MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.

MASTER HUMPHREY, FROM HIS CLOCK-SIDE IN THE
CHIMNEY-CORNER.

The reader must not expect to know where I live. At present, it is true, my abode may be a question of little or no import to any body, but if I should carry my readers with me, as I hope to do, and there should spring up, between them and me, feelings of homely affection and regard, attaching something of interest to matters ever so slightly connected with my fortunes or my speculations, even my place of residence might one day have a kind of charm for them. Bearing this possible contingency in mind, I wish them to understand in the outset, that they must never expect to know it. I am not a churlish old man. Friendless I can never be, for all mankind are of my kindred, and I am on ill terms with no one member of my great family. But for many years I have led a lonely, solitary life;-what wound I sought to heal, what sorrow to forget, originally, matters not now; it is sufficient that retirement has become a habit with me, and that I am unwilling to break the spell which for so long a time has shed its quiet influence upon my home and heart.

I live in a venerable suburb of London, in an old house, which in bygone days was a famous resort for merry roysterers and peerless ladies, long since departed. It is a silent shady place, with a paved court-yard so full of echoes, that sometimes I am tempted to believe that faint responses to the noises of old times linger there yet, and that these ghosts of sound haunt my footsteps as I pace it up and down. I am the more confirmed in this belief, because, of late years, the echoes that attend my walks have been less loud and marked than they were wont to be; and it is pleasanter to imagine in them the rustling of silk brocade, and the light step of some lovely girl, than to recognise in their altered note the failing tread of an old man.

houses as I passed; men eyed me spitefully, and muttered threats and curses. I was the object of suspicion and distrust: ay, of downright hatred, too.

But when in course of time they found I did no harm, but, on the contrary, inclined towards them despite their unjust usage, they began to relent. I found my footsteps no longer dogged, as they had often been before, and observed that the women and children no longer retreated, but would stand and gaze at me as I passed their doors. I took this for a good omen, and waited patiently for better times. By degrees I began to make friends among these humble folks, and though they were yet shy of speaking, would give them "good day," and so pass on. In a little time, those whom I had thus accosted, would make a point of coming to their doors and windows at the usual hour, and nod or curtsey to me; children, too, came timidly within my reach, and ran away quite scared when I patted their heads and bade them be good at school. These little people soon grew more familiar. From exchanging mere words of course with my older neighbours, I gradually became their friend and adviser, the depository of their cares and sorrows, and sometimes, it may be, the reliever, in my small way, of their distresses. And now I never walk abroad, but pleasant recognitions and smiling faces wait on Master Humphrey.

It was a whim of mine, perhaps as a whet to the curiosity of my neighbours, and a kind of retaliation upon them for their suspicions,-it was, I say, a whim of mine, when I first took up my abode in this place, to acknowledge no other name than Humphrey. With my detractors, I was ugly Humphrey. When I began to convert them into friends, I was Mr. Humphrey, and old Mr. Humphrey. At length I settled down into plain Master Humphrey, which was understood to be the title most pleasant to my ear; and so completely a matter of course has it become, that sometimes when I am taking my morning walk in my little court-yard, I overhear my barber-who has a profound respect for me, and would not, I am sure, abridge my honours for the world-holding forth on the other side of the wall, touching the state of Master Humphrey's" health, and communi

that he and Master Humphrey have had together in the course of the shaving which he has just concluded.

