University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.,
Which is principally about a Baby, a Mysterious
Personage in Black, and the Church-Clock.

Thus far my story is plain enough;
but the reader may possibly desire to
know who I am, who John Guttenberg
was, and other matters. It is a
proper curiosity, and shall be gratified.
Who I am will be told in due time—
what I was, and how I came to be, up
to the commencement of the story, he
shall hear at once.

Mr. John Guttenberg, although born
in England, was the grandson of a
German printer, and was himself a
master of the printer's art and mystery.
He came of a race of printers,
and boasted that from the time of his
great ancestor, who had divided with
Fust and Schœffer the honor of introducing
moveable types, the eldest-born
of the family had always been a typesetter.
Mr. John Guttenberg was a
staid, sober and respectable tradesman,
the master of a well-conducted
printing-office, and the publisher of a
country newspaper at the town of Puttenham,
in the Southwestern part of
England. He was also a book-seller,
and kept a circulating library, whereof
the officers of a marching regiment,
quartered in the neighborhood, and all
the people of consequence there, as
well as many who were of no consequence
at all, were patrons.

Puttenham was a place having pretensions
to size and respectability. It
boasted of several public buildings,
including a Retreat for Decayed Malsters,
founded by the will of Gervase
Thompson, a retired brewer; the County
Jail and Court-house, for Puttenham
was the shire town; the stocks
and public pound; a fine old church,
planned by Sir Christopher Wren, and
erected in 1701; three Dissenters'
Meeting-Houses, each rectangular and
many-windowed; and a public square,
highly-ornamented by the stocks, a
pump and two long horse-troughs.
The church had a most excellent clock,
made by a famous clock-maker in London,
and had four dials, placed to
face the four points of the compass.

Of all these things, I insist more

particularly on John Guttenburg and
the town clock, since both have a deal
to do with the early part of my life.
To the one I am indebted for my rearing,
and to the other for my name;
and I hold both my benefactors in
grateful remembrance.

Mr. John Guttenberg, I repeat, was
a staid, sober, and respectable tradesman
Physically, nature had not been
lavish of her choicest gifts upon his
person, since he was but five feet five
inches in height, but as he was nearly
as rotund as one of his own ink-balls,
the deficiency of length was compensated
for by the extent of breadth;
and in like manner, a brevity of nose
was balanced by an extreme length of
chin; and a mouth in shape and size
like the button-hole of a great coat,
atoned for by a pair of ears whose
length caused them to invade the domain
of the hat above, and encroach
on that of the shirt-collar below. Mentally,
he was rather above the greater
part of his neighbors, having energy,
quick-sightedness in business affairs,
and some concentration of purpose.
Morally, he was well endowed, and in
addition to a warm heart, possessed a
fair share of honor, as he understood
the sentiment, and an abhorrence of
what he deemed a mean action. The
robbers of old, those fellows who went
robbing and ruffianizing over the
country in sheet-iron coats and trousers,
would not have recognized him
as a chivalrous gentleman. Yet, I assert
that John Guttenberg, tradesman
as he was, and therefore by occupation
supposed to be devoid of such
feeling, had as much of such chivalric
impulse in his nature as ever shed its
lustre upon the Knights of the Round
Table or the Peers of Charlemagne.
It is true that he had some prejudices,
and he evinced a slavish deference to
those above him in social position;
but these were common to the tradesman
of that time and place, and, judging
from history, not incompatible
with knightly acts. And if he were
occasionally betrayed into a slight excess,
it was only at rare intervals, and
upon great occasions.

Two and thirty years ago to a day—
I am writing this upon the third day
of December, in the year of grace one
thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine
—the publisher of the Puttenham
Chronicle, being a Councilman, attended
a meeting of the Corporation. After
the council had closed its session,
he accepted an invitation to dine with
the Mayor, a wealthy soap-boiler of
the town, and sat late with his worshipful
host and friends over the wine
and walnuts. Although, as he afterwards
explained to Mrs. Guttenberg,
he was exceedingly sober when he
left the Mayor's house, yet the sudden
emergence from a warm to a cold atmosphere,
and the change from the
bright, cheerful fire within, the more
cheerful company, and the still more
cheerful wine, to the coldness and quiet
without, had a bewildering effect upon
him. Instead of turning to the right,
he turned to the left, and pursued his
way for some distance before he discovered
his error.

He stopped and looked around him.
It was difficult at first to find to what
quarter of the town he had strayed.
At length he recognized a barber's
pole, which stood before a low house
at the street-corner, and thus knew
that his nearest road homeward
would be obtained by retracing his
steps. Before he could turn he felt a

hand upon his elbow. He looked
around and saw a tall, dark figure,
with a coat closely buttoned up, and a
heavy fur collar over its shoulders.
All that he could discover about the
face was a pair of flashing eyes that
were fixed steadily on his own.

