OUT WITH THE WAITS.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 13, Issue 1035, 30 March 1869, Page 4

OUT WITH THE WAITS.

(From the " Sydney Morning Herald.") "You've a comical taste, I must say, Guvnor, but, in course, if you likes to come, me ah' my mates won't have no hobjection. You'll find it precious cold, though. Ketch me turnin' out o' my bed if I could 'elp it. You'll find us at the H Arms. They squares the peelers there, and keeps open pretty well hall night. We starts about 1. Thankee, sir, I will have a drop o' somethink 'ot as you're so hpbligin'.— -Mary, my dear, four penn'orth of brandy, an' don't be stingy with the sugar, though you are sich a sweet girl yerself.— -Sir, I looks towards ye.*-— You'll jine us then at 1 ? Good night, sir. H- — — - Arms, remember." As I left the bar where I had been thus addressed, I chanced to turn my head, and saw the spokesman tapping his own forehead with an interrogative glance at Mary. He could not persuade himself that I was sane, because I had asked permission to accompany him and his brother Waits on their musical perambulations next morning. I. must confess thafc I thought he had grounds for his suspicion when, leaving the snug fire over which I had been taking in a stock of extra caloric, I opened my front door at ten minutes to one, and swallowed a mouthfulof raw mist, through which mar-row-freezing rain was dismally drizzling. However, I had selected the Waits for my next Sydney subject, and could nofc think of another as seasonable, so it was too late to turn back then. In a few minutes I found myself in a box at the H Arms, and was formally introduced by the bottlenos|d Cornopean, with whom I had previously foregathered, to his companions. "This 'ere 's the gent," was his formula. " His tastes is essentric, but his dispositions is good." Cornopean had evidently repeated his .order for "somethink 'ot" pretty frequently'since I parted from him, and Harp and Fiddle were also somewhat highly strung. Of course, however, they were quite prepared for " glasses round " once more, and then we sallied out into the street. Cornopean was a widower, and still wore a black band on his battered white hat. He had cocked it' so rakishly that it very soon tumbled into the mud. Th\B contretemps affected him to tears. As he wiped the mud off on the sleeves of his drab greatcoat, he called my attention to the band. "T wear it, sir," he said, "in memory of my dear departed, my sainted Sairey. Little did that hangel hever think that 'er hold man would come to be a Waits, an' 'aye 'is haged 'cad be hexposed to the buffets of the tempestuous helements. Ah, she were a hangel, when she were sober. She. were too good for me, was Sairey." But Harp, a bluff little man in a low crowned hat, a comforter, and a monkey jacket, was averse to sentiment. "Oh, come, stow Sairey, an' lets strike up," he growled. Fiddle, a thin, threadbare man in a greasy tattered Highland cloak, was of a different stamp from his comrades. They might have been street-folk all their lives, but he appeared to have known "better days," as the hackneyed and yet pathetic phrase runs. " I've a wife and children at home,, sir," he said, as if in apology for his employment—adding bitterly, " and all that Pm good for now is to play the fiddle." We turned out of the main thoroughfare into a side street of semi-detached villas. The stunted evergreens in the little front gardens Gripped, dripped, dripped upon the paths. The ■ palisades were greasy with fog. Hererand there a light shone dimly in a bedroom window. The street lamps blotched the misty air with blurred patches of bilious gas-gleam. " The Last Rose of Summer" was the air which the sentimental Cornopean selected to begin with, and as I listened to it in the sloppy road, I felt strongly inclined to commit suicide in the gutter. To add to the dolorous effect, a dog in. a back yard began to howl, and presently afterwards a Cochin China cock began to crow. Cornopean was capricious in his selections ; he thus arranged his programme: "The Last Rose" — "Slap Bang"— "Swallows homeward flic" — "Rule Britannia" — "The Power of Love"— " Luther's Hymn"— and " Nelly Bligh." " Tbe public likes wariety," he said ; "an' there's evangelicals 'ereabouts, so we must tip 'em a psalm tune or two." Over and over again these tunes were puffed, and scraped, and twanged. Notwithstanding their, mittens, the players' fingers soon grew numb ;in spite, or because of their previous potations, they speedily grew sleepy ; and the most curious "slurs" and graceless " g_-ace-notes" were the consequence. I soon- lapsed into a state of semi-idiocy under the infliction. £ quite forgot that I was not forced to tramp aboufc under the peevishly weeping sky, like a homeless dog ; that it was of my own free will that I was listening to that horrid medley. My latch-key nestled in my