The Rebels

V

V

E

very Saturday

morning my father observed a routine peculiar to himself and fascinating to me. At nine-thirty on the dot he would call out,

“Children! Children! Tobacco-mixing time!”

and we would stop whatever it was we were doing, to run to him as he stood pale-faced and handsome, with his bushy eyebrows and his square-trimmed beard that somehow reminds me to this day of a schooner sailing the China Seas . . .

Indeed, he was a square man altogether; only of medium height but very wide in the shoulder, his square-cut alpaca jacket of a light fawn colour made him look even squarer. I see his image in my mind now—the black yachting-cap with its shiny patent-leather peak and the two brass buttons, one on either side of the cord, his stiff white collar and broad black tie; and below the fawn jacket, his narrow sharply-pressed blue-serge trousers. His dress seldom seemed to vary. At least that is the picture of him which is most firmly printed in my mind.

“Children! Children! Tobacco-mixing time!”

Then, holding hands, with little Enoch on one side, me on the other and Elijah kicking stones somewhere behind us, we would set off, the party taking its time from me because of my ankle, to the only shop I seem to have known during this period of my childhood.

It seemed a spacious place then, though doubtless as is the way of things it would turn out to be only a small establishment if I were ever to see it again. Its two black-painted, bottle-glass, bow-framed windows jutted out into the tiny cobblestoned and grassgrown cul-de-sac, overshadowed by dusty plane trees. It was a small backwater of peace and delight where a young mind might grow and flower undisturbed.

These windows were filled with an assortment of pipes—briars, cherrywoods, clays, and even aristocratic meerschaums, arranged decoratively on layers of black velvet or plush; and, but dimly discerned through the thick and uneven glass of the panes, row upon row of painted tin or porcelain jars, some of them covered with pictures of a blue and white willow-pattern type, all of them carrying little yellow-varnished labels to show the brand or style of tobacco which they contained.

When we arrived at the safety of this little court, father would let go our hands and we would rush excitedly up the three worn steps into the shop where old Mr. Ackroyd would be waiting, smiling and rubbing his yellow hands in welcome. He seemed old, incredibly old, even then, with his tasselled black skull-cap, white side-whiskers and his round-shouldered stoop that bowed him half-way over his broad and polished redwood counter.

“Well, William, well!” he would say. “I see the brood still flourishes! And, if I might make so bold, how is Mistress Fisher’s back this week? Is the sciatica a wee pinch better, would you say?”

Then father would nod or smile and shake his head as though there are some ills of this world from which one must never hope for a release and would settle himself on one of the two high walnut chairs that stood before the counter, while we children would stand, our damp noses hardly able to reach the brass binding of that splendid counter, or we would sit outside on the steps until the men had finished their grown-up conversation on the various sicknesses that the flesh is heir to, but which made dreary listening to lively young things.

But once, Elijah, feeling his age—I think he must have been ten at the time—made to seat himself on the other high chair instead of coming to the step like us. But father waved him away from it, as one might a naughty puppy, with a stern gesture. “That’s for customers, my boy,” he said, “not for little lads. The step’s your rightful place!”

So, from the open doorway, we would watch the delicate hands of old Mr. Ackroyd as he selected, frayed, rubbed and mixed the varied-coloured tropical leaf (“A shade more latakia this week, do you think, William?”) on to a square of cream silk that he had laid carefully on the counter, so as not to waste a crumb. Then gently like a wise old woman with her delicate baby he would tip the precious mixture into one pan of the shining brass scales, and cluck if he had mixed too little or too much, and beam with self-congratulation if he had put together just the right amount.

Invariably he would leave the sensitive balance swinging while he adjusted his short step-ladder against the decorated drawers that lined the back of the shop, and climbed up and down it laboriously three or four times, to replace on an upper shelf the special and rotund China jars from which my father’s selection had been made.

Only then did he wrap up that sweet-smelling mixture; and only then did father take out his dark green sharkskin purse, with his initials set on it in silver, to hand a new half-sovereign over the counter with grave ceremony.

When this was done, our part in the play began, for the passing of the shining coin was our weekly cue. Then we would troop into the heavily odorous room like crafty cherubs, expectant in the highest degree, but nevertheless simulating a nonchalance far beyond our years. Mr. Ackroyd would then look at us with a surprise which reproduced itself impeccably each Saturday, as though he had never even clapped eyes on us before.

“Ah, William,” he would say. “Look at all these children who have just come in? There must be a Circus somewhere, that I declare! Who are they, William? Why, gracious me, they are your children! Yes, as large as life! Why, you’ve brought your children, William, to be sure! ’Lijah, Susan, and young what’s-is-name . . . Er, what’s your name again, me lad?” And he would cluck and smile and rub his wizened old hands while young Enoch, in a purgatory of childish embarrassment, mumbled out his name, his flaxen head almost on his chest.

But the old man would never let him get away with his Christian name alone.

“Don’t you mean Master Enoch William John Fisher, my boy?” he’d say. “Yes, ah yes, that’s exactly what you mean to say, isn’t it now? Well, and now I look at you a bit closer I think I do know you after all! Yes, I think I do—Master Enoch William John Fisher, that’s who it is . . . and would you credit it, I have something for you here, yes, that I have . . .”

And then he would fumble below the counter at a little secret drawer—at least, that is how it seemed to us then, a secret drawer, no ordinary one—and at length, with much shaking of the head and clicking of the tongue, he would place carefully on the counter three identically-wrapped packages. First Elijah’s, then mine, then Enoch’s, in our order of age. But once he pretended that there were only two. The instantaneous, flowing anguish of our little brother dissuaded him for evermore from this experiment with juvenile emotions!

“I do declare,” he said, “another minute and he’d have roared my walls down! Aye, that he would!”

Then when we had said our thankyous and had carried away our prizes to the step, he would say, “And what is it this week, then? They didn’t tell me, when they brought them! Very secretive, they are. Funny folk, altogether! Is it treacle toffee like last week, or striped humbugs, or just plain Spanish?”

So we would run in again and show him, excitedly, and the old man would pretend to as much amazement at the current delicacy as we genuinely showed, especially if the treat happened to be one of which we were in favour that particular week.

Poor old Ackroyd! He must have died many years ago now, forgotten very soon, for he had no relatives and very few customers, I should say, for the new cigarette fashion was steadily killing his trade which was founded on the more solid and masculine pipe, and he refused obstinately to have any truck with these new-fangled women’s things, as he called them many times in our hearing.

I have often wondered about those sweet-packets; did he in reality make us a weekly present out of his small earnings? Or had father a private financial arrangement with him? Did the sweets too come from that regular golden coin?

However the sweets came, whatever they cost, they were worth it. When other more important memories have faded and great occasions died, I shall still recall those heavenly delights of sugar in its several forms, wrapped in their cones of stiff brown paper; and in whatever place of anguish I may come to find myself, that little grassgrown court will remain a haven in my heart.

Surely, adults scarcely know the full power of what they do on such trivial homely occasions! For us small ones of the family the Queen at Windsor was in truth a great person; but Old Ackroyd with his tasselled cap and his scales was an even greater!