“Well?” said the printer, enquiringly,
and not without some apprehension,
lest his new companion might
be a foot-pad.

“Mr. John Guttenberg, I believe,”
said the other, in good enough English,
but with an accent that sounded
foreign.

“That is my name,” was the reply.

“You can do me an essential service.”

“I should be glad enough to do it,”
said the startled tradesman; “but it
is rather late, and Mrs. Guttenberg
will wonder what detains me so long
beyond my accustomed hour. If you
will call at my shop to-morrow, or rather
to-day, for it is now long past
midnight, I shall be happy to hear what
you may have to propose.”

The church clock struck two.

“At this moment, or never,” said
the unknown. “When the day dawns
it may be too late.”

John Guttenberg was about to reply,
when the other seized his arm
with a firm grasp, and urged his steps
onwards in a direction opposite to his
own house. Resistance was useless,
and although the printer was rather
startled, he saw no one to afford help,
and so gave in to the will of his captor.
Fifteen minutes sharp walking,
but through what streets he could not
tell, sufficed to bring the couple to the
outside of a dilapidated building in an
unfamiliar place. Into its narrow and
unlighted hall, and up its creaking
stairs, the unknown led the tradesman.
Before the back-room in the
third story, the stranger stopped, and
without announcing his approach, entered,
dragging his companion after
him, and then closing the door.

John Guttenberg, though greatly
astounded at the whole matter, when
he saw no personal harm was intended
to him, took a good look at the
apartment into which he had been so
unceremoniously thrust.

The room was devoid of comfortable
furniture. There was an old and
creaking deal table, and a three-legged,
oaken stool. On the former was
a farthing candle, inserted in an ordinary
iron candle-stick. A scanty sea-coal
fire glimmered at the bottom of
the grate. In the corner something
lay wrapped up in a pile of ragged
clothes, over which a cloak was partly
drawn. Near there, on the three-legged
stool, sat a woman, meanly clad,
and, for the weather, insufficiently.
She was handsome, though her skin
was dark, almost tawny — her hair
especially being of an unwonted blackness
and glossiness, and, from the mass
gathered at the back of the head, exceedingly
luxuriant in growth. She
turned her eyes on the new-comer,
and seemed about to rise. The unknown
raised his finger with a menacing
motion, when she sank back in
her seat, and covered her face with
her hands.

“You have the reputation of being
an honest and humane man,” said the
stranger.

“I hope so,” said the printer.

“You have, and I dare say it is deserved.”

The stranger paused a moment, and
the woman sighed. John Guttenberg

took a good look at both. The woman,
though dressed so commonly,
had a well-proportioned hand and
wrist; and a portion of her underclothing,
which protruded from the bosom
of her dress, was edged with what appeared
to be costly lace. As for the
stranger, he was tall, handsomely
dressed, though without cloak or surtout,
and wore around his neck a heavy
collar, or rather a half cape of fur.
His eyes were dark, but whether grey,
black, or hazel, could not well be seen,
for his hat was so slouched over his
face as to throw them in shadow. He
also wore a heavy beard and whiskers.

“Take this child,” he said; and as
he spoke he lifted a young babe from
the pile of clothes in which it had
been snugly stowed. The woman
made a motion as though to wrest it;
but the stranger said something in a
foreign tongue, when she shrank back.
“Take it home with you,” he continued.
“Here—this collar of fur will
protect it still further from the cold.
Here are fifty pounds. Do with the
brat as you like. Make a printer of
him—bring him up as you think
fit—give him what name you choose.
You shall hear from me again. Come,
it is time for you to go home.”

“But,” remonstrated the printer,
holding the babe at arm's length, “I
don't choose to—”

“Ah!” said the woman, rising, and
commencing to speak.

“Diyum!” cried the unknown, angrily.

The woman was cowed, either by
the strange word, which she apparently
understood, or by his manner,
for she resumed her seat, wringing
her hands, piteously.

The babe looked up in the printer's
face, and smiled—at least, that contortion
of the lips which passes for a
smile in new-born babes made its appearance.
John Guttenberg, whose
married life was childless, found himself
involuntarily pressing the little
innocent to his bosom.

“Come,” said the stranger, “it is
time to go.”

The woman darted forward, snatched
the child, and gave it a kiss—then
returned it with a sigh. As she did
so, she slipped into John Guttenberg's
hand a small paper packet.

“Come!” said the stranger again,
and he led the bewildered printer, who
seemed to have lost all power of resistance,
out of the room, down stairs
and along the streets—by what route
it seemed impossible to say—to the
door of the latter's house. There the
bearer of the child plucked up courage,
and was about to return the
charge thus thrust upon him, when he
discovered that the other had turned
the nearest corner and disappeared.