pocket, and yet I trudged on as if I had only got the key of the .street. A nightmare spell was upon me. Quarters, half-hours, three-quarters chimed ; hours boomed out solemnly from the dark, church-towers : on I splashed, and' shivering I stood, weary to death of the present tune, and hating still more its paulo-post-'future successor. I would fain have given Nelly Bligh a quietus with her broom-handle, I loathed Luther like a Ritualist, I grew utterly sceptical as to the power of love, I devoutly wished that all Britons might be slaves, I cursed the swallows for their power of flying homewards, I wished that I could knock Uncle Ned with his shovel and his hoe on the place where the wool ought to grow, I felt my vital spark going out like the wick of a rushlight burnt down to the water, I muttered with savage irony " What jolly dogs are we!" the Last Rose seemed as if it would never stab me with it its last thorn ; and yet, because I had engaged to go out with the Waits, I felt myself bound to keep out with them until they had finished their most melancholy, least musical, performance. Cornopean, I fear, was right in his estimate of my sanity. The musicians speedily ignored my presence as completely as if they had been somnambulists. They seemed, indeed, scarcely to be conscious of their own identity. Cornopean had a bottle in his pocket, and as long as anything was left in it, the artistes put their heads together after a piece ; but, when the gin was exhausted, each went into himself like a shailf into its shell. It was curious to watch' them tramping along together, stopping altogether, beginning to play and ending; their piny together.*--- and yet never exc^ap^ngna'word— ; -as if -they, were mechanical agents moved by the strings of ". pre-e r _fc|k'bfißhed*. harmony" — though thafc is scarcely, tbefigure to use in reference to \mQ^4^Up6rx^B ;Of vile discord. The

angels who sang "Peace on earth, good will toward men," were the Waits. Their successors play " Slap Bang" — and even that atrocious trash they play out of tune, if it ever bad any. A great many of our Christmas customs, however, are very queer. To celebrate the birthday of the Preacher and Practiser of Self-denial, " Christians" take a good deal more port aud punch, porter and gin, than is good for them, make themselves spoony in dining-rooms, and howling madmen in police-stations, and overeat as well as overdrink themselves according to their circumstances. Mincepie and the manger at Bethlem — antibilious pills and the Advent : how have they come to be associated ? In most heterodox style, however, was the season being celebrated by one group as we passed. Outside a black huddle of buildings, dotted here and there with dim light — a workhouse — a little crowd of ragged wanderers were clustered. They had not been able to procure admission to that dreary refuge. Some choked up the arched doorway, whose comparative shelter from the wind and rain made it a greedily coveted resting-place: old and young, male and female, heads and heels, there they were tumbled together in a fetid heap of tatters. Half-a-dozen women sat along the kerbstone, with their scanty gown-shirts over their heads — as melancholy as a row of rain bedragged fowls. Up and down in short turns on the pavement marched male tramps, in vain effort to get warm ; one or two of the poor wretches had nothing but their miserable outer garments to cover them, and even by foggy gaslight their dirty flesh showed through these in long broad gashes. " What, is that only Three ?" growled one of the peripatetics, stopping in this caged-beast-like walk to listen to a church clock that was striking. " I feel as if I'd been here a week." " Ain't it gallows cold?" said his mate. "The parsons try to skear us about h — l, but I think I should like to slip iv there for a bit, just to git a warm. Anyhow, it must be more comfortabler than this." " Give the bell another pull, and wake the old bloke up," shouted the first man. " What right has he to be sleeping, and keeping his betters out in the rain ? What's rates paid for? Strike up, old fellers,— what's that lazy long cove doin' ? Send him round with the sarcer." The Waits gave the miserable creatures a tune, and two or three of them tried to dance to it. A ghastlier piece of merriment I never witnessed than those most magnified scarecrow spectres stumbling about on the slippery pavement beneath the never ceasing drizzle. A few streets farther on a little child w ( as sleeping in a doorway. The little thing, I suppose, had lost herself, and lying down there had sobbed herself to sleep. At any rate when the music woke her, she called out, " Oh, mammy, there's the Waits," and then, finding herself all alone on the cold hard stone, instead of in her little cot or in her mother's bed, she began to cry again as if her heart would break. It was some