'
To this remonstrance Mr Chuckster deigned no other answer, than
addressing Kit with a lofty and distant air as 'young feller,' and
requesting him to cut and come again with all speed. The 'young
feller' complying, Mr Chuckster put his hands in his pockets, and
tried to look as if he were not minding the pony, but happened to
be lounging there by accident.
Kit scraped his shoes very carefully (for he had not yet lost his
reverence for the bundles of papers and the tin boxes,) and tapped
at the office-door, which was quickly opened by the Notary himself.
'Oh! come in, Christopher,' said Mr Witherden.
'Is that the lad?' asked an elderly gentleman, but of a stout,
bluff figure--who was in the room.
'That's the lad,' said Mr Witherden. 'He fell in with my client,
Mr Garland, sir, at this very door. I have reason to think he is