Volume X (1854/5)

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THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS.BEING THE EXTRA CHRISTMAS NUMBER OF HOUSEHOLD WORDS. 
CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. 
CONTAINING THE AMOUNT OF ONE REGULAR NUMBER AND A HALF.
CHRISTMAS, 1854.
Price 3d.
INDEX TO THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS.
The First 
The Second 
The Third 
The Fourth 
The Fifth 
The Sixth 
The Seventh 
The Road
THE FIRST.
STRICTLY speaking, there were only six Poor 
Travellers; but, being a Traveller myself, 
though an idle one, and being withal as poor 
as I hope to be, I brought the number up to 
seven. This word of explanation is due at 
once, for what says the inscription over the 
quaint old door?
RICHARD WATTS, Esq. 
by his Will, dated 22 Aug. 1579, 
founded this Charity 
for Six poor Travellers, 
who not being ROGUES,or PROCTORS, 
May receive gratis for one Night, 
Lodging, Entertainment, 
and Four-pence each.
It was in the ancient little city of Rochester 
in Kent, of all the good days in the year 
upon a Christmas Eve, that I stood reading 
this inscription over the quaint old door 
in question. I had been wandering about 
the neighbouring Cathedral, and had seen 
the tomb of Richard Watts, with the effigy of 
worthy Master Richard starting out of it like 
a ship's figure-head; and I had felt that I 
could do no less, as I gave the Verger his 
fee, than inquire the way to Watts's Charity. 
The way being very short and very plain, I 
had come prosperously to the inscription and 
the quaint old door.
"Now," said I to myself, as I looked at the 
knocker, "I know I am not a Proctor; I 
wonder whether I am a Rogue!"
Upon the whole, though Conscience repro- 
duced two or three pretty faces which might 
have had smaller attraction for a moral Goliath 
than they had had for me, who am but a 
Tom Thumb in that way, I came to the con- 
clusion that I was not a Rogue. So, beginning 
to regard the establishment as in some sort 
my property, bequeathed to me and divers 
co-legatees, share and share alike, by the 
Worshipful Master Richard Watts, I stepped 
backward into the road to survey my inheritance.
I found it to be a clean white house, of a 
staid and venerable air, with the quaint old 
door already three times mentioned (an 
arched door), choice little long low lattice- 
windows, and a roof of three gables. The 
silent High Street of Rochester is full of 
gables, with old beams and timbers carved 
into strange faces. It is oddly garnished with 
a queer old clock that projects over the pave- 
ment out of a grave red brick building, as if 
Time carried on business there, and hung out 
his sign. Sooth to say, he did an active stroke 
of work in Rochester, in the old days of the 
Romans, and the Saxons, and the Normans, 
and down to the times of King John, when 
the rugged castle—I will not undertake to 
say how many hundreds of years old then— 
was abandoned to the centuries of weather 
which have so defaced the dark apertures in 
its walls, that the ruin looks as if the rooks 
and daws had picked its eyes out.
I was very well pleased, both with my 
property and its situation. While I was yet 
surveying it with growing content, I espied 
at one of the upper lattices which stood open, 
a decent body, of a wholesome matronly 
appearance, whose eyes I caught inquiringly 
addressed to mine. They said so plainly, 
"Do you wish to see the house?" that I 
answered aloud, "Yes, if you please." And 
within a minute the old door opened, and I 
bent my head, and went down two steps into 
the entry.
"This," said the matronly presence, ushering 
me into a low room on the right, "is 
where the Travellers sit by the fire, and cook 
What bits of suppers they buy with their 
fourpences."
"Oh! Then they have no Entertainment?" 
said I. For, the inscription over the outer 
door was still running in my head, and I

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DJO Christmas Selection / 'Household Notes' A Musical Miscellany.