“Oh, well! never mind!” said the
printer to himself, as he opened the
door with his latch-key, “I'll send the
little fellow to the poor-house in the
morning.”

Mrs. Guttenberg had not retired to
rest. She knew that her husband had
dined with the Mayor, and expecting
him to return a little flushed with
wine, had prepared a series of
moral observations, specially adapted
to his case. To her great surprise his
face had a look far more sober and melancholy
than usual, and to her greater
surprise she saw him unroll from a
bundle of furs and clothing, a very
little child. The babe, which by this
time had grown hungry, began to wail.

“Bless me!” said the wife, “if the
man hasn't a baby! Who's is it?”

“That's precisely what I'd like to
know,” replied the husband.

“But how did you come by it?”

“That's precisely what I mean to
tell you, if it will only stop its whining.”

Mrs. Guttenberg took the babe in
her arms. It was dressed in a long
frock of cross-barred muslin; but
around one arm was a strip of yellow
lace, of an exceedingly rare and costly
kind; and the short sleeves of the
dress, with those of the silk and flannel
underclothes, were looped up and
joined together by two bracelets of
turquoises, chained with gold after a
quaint and peculiar fashion. Around
the babe's neck was suspended by a
coarse flaxen thread, a plain gold ring.
Inside of this were some peculiar characters.
The letters M and T were to
be made out distinctly; but the others
seemed to be mere hieroglyphics. The
inscription, which was deeply engraven,
was as follows:

XMXM TW

The fur in which the child was
wrapped was of the richest Russian
sable, and underneath it was a shawl
whose material was afterwards ascertained
to be true cashmere. The babe
raised its large grey eyes to the face
of the good woman, and, curling its
little lip, renewed its piteous wailing.

“I'm sure I don't know what to do
with it,” said the printer's wife. “It
wants feeding, poor thing, and I don't
believe there's a drop of milk in the
house. Jane gave the last to the cat
before she went to bed.”

“Well, my dear, Jane has a baby
herself, and—”

“Dear me! so she has. I never
thought of that. I'll wake her.”

And she did. Jane came. As she
was about to take the child, it again
indulged in that facial contortion which
young mothers call a smile.

“Why,” exclaimed Mrs. Guttenberg,
“it is the sweetest babe. There,
Jane, take care of him until morning.
He seems to be very hungry.”

Jane experimented before reporting.
“It feeds uncommon strong, mum,”
she said. “It's a rare, hearty babe,
mum.”

And presently off went Jane, with
the new comer in charge.

John Guttenberg told his wife all
that had occurred to him, including
the fact that the apparent mother had
slipped a packet in his hand; but when
he came to that part of the story, for
the first time he missed the paper. It
was neither in his hand nor on his person,
and, after an unavailing search,
he came to the conclusion that he had
dropped it on the way home.

“What will you do with it?” inquired
the wife.

“Do with it! Give it up to the parochial
authorities along with the money.
I think that is the proper
course.”

“Is it like the man?”

“I am not sure whether it is or not.
He hid his face so that I cannot say.
It's not like the mother, I'm sure. Its
eyes are grey, and hers are the blackest
I ever saw.”

“It's a pretty baby, John; a very
pretty baby.”

“That's what you women say about
all babies. It looks to me to have
about as much expression as a sheet
of brown paper. However, its good
or bad looks don't concern us. The

parish will have to take care of it.”

“John, we've been married four
years come next May-day, and we have
no children.”

“Well?”

“It's a boy, John.”

“Is it? What then?”

“Suppose we keep him.”

“No, indeed! I have no idea of
supporting other peoples' babies—at
least not to bring them up at my expense.”

“But it seems like the gift of Providence;
and then the fifty pound, and
the lace, and the jewels, and the fur,
and that beautiful soft shawl! It is
not a poor man's child, you may depend
on that, and I think it will bring
good luck.”

“Do you really want to keep it,
Martha?”

“Indeed I do, John.”

“I should be annoyed to death with
all kinds of ridiculous stories. People
would invent all kinds of strange stories,
and some of them might even
fancy—”

“Well, let them fancy. I wouldn't
believe that, nor any one that has eyes,
for it isn't a hair like you; that's easy
to be seen.”

“It won't do, Martha.”

“Well, just as you choose; but it's
very hard that you won't grant a little
favor like that, when I've taken a fancy
to the child.”

“Little favor! very little to be
sure—to be kept awake all night by
some other man's crying brat.”

“Do you hear it cry now?”

“No, but—”

“John, dear!”

“Oh, well!” exclaimed the printer,
inwardly delighted at his wife's perseverance
in a whim which accorded
with his own wish, “you can keep it,
if you will. But what will you name
the young fellow?”

