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Trotty at Home
Richard Doyle
1844
Wood-block engraving by W. J. Linton
12.5 cm by 7.2 cm (4 ⅞ by 2 ⅞ inches), framed.
Full-page illustration for Dickens's The Chimes: "The Second Quarter," 49.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
"The Second Quarter." The letter Toby had received from Alderman Cute, was addressed to a great man in the great district of the town. ["The Second Quarter," pp. 49-50]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
With which words Trotty, in a breathless state, set the child down before his daughter in the middle of the floor. The little visitor looked once at Meg; and doubting nothing in that face, but trusting everything she saw there; ran into her arms.
"Here we are and here we go!" cried Trotty, running round the room, and choking audibly. "Here, Uncle Will, here’s a fire you know! Why don’t you come to the fire? Oh here we are and here we go! Meg, my precious darling, where’s the kettle? Here it is and here it goes, and it’ll bile in no time!"
Trotty really had picked up the kettle somewhere or other in the course of his wild career and now put it on the fire: while Meg, seating the child in a warm corner, knelt down on the ground before her, and pulled off her shoes, and dried her wet feet on a cloth. Ay, and she laughed at Trotty too — so pleasantly, so cheerfully, that Trotty could have blessed her where she kneeled; for he had seen that, when they entered, she was sitting by the fire in tears. ["The Second Quarter," pp. 77-78]
Although the illustration itself is embedded in the opening page of "The Second Quarter," we do not encounter the material encountered for some twenty-eight pages. The illustrator prepares us for the scene around Trotty's domestic hearth, but we shall not meet agricultural rebel Will Fern and his niece Lilian until after Trotty has delivered Cute's note to Sir Joseph Bowley on page 54. Returning home, Trotty literally bumps into the Dorsetshire labourer on page 70. Thus, we "read" the illustration without the necessary context, and can only guess that the poor man in the "common frock" and the girl are in need of accommodation on New Year's Eve, and that Trotty has invited them to stay in his home. Like Thomas Hood's "The Song of the Shirt" (1843), the humble scene with no food on the table exemplifies the hardships of the urban and rural poor in the Hungry Forties. Juxtaposed against the scant supper of the proletariat are the joyful cavortings of the Goblins and angelic spirits who will shortly enlighten Trotty in a dream vision.
By sheer Dickensian coincidence, Trotty has already heard the name "Will Fern" in Cute's letter to Bowley, who has sworn to have the unemployed labourer incarcerated as a "Vagabond" (64): "At the close of the year, I wind up my account and strike my balance, even with Will Fern!" (65) swears the great Tory landowner.
Left: Charles Green's street scene is a far more realistic version of Trotty's assisting Will Fern and his niece: "Here! I'll take her!" cried Trotty, lifting up the Child (1912). Centre: Sol Eytinge, Junior's Diamond Edition dual portrait of the Vecks outside the old church: Trotty Veck and Meg, the prelude to Filer's examination of Trotty's meal. (1867) Right: Green follows up Trotty's offer with a hearthside scene in which Meg tends the exhausted child: Meg and Lilian. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Dickens, Charles. The Chimes. Introduction by Clement Shorter. Illustrated by Charles Green. The Pears' Centenary Edition. London: A & F Pears, [?1912].
_____. The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells That Rang An Old Year Out and a New Year In. Illustrated by John Leech, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield, and Daniel Maclise. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1844 [Printed title-page dated "1845."].
_____. Christmas Books. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. 22 vols. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1878. Vol. XVIII.
_____. The Chimes. The Christmas Books. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Company, 1910, VIII, 79-157.
_____. Christmas Stories. Illustrated by E. A. Abbey. The Household Edition. 16 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1876. Vol. V.
Patten, Robert L. Chapter 7, "Ringing Out Change." Dickens, Death, and Christmas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023. 127-168.
Created 20 February 2001 Last modified 18 May 2024