Those who like to read of brilliant rooms and gorge-cating to some friend the substance of the conversation ous furniture, would derive but little pleasure from a minute description of my simple dwelling. It is dear to me for the same reason that they would hold it in That I may not make acquaintance with my readers slight regard. Its worm-eaten doors, and low ceilings under false pretences, or give them cause to complain crossed by clumsy beams; its walls of wainscot, dark hereafter that I have withheld any matter which it was stairs, and gaping closets; its small chambers, commu-essential for them to have learnt at first, I wish them to nicating with each other by winding passages or nar-know-and I smile sorrowfully to think that the time row steps; its many nooks, scarce larger than its corner- has been when the confession would have given me cupboards; its very dust and dulness, are all dear to pain-that I am a mis-shapen, deformed, old man. me. The moth and spider are my constant tenants, for I have never been made a misanthrope by this cause. in my house the one basks in his long sleep, and the I have never been stung by any insult, nor wounded by other plies his busy loom, secure and undisturbed. I any jest upon my crooked figure. As a child I was mehave a pleasure in thinking on a summer's day, how lancholy and timid, but that was because the gentle conmany butterflies have sprung for the first time into light sideration paid to my misfortune sunk deep into my and sunshine from some dark corner of these old walls. spirit and made me sad, even in those early days. I When I first came to live here, which was many was but a very young creature when my poor mother died, years ago, the neighbours were curious to know who I and yet I remember that often when I hung around her was, and whence I came, and why I lived so much neck, and oftener still when I played about the room bealone. As time went on, and they still remained unsa-fore her, she would catch me to her bosom, and bursting tisfied on these points, I became the centre of a popular into tears, soothe me with every term of fondness and ferment, extending for half a mile round, and in one affection. God knows I was a happy child at those times direction for a full mile. Various rumours were circu--happy to nestle in her breast-happy to weep when lated to my prejudice. I was a spy, an infidel, a conjuror, a kidnapper of children, a refugee, a priest, a monster. Mothers caught up their infants and ran into their MUSEUM.-APRIL, 1840.

she did-happy in not knowing why.

These occasions are so strongly impressed upon my memory, that they seem to have occupied whole years. 54

I had numbered very few when they ceased for ever, but before then their meaning had been revealed to me.

that the old clock was still a faithful watcher at my chamber door! My easy chair. my desk, my ancient furniture, my very books, I can scarcely bring myself to love even these last. like my old clock!

I lived alone here for a long time without any friend or acquaintance. In the course of my wanderings by night and day, at all hours and seasons, in city streets and quiet country parts, I came to be familiar with certain faces, and to take it to heart as quite a heavy disappointment it they failed to present themselves each at its accustomed spot. But these were the only friends I knew, and beyond them I had none.

I do not know whether all chilren are imbued with a quick perception of childish grace and beauty and a strong love for it, but I was. I had no thought that I It stands in a snug corner, midway between the fireremember, either that I possessed it myself or that I side and a low arched door leading to my bed-rom. Its lacked it, but I admired it with an intensity I cannot fame is diffused so extensively throughout the neighbourdescribe. A little knot of play mates-they must have hood, that I bave often the satisfaction of hearing the been beautiful, for I see them now-were clustered one publican or the baker, and sometimes even the parishday round my mother's knee in eager admiration of clerk, petitioning my housekeeper (of whom I shall have some picture representing a group of intant angels which much to say by and by,) to inform him the exact time she held in her hand. Whose the picture was, whether by Master Humphrey's clock. My barber, to whom I it was familiar to me or otherwise, or how al the children have already referred, would sooner believe it than the came to be there, I forget: I have some dim thought sun. Nor are these its only distinctions. It has acwas my bir h-day, but the beginning of my recollection quired, I am happy to say, another, inseparably connectis that we were altogether in a garden, and it was suming it not only with my enjoyments and reflections, but mer weather-I am sure of that, for one of the little with those of other men; as I shall now relate. girls had roses in her sash. There were many lovely augels in this picture, and I remember the 'ancy coming upon me to point out which of them represented each child there, and that when I had gone through all my companions, I stopped and besitated, wondering which was most like me. I remember the children looking at each other, and my turning red and hot, and their crowding round to kiss me, saying that they loved me all the same; and then, and when the old sorrow came It happened, however, when I had gone on thus for into my dear mother's mild and tender look, the truth a long time, that I formed an acquaintance with a deaf broke upon me for the first time, and I knew, while | gentleman, which ripened into intimacy and close comwatching my awkward and ungainly sports, how keenly panionship. To this hour I am ignorant of his name. she had felt for her poor crippled boy. It is his humour to conceal it, or he has a reason and purpose for so doing. In either case I feel that he has a right to require a return of the trust he has reposed, and as he ha- never sought to discover my secret. I have never sought to penetrate his. There may have been something in this tacit confidence in each other, flatterWell, well-all these sorrows are past. My glancinging and pleasant to us both, and it may have imparted at them may not be without its use, for it may help in in the beg noing an additional zest, perhaps, to our some measure to explain why I have all my life been at- friendship. Be this as it may, we have grown to be tached to the inanimate objects that people my chamber, like brothers, and still I only know him as the deaf genand how I have come to look upon them rather in the tleman. light of old and constant friends, than as mere chairs and tables which a little money could replace at will.

