Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892

It was some time before the great-little old fellow could compose himself to mend the fire, and draw his chair to the warm hearth. But, when he had done so, and had trimmed his lamp, he took his "Extra Special" from his pocket, and began to read--carelessly at first, and skimming up and down the columns, but with an earnest and sad attention very soon.

For this same dreadful paper re-directed Punch's thoughts into the channel they had taken all that day; thoughts of the sufferings of the poor, the follies of the rich, the sins of the wicked, the miseries of the outcast. Seasonable thoughts, if not exactly festive. For all is not festive, even at the Festive Season.

Scandals in high life, starvation in low life; foul floods of nastiness in Law Courts; muddy tricklings of misery in lawless alleys; crimes so terrible and revolting; pains so pitiless and cureless; follies so selfish and wanton, that he let the journal drop, and fell back in his chair, appalled.

"Unnatural and cruel, Toby!" he cried. "Unnatural and cruel! None but people who were born bad at heart--born bad--who had no business on the earth, could do such deeds. We're Bad!"

The Chimes took up the words so suddenly--burst out so loud, clear, and sonorous--that the Bells seemed to strike him in his chair.

And what was it that they said?

"_Punch_ and Toby! Toby and Punch! Waiting for you, Toby and Punch! Come and see us! Come and see us! Come and see us! Drag them to us! Haunt and hunt them! Haunt and hunt them. Break their slumbers! Break their slumbers! Punch, Toby; Toby, Punch; Toby, Punch; Punch, Toby!!" Then fiercely back to their impetuous strain again, and ringing in the very bricks and plaster on the Sanctum's walls!

Toby barked! Punch listened! Fancy, fancy! No, no! Nothing of the kind. Again, again, and yet a dozen times again. "Haunt and hunt them! Haunt and hunt them!"

"If the tower is really open," said Punch, "what's to hinder us, Toby, from going up to the steeple, and seeing for ourselves?" "Nothing," yapped Toby, or sounds to that effect.

There was the belfry where the ringers came. Punch caught hold of one of the frayed ropes which hung down through the apertures in the oaken roof. But he started; other hands seemed on it; he shrank from the thought of waking the deep Bell. The Bells themselves were higher. Higher, Punch and Toby, in their fascination, or working out the spell upon them, groped their way; until, ascending through the floor, and pausing, with his head raised just above its beams Punch came among the Bells. It was barely possible to make out their great shapes in the gloom; but there they were. Shadowy, and dark, and dumb.

He listened, and then raised a wild "Halloa!" "Halloa!" was mournfully protracted by the echoes. Giddy, confused, and out of breath, Punch looked about him vacantly, and sank down in a swoon.

He saw the tower, whither his charmed footsteps had brought him, swarming with dwarf phantoms, sprites, elfin creatures of the Bells. He saw them leaping, flying, dropping, pouring from the Bells without a pause. He saw them, round him on the ground; above him in the air; clambering from him by the ropes below; looking down upon him from the massive iron-girdered beams; peeping in upon him through the chinks and loopholes in the walls; spreading away and away from him in enlarging circles. He saw them of all aspects and all shapes. He saw them ugly, handsome, crippled, exquisitely formed. He saw them young, he saw them old; he saw them kind, he saw them cruel; he saw them merry, he saw them grim; he saw them dance, he heard them sing; he saw them tear their hair, he heard them howl. He saw the air thick with them.

Wh-o-o-o-sh! With what a wild whirr of startled wings the owls and bats scurried away, dim spectral hiding things that love the darkness and the silence of night, and shrink from light and cheerful sounds! "Well rid of you!" murmured Punch, as Toby barked at the flying phantoms.

But among the other swarming sprites, and circling elfs, and frolic phantoms of the Bells, Punch beheld brighter things. That pleasant pair, hand in hand, princely-looking both, and loving withal, bring a music as of marriage-bells "all in the wild March morning." And those other goodly and gracious presences, hint they not of Health and Home Happiness, and Benignant Art, and Humanity-serving Science, of Electric Sympathy, and Ready Rescue, of Mammon-thwarting Reform, and Misery-staying Benevolence; of all the spiritual charities and fairy graces that can bless and brighten country and hearth, Sire and citizen, master and servant, employer and employed, struggling man, suffering woman and helpless child? Punch read in their whirling forms and expressive faces the signs and promise of all the best and brightest influences of the time, happy and opportune attendants upon the auspicious hour of this the opening day of the New Year!

Bim, Bom, Boom!!! Clang, Cling, Clang!!! What are those hands tugging at the ropes, swinging the Bells big and little, evoking the stormy clashes and soothing cadences of the Chimes?

Surely those of the youthful New Year himself! An echo from the long-silent lips of the great Christmas-glorifier and lover of poor humanity seemed to ring in Punch's ears:--

"Who hears in us, the Chimes, one note bespeaking disregard, or stern regard, of any hope, or joy or pain, or sorrow, of the many-sorrowed throng; who hears us make response to any creed that gauges human passions and affections, as it gauges the amount of miserable food on which humanity may pine and wither, does us wrong!"

"Right you are!" cried Punch, cordially, Toby yapping assent.

He might have said more, but the Bells, the dear familiar Bells, his own dear constant, steady friends, the Chimes, began to ring the joy-peals for a New Year so lustily, so merrily, so happily, so gaily, that he (like poor old Trotty Veck) leapt to his feet, and broke the spell that bound him.

"There has been a certain deliberateness in Mr. DU MAURIER's incursion into literature that speaks eloquently for his modesty. He is, to our certain knowledge, at least 40 years old, and Peter Ibbetson, which Messrs. OSGOOD & CO. present in two daintily dressed volumes, is his first essay in romantic writing. Reading the book, it is hard to conceive this to be the fact. The work is entirely free from those traces of amateurishness, almost inseparable from a first effort. The literary style is considerably above the average modern novelist; the plot is marked by audacious invention, worked out with great skill; the hero is a madman, not in itself an attractive arrangement, but there is such admirable method in his madness, such fine poetic feeling in the conception of character, and the ghosts who flit through the pages of the story are so exceedingly human, that one feels quite at home with Peter, and is really sorry when, all too soon, his madness passes away, and he awakes to a new life, to find himself an old man. Apart from its strong dramatic interest, Peter Ibbetson has rare value, from the pictures of Old Paris in the last days of LOUIS-PHILIPPE, which crowd in charming succession through the first volume. Mr. GEORGE DU MAURIER, the well-known artist in black and white, has generously assisted Mr. GEORGE DU MAURIER, the rising novelist, by profusely illustrating the work. 'Tis a pretty rivalry; hard to say which has the better of it. Wherein a discerning Public, long familiar with DU MAURIER's sketches, will recognise a note of highest praise for the new departure."