Summary
A soot-flecked London night, 1844: Trotty Veck, the wizened bell-steeple runner, ferries messages through a city whose fog tastes of iron and guilt. Alderman Cute, that corpulent apostle of Malthusian cruelty, hisses that poverty voids the sacrament of love; Trotty, spine buckling beneath bourgeois scripture, rescinds his blessing for daughter Meg’s marriage to the laborer Richard. Later, frost crusting his beard, he ushers fugitive Will Fern and the moon-eyed infant Lil into his garret where candle-grease drips like slow tears. The stroke of twelve; the church’s bronze mouths yawn; Trotty dozes. In the belfry’s cobalt gloom the chimes become colossal cherubim, clanging futures into his skull: Meg, threadbare Madonna, suckles the orphaned Lil; Fern rots in Newgate for railing against silk-hatted tyrants; Richard drowns conscience in gin; Sir Joseph Bowley, philanthropist with talons, adopts Lil only to flay her spirit until she escapes, pregnant, to die on Meg’s bosom. Meg, clutching two innocents, strides toward the Thames’ black mirror. The dream snaps; Trotty rears from the ashes, reborn, crashes Bowley’s drawing-room, brandishes the bell-rope like a pugilist’s belt, and extorts from the trembling baron a charter of nuptial emancipation for every ragged soul who ever trembled beneath church bells.
Synopsis
Trotty Veck, the licensed messenger, reconsiders his promise to allow the marriage of his daughter Meg to Richard, after being advised by Alderman Cute that it is a sin for the poor to wed. After his day's labors, he meets William Fern with his infant daughter Lillian seeking shelter from the authorities, who have threatened to hang him. The kind-hearted little man takes them to his humble home for the night. Far after midnight, Trotty, seated by the fireside and soothed by the chimes, falls asleep and dreams. His dream first takes him to the belfry of the old church, where the spirit of the chimes chides him for having done something he should not, and endeavors to show that the consequences might be, by picturing the future. In this vision, Trotty sees his daughter Meg living in poverty and acting as mother to Fern's daughter Lil, now grown to girlhood, Fern, in prison for his demonstration against the rich, and Richard, a drunkard from disappointment. Sir Joseph Bowley visits the little home and offers to adopt Lil, but instead mistreats her so that she is compelled to escape, but finally, upon promise from Sir Joseph to free her father, gives herself up to him, only to be ejected in time from his fine home with an unfortunate infant. She goes back to Meg and dies from the effect of her ill-treatment, leaving the infant to Meg, who in turn is compelled to leave her home due to her poverty. Going to the bridge, Meg attempts to end all for herself and infant. At this point Trotty's dreams come to an end. He now realizes that the poor as well as the rich have a right to marry, and hastens to correct his error. This done, he goes to check Fern, leading one of his meetings. Knowing the influence little Lil has on her father takes her and induces Fern to give up his plans. Trotty and Richard are taken prisoners by Sir Joseph's servants and brought before this despot, who instead of compelling Trotty to submit to his terms, is himself forced to sign a document giving the poor their rights.