time before I could prevail upon the little damsel to go with me in search of a policeman, but afc last I got her poor cold hand into mine, and started in quest of a constable. I found one sooner than I expected. Two, indeed, were standing by a hansom, flashing their lamps into the faces of its driver and its two fares, and listening to their conflicting stories, .with the stolidlyjudicial, suspect-all-round look which professional experience, -unflattering' to human nature, has carved upon the policeman's face. " Well, all I know," said the cabman, "is that my fare 's 4s 6d, and I'll trouble one on ye to pay it. They was both a bit sprung, sergeant," he went on, " when I took them up, but they was as lovin' as doves. I looked through the trap an' see 'em a kissin'. Where did I take them up ? Oh, somewhere out West End way— there ain't no dispute about the fare. Well, all of a sudden, I heard the gent, ashoutin' 'you've robbed me — give 'em back — I will have 'em,' an' the young lady flung back the apron, an' jumped out screechin' 'he give 'em to me, the mean blackguard, an' now he wants to murder me,' an' the gent, jumped out arter her an' collared her, an' so she went afc him like a wild cat with her ten commandments, an' I pulled up, because I wanted my money, you see, an if you hadn't a-come up, I should a-had to have parted 'em, for he's no match for the gal. An' now, I'll be off, if you'll make one on 'em pay me my fare." But the "gentleman" swore that the "lady" had robbed him of both purse and watch, and the " lady " hysterically screamed that he was a sanguinary utterer of the thing that was not, and made mad rushes at him, in spite of the sergeant's restraining arms. " Come, my dear, you be quiet, or we shall have to put the bracelets on you, an' we don't want to hurt a pretty girl like you," remarked the officer with paternal gallantry. " You get into the cab, an' we'll all go comfortably to the station, an' see the inspector." But at this the young lady wrenched herself from the sergeant's grasp, and, utterly regardless of her velvet bonnet and red-and-black check shawl, flung herself at full length on the muddy pavement, and kicked and clawed and screamed as if she was in a fit. Her hands were secured at last, and she was bundled into the hansom with the private constable for j her inside guard ; the sergeant and her accuser escorted the cab to the station- j house — the former kindly carrying the little girl I had given into his charge. " I'm a father myself, sir," was his remark, as he unbuttoned his greatcoat to give the little thing a warm place for her hands, and drew his oilskin cape over her head and shoulders. "I lost a little gal about the age ofthis five weeks ago — scarlatina — -a horrid thing that, sir—it's been cutting the little dears down like daisies. She'll be all right, sir. We've half a dozen kids and more at our place every night. Don't cry, my pretty, you'll be back to mammy by breakfast." When, guided by the sound of their music, I rejoined my companions, their music suddenly ceased. A window had been thrown up, a rouleau of coppers, wrapped in the paper swathing of a medicine bottle, splashed in the mud, and a sad young voice entreated us to move on, because her mother was so very, very ill. " Thankee, Miss, we should be very sorry to disturb your Mar," was Cornopean's Sympathetic acknowledgement of the douceur. " You'll remember us all the same on Boxing Day ?" he added, relapsing into business. "Well, if the lady is ill," snarled cynical bachelor Harp, "there's others as isn't, an' if we don't play, praps they on't pay." " You come along — you ought to be ashamed of yourself," said

family-man Fiddle— firing up into unwonted energy. The house of feasting was very near the house of mourning. A first floor's window. >n the next street blazed out into the black i.iffht. Our music there was danced to and sung to. Coppers were shied at us, and idiotic-looking young men, in ruffled evening costume, came out into tbe rain and mud, in dress boots and without their hats, to bring us glasses of wine. As a "lark," however, I found my out with the Waits a decided failure. I never felt more loyal in my life than when they played the National Anthem as a finale in the Caledonian Road. We adjourned to an early breakfast-stall, near the Cattle Market. As we stood in the ankle-deep mud of that vicinity, sipping our scalding coffee and munching our thick bread and butter, a foot-passenger, bound to one of the early trains, came up to follow our example. He was grumbling at the unpleasantness of having to get up so early in such detestable weather. "Why, this gent's been out with us all night," said Cornopean. "More fool he," was the footpassenger's repartee. There was no flattery in the remark, but I could not resent it, because I was painfully conscious that it embodied patent fact.