I used frequently to dream of it afterwards, and now my heart aches for that child as if I had never been he, when I think how often he awoke from some fairy change to his own old form, and sobbed himself to sleep again.

Chief and first among all these is my clock-my old cheerful companionable clock. How can I ever convey to others an idea of the comfort and consolation that this old clock has been for years to me!

It is associated with my earliest recollections. It stood upon the staircase at home (I call it home still mechanically) nigh sixty years ago. I like it for that, but it is not on that account, nor because it is a quaint old thing in a huge oaken case curiously and richly carved, that I prize it as I do. I incline to it as if it were alive, and could understand and give me back the love I bear it.

I have said that retirement has becom a habit with me. When I add that the deaf gentleman and I have two friends, I communicate nothing which is inconsist ent with that declaration. I spend many hours of every day in solitude and study, have no friends or change of friends but these, only see them at stated periods, and am supposed to be of a retired spirit by the very nature and object of our association.

We are men of secluded habits with something of a cloud upon our early fortunes, whose enthusiasm nevertheless has not cooled with age, whose spirit of romance is not yet quenched, who are content to ramble through the world in a pleasant dream, rather than ever waken again to its harsh realities. We are alchemists who would extract the essence of perpetual youth from dust and ashes, tempt coy truth in many light and airy forms from the bottom of her well, and discover one crumb of comfort or one grain of good in the commonest and least regarded matter that passes through our crucible. Spirits of past times, creatures of imagination, and people of to-day, are alike the objects of our seeking, and, unlike the objects of search with most philosophers, we can ensure their coming at our command.

And what other thing that has not life could cheer me as it does; what other thing that has not life (I will not say how few things that have) could have proved the same patient, true, untiring friend! How often have I sat in the long winter evening feeling such society in its cricket voice, that raising my eyes froin my book and looking gratefully towards it, the face reddened by the glow of the shining fire, has seemed to relax from its staid expression and to regard ine kindly; how often in the summer twilight, when my thoughts have wandered back to a melancholy past, have its regular whisperings recalled them to the calm and peaceful present; howing them to each other. often in the dead tranquillity of night has its bell broken ny room there are six old the oppressive silence, and seemed to give me assurance that the two empty seats shall always be placed at our

The deaf gentleman and I first began to beguile our days with these fancies, an our nights in communicat We are now four. But in chairs, and we have decided

table when we meet, to remind us that we may yet increase our company by that number, if we should find two men to our mind. When one among us dies, his chair will always be set in its usual place. but never occupied again; and I have caused my will to be so drawn out, that when we are all dead, the house shall be shut up, and the vacant chairs still left in their accustomed places. It is pleasant to think that even then, our shades may, perhaps, assemble together as of yore we did, and join in ghostly converse.

dwelt in the city of London a substantial citizen, who united in his single person the dignities of wholesale fruiterer, alderman, common councilman, and member of the worshipful company of Patten-makers: who had superadded to these extraordinary distinctions the important post and title of sheriff, and who at length, and to crown all, stood next in rotation for the high and honourable office of lord mayor.

He was a very substantial citizen indeed. His face was like the full moon in a fog, with two little holes

like a heavy snorer, and his voice in speaking came thickly forth, as if it were oppressed and stifled by ather beds. He trod the ground like an elephant, and eat and drank like-like nothing but an alderman, as he was.

One night in every week, as the clock strikes ten, we punched out for his eyes, a very ripe pear stuck on for meet. At the second stroke of two, I am alone. his nose, a d a wide gash to serve for a mouth. The And now shall I tell how that my old servant, besides girth of his waistcoat was hung up and lettered in his giving us note of time, and ticking cheerful encourage-tailor's shop as an extraordinary curiosity. He breathed ment of our proceedings, I nds its name to our society, which for its punctuality and my love, is christened "Master Humphrey's Clock?" Now shall I tell, how that in the bottom of the old dark closet where the steady pendulum throhs and heats with healthy action, though the pulse of him who made i stood still long ago and never moved again, there are piles of dusty papers constantly placed there by our hands, that we may link our enjoyments with my old friend, and draw means to beguile time from the heart of time itself? Shall I, or can I, tell with what a secret pride I open this repository when we meet at night, and still find new store of pleasure in my dear old clock!