“Oh, I'll find a name, never fear.”

The church clock struck three.

“There!” she exclaimed, “there is
a name now, and a very pretty one.
You can see it any day on the north
dial of the clock. We'll call him Ambrose
Fecit.”

“Ambrose fecit! Why, my dear,
do you know what that means?”

“Of course, I do. It means that
Mr. Fecit made that clock. And a very
good clock it is, and a very pretty
name too, and not very common either;
for I never met any of the Fecits in
the course of my life.”

“I dare say not,” replied the husband;
and he leaned against the bedpost—the
latter part of the conversation
occurring as they were disrobing
for rest—and laughed immoderately.

And thus it was I had my name,
and that was why I was bred a printer.

As for the unknown couple, no inquiries
could find them out, nor could
John Guttenberg, in his after rambles
through the town, ever recognize the
house from whence he had taken me.

The after history of my life, up to
the period when I met the Spaniard
and his daughter, would show nothing
remarkable. I was a healthy child
and went through the perils of teething
and the measles safely. John
Guttenberg and his wife fulfilled their
self-imposed task like good and conscientious
people. I was treated as
though I were their own child, being
duly lectured and birched when I was
naughty, and cuddled and candied
when I was not. When I was about
four years old, Mrs. Guttenberg presented

her husband, greatly to his
gratification and her delight, with a
daughter. Everybody — for people
knew me to be a foundling, though
they did not know the circumstances
of my finding—declared that “my
nose was put out of joint,” and that I
might now look out for neglect, if not
positive ill-treatment. Everybody
was mistaken. I was treated the
same as usual. As for myself, I was
too young to understand these predictions,
of which I knew nothing until
afterwards. But I was vastly delighted
with the new-comer, on whom I
used to gaze in the cradle with wrapt
admiration. It was the dawning of
an amiable weakness which followed
me through life—a love and esteem
for the opposite sex. As we grew up
together I loved the little Mary more
and more. I brought her home all my
trophies in the shape of marbles and
peg-tops; I expended my scanty pocket-money
in hard-bake and barley-sugar
for her particular benefit; and after
I had left school to be instructed
in the mysteries of my protector's
craft, I used to take surreptitious impressions
of wood-cuts in colored inks,
to ornament her play-house. I thought
my sister—for such I believed her to
be until good-natured strangers taught
me better—to be the prettiest child in
the world, my idea of beautiful eyes
being those of a mottled, light hazel
hue, and my type of symmetrical noses
the pug.

During the early part of my life,
and more especially in the first year
of my apprenticeship, I thought the
Puttenham Chronicle to be the leading
newspaper of the world; and I felt
more awful reverence for Mr. Hincks,
the editor, than I did for the Earl of
Landys, whose estate lay within a
mile of town, or even the ady Caroline
Bowlington, who came in her own
coach once a year to make the Dowager
Countess of Landys a visit, and
was the sole daughter of a Duke. For,
did not Mr. Hincks handle not only
Dukes and Marquesses without gloves,
but even boldly attacked her Majesty's
ministers—they being of the opposite
party to ours? Did he not sneer
at the French, who, to be sure, were
not much, as they all wore wooden
shoes, and lived on frogs, and spent
the principal part of their lives in
hair-dressing, and giving dancing-lessons
to one-another—a poor, lean set
of fellows, for any ten of whom a hardy
Briton was a match at any time?
And did he not give, at times, a good
setting-down to the Yankees, a nation
of savages who spoke a kind of wild
English, and scalped and ate their
prisoners—whose women chewed tobacco
and spoke through their noses;
a people who had behaved so badly
that his Majesty, George the Third,
after whipping them at Bunker Hill
and Yorktown, and New Orleans, and
I don't know how many more places,
finally cast them off, and sent them
about their own business, where they
have been miserably ever since? Then
there was my fellow-apprentice, Tom
Brown, who set up all the leaders, and,
in the absence of his master, even
made up the form. My opinion of him
was that he had great force of character,
combined with great knowledge
of the world, and had only to say the
word, after he was out of his time, to
be made a prime-minister, or a member
of parliament, er a beadle, or something
else equally important. And
the fishermen who came on market

days, with fish from the little port of
Puddleford, about five miles off, I regarded
as men who went down into
the sea in ships, bold navigators who
were ready to sail to the bottom of the
Maelstrom, if needed; though I did
find fault with them for not frequently
hitching up their trousers by the waist-band,
and imprecating their tarry top-lights,
as the gallant sailor, who appeared
in “Black-Eyed Seyeusan,”
when the players made their annual
visit, invariably did.

Having thus introduced myself to
the reader, let us go back to the Spaniard
and the little girl.