Friend and companion of my solitude! mine is not a selfish love; I would not keep your merits to myself. but disperse something of pleasant association with your image through the whole wide world; I would | have men couple with your name cheerful and healthy thoughts; I would have them believe that you keep true and honest time, and how would it gladden me to know that they recognised some hearty English work in Master Humphrey's Clock!

THE CLOCK-CASE.

This worthy citizen had risen to his great eminence from small beginnings. He had once been a very lean, weazen little boy, never dreaming of carrying such a weight of flesh upon his bones or of money in his pockets, and glad enough to take his dinner at a baker's door, and his tea at a pump. But he had long ago forgotten all this, as it was proper that a wholesale fruiterer, alderman, common councilman, member of the worshiptul company of patten-makers, past sheriff and above all, a lord mayor that was to be, should; and he never forgot it more completely in all his lie than on the eighth of November, in the year of his election to the great golden civic chair, which was the day before his grand dinner at the Guildhall.

It happened that as he sat that evening all alone in his counting house, looking over the bill of fare for next day, and checking off the fat capons in fi ties and the turtle s-up by the hundred quarts, for his private amusementit happened that as he sat alone occupied in these pleasant calculations, a strange man came in and asked him how he did: adding. “If I am half as much changed as you, sir, you have no recollection of me, I am sure."

It is my intention constantly to address my readers The strange man was not over and above well dressed, from the chimney-corner, and I would fain hope that and was very far from being fat or rich-looking in any suc accounts as I shall give them of our histories and sense of the word, yet he spoke with a kind of modest proceedings, our quiet speculations or more busy adven-confidence, and assumed an e sy, gentlemanly sort of air, tures, will never be unwelcome. Lest, however, I should to which nobody but a rich man can lawfully presume. grow prolix in the outset by lingering too long upon our little association, confounding the enthusiasm with which I regard this chief happiness of my life with that minor degree of interest which those to whom I address myself may be supposed to feel for it, I have deemed it expedient to break off as they have seen.

Besides this, he interrupted the good citizen just as he had reckoned three hundred and seventy-two fat capons and was carrying them over to the next column; and as i that were not aggravation enough, the learned recorder for the city of London had only ten minutes previously gone out at that very same door, and had turned round and said, "Good night, my lord." Yes, le had said, my lord ;”—he, a man of birth and education, of the honourable society of the middle temple, barrister at law he who had an uncle in the house of commons, and an

But still clinging to my old friend and naturally desirous that all its merits should be known, I am tempt ed to open (somewhat irregularly and against our laws, I must admit) the clock-case. The first roll of paper on which I lay my hand is in he writing of the deaf gentle-aunt almost but not quite in the house of lords (for she man. I shall have to speak of him in my next paper, and how can I better approach that welcome task than by prefacing it with a production of his own pen, consigned to the safe keeping of my honest clock by his own hands?

The manuscript runs thus:

INTRODUCTION TO THE GIANT CHRONICLES.

had married a freble peer, and made him vote as she liked)-he, this man, this learned recorder, had said,

my lord." "I'll not wait till to-morrow to give yon your title, my lord mayor," says he, with a bow and a smile; "you are lord mayor de fucto, if not de jure. Good night, my lord!"

The lord mayor elect thought of this, and turning to the stranger, and sternly bidding him "go out of his private counting-hou-e," brought forward the three hunOnce upon a time that is to say, in this our time-dred and seventy-two fat capons, and went on with the the exact year, mouth, and day, are of no matter,-there account.

The port wine fled for a moment from the fruiterer's nose as he muttered "Joe Toddy high! What about Joe" unless you'd like to come to the dinner to-morrow. I Toddy high?" don't mind your having this ticket, if you like to take it. A great many people would give their ears for it, I can tell you."

“Oh! don't bother,” said the lord mayor elect, scratch-lic buildings, the splendour of the shops, the riches that ing his head. "Dear me! Why, I thought you was dead. What a fellow you are!"

It chanced, while he was lounging about in this moody "I am sure I don't know what to say, Mr. Toddy-state, that he stumbled upon a flight of stairs, dark, steep high," said the lord mayor elect; "I really don't. It's and narrow, which he ascended without any thought very inconvenient. I'd sooner have given twenty pound about the matter, and so came into a little music-gallery, it's very inconvenient, really." empty and deserted. From this elevated post, which commanded the whole hall, he amused himself in looking down upon the attendants, who were clearing away the fragments of the feast very lazily, and drinking out of all the bottles and glasses with most commendable per